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Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? It is undeniable that by any objective measure professors are smarter (in the sense of be

Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? It is undeniable that by any objective measure professors are smarter (in the sense of being better able to tackle intellectual problems) than the average population. Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? I urge you to actually have a conversation with such a person.

nitrogen 10y ago
There are a few well-read would-be intellectuals stuck working at a fast food joint simply due to not knowing how to do otherwise.
- throw_away_777 10y ago
  The existence of some very smart KFC workers doesn't mean that on average McDonald's workers are as intelligent as professors.
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    Well, you seem to subscribe to the mindset that says - as long as you're very intelligent and highly educated, you're probably right on any arbitrary topic, and your opinions trump those of less intelligent and/or less educated people regardless of the relative degrees of experience involved on that topic. Particularly if combined with a narrow range of life experiences, or a young age, or both, it's a difficult view to change. I've worked at some of the biggest names in the tech industry. I've also literally beaten iron with a hammer in a dirty factory. I've lived in some of the most advanced democracies in the world. I've also lived under true-blue communist dictatorship. I've seen the life of some pretty fancy, posh suburbs in the Silicon Valley. I've also seen the life of the traditional Eastern Bloc peasant. I know it's hard to believe, but with a broad experience comes the understanding that intelligence and scholarly education alone don't automatically provide all answers, nor do they grant you the Always Right card. No matter how smart or polished you are, if you don't walk into the humble folks' shoes for a while, your understanding of what their lives truly are will be necessarily incomplete and warped. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. A neural network that wasn't provided with the necessary training set will not "see" the right answers no matter what. All I want to do is plant the seed of "what if". Perhaps it will grow into a broader understanding, later. But that can only come with experience.
    - throw_away_777 10y ago
      For an argument that is espousing the benefits of empathy, your condescending tone is very off-putting. You also use a straw-man argument - there is a difference between trusting professors more than lay people and believing that scholarly education grants you "the Always Right card". I also don't believe that "as long as you're very intelligent and highly educated, you're probably right on any arbitrary topic, and your opinions trump those of less intelligent and/or less educated people regardless of the relative degrees of experience involved on that topic". That is an obvious straw man. At the same time, I don't think working at Wendy's somehow constitutes the necessary experience to understand humanity that working as a professor doesn't provide. Would a Wendy's employee be better able to cook a hamburger? Yes, but if I want economic advice on how to improve the lives of poor people I'm still going to trust an economist who studies the issues over a Wendy's employee. Would working a year as a Wendy's employee really help the economist better understand the economy? The fundamental point of the article - that scientists don't understand society because they are somehow different and privileged - is wrong at best and dangerously anti-intellectual at worst.
pdabbadabba 10y ago
Well, that would depend on what you mean by "the world." Professors have first hand knowledge of a very particular set of social practices and institutions. These tend to be very important practices and institutions, but they are only directly experienced by a small group of people. Someone working at Burger King will typically have participated in a quite different set of practices and institutions. And there are a lot more of these people. Therefore the Burger King employee's experience with these practices and institutions yields first hand experience that is directly applicable to the lives of many more other people than the professor's. I do think it is a mistake to leap from this conclusion to the much broader one that Burger King employees understand "the world" better. Not only does that claim not mean much of anything, it also discounts the fact that the institutions and practices to which a professor is exposed may be more powerful, despite having fewer participants. But I think GP's similar and more specific claim, that "highly educated people are out of touch with the realities of life of average folks," is very plausible.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  But if what the professor is theorizing about is, say, labor conditions for the less-educated and less-well-off worker, then the Burger King worker knows in a way that the professor doesn't, no matter how many statistics the professor looks at.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    "Something something anecdote something plural something data," someone invariably said, having not yet realized that most people live anecdotal lives in an anecdotal world.
throwanem 10y ago
In my experience, there's no reason to assume that a professor has a better understanding of the world than someone working at Burger King, either. You can be smart and lettered and still ignorant. The trouble is, being smart and lettered means you're a lot less likely to notice. In general, I think a lot of people in this thread are confusing the stereotype threat they experience around the "unworldly intellectual" idea, and what Lind, who is himself an intellectual of no small repute, is actually saying. It seems like there might be more light and less heat in the discussion if everyone were to take a moment and reflect on the difference. But I'm sorry to say I don't have much confidence that will happen.
