In today’s New York Times there was an opinion piece by David Brooks which contained some oddly unnerving language. He talked about cultural and political tensions in the U.S. between the “educated class” and the “tea party movement”. Essentially he posited that everything supported by the “educated class” is opposed by the “tea party movement”, and that the latter is becoming a growing force in the country.
The article is certainly thought-provoking, but it begs certain questions. Yes, it’s understandable that in hard times people can easily be inflamed to inchoate rage against just about anything. That is simply human nature. But when you try to politicize the difference between, on the one hand, people who are educated (including, for example, David Brooks) and, on the other hand, people who angrily make such self-contradictory declarations as “Government’s should stay out of Medicare” (which translates, essentially, to “Government should stay out of Government”), then what are we talking about? We might as well take Stephen Colbert’s lead and set up a Ministry of Truthiness.
This isn’t a question of Left versus Right, or liberal versus conservative. If some of our citizens are running around furiously bumping into walls out of ignorance, then why don’t we just talk about improving education? A phrase like “the educated class” sets up a weird sort of relativism, in which there is potentially something bad about being educated. But the person who is not educated never has a chance to contribute in any meaningful way. That citizen can never become a scientist, or a doctor, or a leader in business, or an effective writer, or craft any legislation that could make this a better country, or become a judge or lawyer or educator.
The phrase “educated class” should not be some definition of a perceived elite. Rather, the educated class should all of us, in any reasonable vision for our nation’s future. Isn’t this an obvious truth? Or am I missing something?
Chalk it up to lazy writing? It’s not like the tea party folk attended Wossamotta U. I’m sure more than a few of the Ron Paul folk are involved, even after he denounced the movement.
It sounds like Brooks was using it as a synonym for “most people who live on the coasts and in big cities”. It is the opinion of those people writ large that the tea partiers rally against, and I have no doubt that *they* would define those people as being part of an “educated class”, of being “intellectuals”.
Remember “Burn the Books?”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33333_At_Glenn_Beck_Tea_Party-_Burn_the_Books!
So Brooks didn’t invent this dichotomy. But he was foolish to advance it.
-eli