Florin_Andrei 10y ago
> Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? They definitely have a better understanding of that slice of the world that they experience while the professor doesn't. The whole point of the article is aptly summed up by the "let them eat cake" anecdote, by the way.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  And the professor has a better understanding of that slice of the world the professor lives in. This is a facile argument, because the implication is that the outlook - which includes the interests - of ordinary people is morally more significant than the outlook of a minority of clever people. It's effectively saying that intellectuals are worthless because sometimes they're wrong and/or out of touch. In reality, if you round up all the intellectuals and kill them - something last tried by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - you don't generally get an improvement in the quality of life of ordinary people. Is that extreme? Then how about simply ignoring all experts and professionals? Many experts and professionals are clever, and some surely count as intellectual. Will ignoring them make life better for everyone else? The author seems to be implying so. Personally, I'm not convinced - precisely because this kind of anti-intellectualism is a reliable cheap shot used by demagogues and authoritarians to direct attention away from other groups that are more likely to be causing deep problems.
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    > It's effectively saying that intellectuals are worthless because sometimes they're wrong and/or out of touch. Oh, hell no. I've seen that side of the story, too, and it's completely wrong. We agree on that. > In reality, if you round up all the intellectuals and kill them - something last tried by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - you don't generally get an improvement in the quality of life of ordinary people. I lived under communist dictatorship for 20 years, and I have first hand experience with the results of those policies. Had to work my way through those mentalities, at times. To say you're not telling me anything new would be an understatement. I've also participated to the 1989 anti-communist revolutions, and I've seen anti-intellectualism rearing its ugly head again - thankfully without dire consequences. So the extremes are bad, as they always are. But I don't think the article implies that intellectuals are worthless. The way I read it, perhaps biased by my own life track, is that intelligence and scholarly education are greatly enhanced by a broad range of experience. No matter how smart or polished you are, you'll judge the simple folk in a different way if you walk in their shoes for a while.
pawn 10y ago
One example I can think of off the top of my head would be automotive repair. If I can afford to let someone else do it, I will. That's not to say I don't think I could learn it if I needed to, but I don't ever need to. So, I'm happy to let someone "less educated" who knows more about engines do it. There are teenagers who know twice as much about how to fix a car issue. They don't know what the inside of a computer looks like, but they don't need to. Now, take that example and extrapolate it to several other facets of life, and you can say there's a big gap in an educated person's world and that of his less-educated neighbor. Yeah, I know math and physics and how write computer code, but who cares?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > There are teenagers who know twice as much about how to fix a car issue. They don't know what the inside of a computer looks like, but they don't need to. Now, take that example and extrapolate it to several other facets of life, and you can say there's a big gap in an educated person's world and that of his less-educated neighbor. Which is kind of irrelevant to the subject here, which is really about academics focused on areas of social and policy significance having gaps in that specific subject area that would be filled in if they were just forced to spend a year working in a random working-class non-academic job. It is specifically not about gaps outside of the targeted academics' areas of work, which is what you seem to be focusing on. Its more like saying that being forced to spend a year working construction instead of programming would fill in critical gaps in your understanding of computer programming.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >which is really about academics focused on areas of social and policy significance having gaps in that specific subject area In not just car mechanics. If you're focused on areas of "social and policy significance" it's even worse to be out of touch with social reality and the effects of policies. And in fact much much worse (and much much more common) than an engineering professor who can't fix a car.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? Because the professor works at a university, having first attended the university and then graduate school, whereas the person working at Burger King most likely never graduated college, and works at Burger King rather than as a professor at a university. Those seem to me to be rather different "ranges of first-hand experience". I don't see how they could be considered anything but different.
- roel_v 10y ago
  The range might still be the same. Heck, the professor might still have worked a retail job in undergrad.
coldtea 10y ago
>Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? Because they had studied in a university (most people haven't), have a cushy academic job (most people don't), live in nicer neighborhoods, don't have to flip burgers or drive cabs to survive, more often than not have parents who were like that, and tons of other reasons besides. >Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? I urge you to actually have a conversation with such a person. And I urge you the same. Only don't ask him abstract stuff or history/etc, ask him pragmatic stuff about how the working world works, and about how most people live.

nitrogen 10y ago

There are a few well-read would-be intellectuals stuck working at a fast food joint simply due to not knowing how to do otherwise.

throw_away_777 10y ago
The existence of some very smart KFC workers doesn't mean that on average McDonald's workers are as intelligent as professors.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  Well, you seem to subscribe to the mindset that says - as long as you're very intelligent and highly educated, you're probably right on any arbitrary topic, and your opinions trump those of less intelligent and/or less educated people regardless of the relative degrees of experience involved on that topic. Particularly if combined with a narrow range of life experiences, or a young age, or both, it's a difficult view to change. I've worked at some of the biggest names in the tech industry. I've also literally beaten iron with a hammer in a dirty factory. I've lived in some of the most advanced democracies in the world. I've also lived under true-blue communist dictatorship. I've seen the life of some pretty fancy, posh suburbs in the Silicon Valley. I've also seen the life of the traditional Eastern Bloc peasant. I know it's hard to believe, but with a broad experience comes the understanding that intelligence and scholarly education alone don't automatically provide all answers, nor do they grant you the Always Right card. No matter how smart or polished you are, if you don't walk into the humble folks' shoes for a while, your understanding of what their lives truly are will be necessarily incomplete and warped. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. A neural network that wasn't provided with the necessary training set will not "see" the right answers no matter what. All I want to do is plant the seed of "what if". Perhaps it will grow into a broader understanding, later. But that can only come with experience.
  - throw_away_777 10y ago
    For an argument that is espousing the benefits of empathy, your condescending tone is very off-putting. You also use a straw-man argument - there is a difference between trusting professors more than lay people and believing that scholarly education grants you "the Always Right card". I also don't believe that "as long as you're very intelligent and highly educated, you're probably right on any arbitrary topic, and your opinions trump those of less intelligent and/or less educated people regardless of the relative degrees of experience involved on that topic". That is an obvious straw man. At the same time, I don't think working at Wendy's somehow constitutes the necessary experience to understand humanity that working as a professor doesn't provide. Would a Wendy's employee be better able to cook a hamburger? Yes, but if I want economic advice on how to improve the lives of poor people I'm still going to trust an economist who studies the issues over a Wendy's employee. Would working a year as a Wendy's employee really help the economist better understand the economy? The fundamental point of the article - that scientists don't understand society because they are somehow different and privileged - is wrong at best and dangerously anti-intellectual at worst.

pdabbadabba 10y ago

Well, that would depend on what you mean by "the world." Professors have first hand knowledge of a very particular set of social practices and institutions. These tend to be very important practices and institutions, but they are only directly experienced by a small group of people. Someone working at Burger King will typically have participated in a quite different set of practices and institutions. And there are a lot more of these people. Therefore the Burger King employee's experience with these practices and institutions yields first hand experience that is directly applicable to the lives of many more other people than the professor's. I do think it is a mistake to leap from this conclusion to the much broader one that Burger King employees understand "the world" better. Not only does that claim not mean much of anything, it also discounts the fact that the institutions and practices to which a professor is exposed may be more powerful, despite having fewer participants. But I think GP's similar and more specific claim, that "highly educated people are out of touch with the realities of life of average folks," is very plausible.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
But if what the professor is theorizing about is, say, labor conditions for the less-educated and less-well-off worker, then the Burger King worker knows in a way that the professor doesn't, no matter how many statistics the professor looks at.
- throwanem 10y ago
  "Something something anecdote something plural something data," someone invariably said, having not yet realized that most people live anecdotal lives in an anecdotal world.

throwanem 10y ago

In my experience, there's no reason to assume that a professor has a better understanding of the world than someone working at Burger King, either. You can be smart and lettered and still ignorant. The trouble is, being smart and lettered means you're a lot less likely to notice. In general, I think a lot of people in this thread are confusing the stereotype threat they experience around the "unworldly intellectual" idea, and what Lind, who is himself an intellectual of no small repute, is actually saying. It seems like there might be more light and less heat in the discussion if everyone were to take a moment and reflect on the difference. But I'm sorry to say I don't have much confidence that will happen.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

> Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? They definitely have a better understanding of that slice of the world that they experience while the professor doesn't. The whole point of the article is aptly summed up by the "let them eat cake" anecdote, by the way.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
And the professor has a better understanding of that slice of the world the professor lives in. This is a facile argument, because the implication is that the outlook - which includes the interests - of ordinary people is morally more significant than the outlook of a minority of clever people. It's effectively saying that intellectuals are worthless because sometimes they're wrong and/or out of touch. In reality, if you round up all the intellectuals and kill them - something last tried by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - you don't generally get an improvement in the quality of life of ordinary people. Is that extreme? Then how about simply ignoring all experts and professionals? Many experts and professionals are clever, and some surely count as intellectual. Will ignoring them make life better for everyone else? The author seems to be implying so. Personally, I'm not convinced - precisely because this kind of anti-intellectualism is a reliable cheap shot used by demagogues and authoritarians to direct attention away from other groups that are more likely to be causing deep problems.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  > It's effectively saying that intellectuals are worthless because sometimes they're wrong and/or out of touch. Oh, hell no. I've seen that side of the story, too, and it's completely wrong. We agree on that. > In reality, if you round up all the intellectuals and kill them - something last tried by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - you don't generally get an improvement in the quality of life of ordinary people. I lived under communist dictatorship for 20 years, and I have first hand experience with the results of those policies. Had to work my way through those mentalities, at times. To say you're not telling me anything new would be an understatement. I've also participated to the 1989 anti-communist revolutions, and I've seen anti-intellectualism rearing its ugly head again - thankfully without dire consequences. So the extremes are bad, as they always are. But I don't think the article implies that intellectuals are worthless. The way I read it, perhaps biased by my own life track, is that intelligence and scholarly education are greatly enhanced by a broad range of experience. No matter how smart or polished you are, you'll judge the simple folk in a different way if you walk in their shoes for a while.

pawn 10y ago

One example I can think of off the top of my head would be automotive repair. If I can afford to let someone else do it, I will. That's not to say I don't think I could learn it if I needed to, but I don't ever need to. So, I'm happy to let someone "less educated" who knows more about engines do it. There are teenagers who know twice as much about how to fix a car issue. They don't know what the inside of a computer looks like, but they don't need to. Now, take that example and extrapolate it to several other facets of life, and you can say there's a big gap in an educated person's world and that of his less-educated neighbor. Yeah, I know math and physics and how write computer code, but who cares?

dragonwriter 10y ago
> There are teenagers who know twice as much about how to fix a car issue. They don't know what the inside of a computer looks like, but they don't need to. Now, take that example and extrapolate it to several other facets of life, and you can say there's a big gap in an educated person's world and that of his less-educated neighbor. Which is kind of irrelevant to the subject here, which is really about academics focused on areas of social and policy significance having gaps in that specific subject area that would be filled in if they were just forced to spend a year working in a random working-class non-academic job. It is specifically not about gaps outside of the targeted academics' areas of work, which is what you seem to be focusing on. Its more like saying that being forced to spend a year working construction instead of programming would fill in critical gaps in your understanding of computer programming.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >which is really about academics focused on areas of social and policy significance having gaps in that specific subject area In not just car mechanics. If you're focused on areas of "social and policy significance" it's even worse to be out of touch with social reality and the effects of policies. And in fact much much worse (and much much more common) than an engineering professor who can't fix a car.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

> Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? Because the professor works at a university, having first attended the university and then graduate school, whereas the person working at Burger King most likely never graduated college, and works at Burger King rather than as a professor at a university. Those seem to me to be rather different "ranges of first-hand experience". I don't see how they could be considered anything but different.

roel_v 10y ago
The range might still be the same. Heck, the professor might still have worked a retail job in undergrad.

coldtea 10y ago

>Why do you think they have different ranges of first-hand experiences? Because they had studied in a university (most people haven't), have a cushy academic job (most people don't), live in nicer neighborhoods, don't have to flip burgers or drive cabs to survive, more often than not have parents who were like that, and tons of other reasons besides. >Do you honestly think someone working at Burger King has a better understanding of the world than a professor? I urge you to actually have a conversation with such a person. And I urge you the same. Only don't ask him abstract stuff or history/etc, ask him pragmatic stuff about how the working world works, and about how most people live.