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Jeff Schmidt's book "Disciplined Minds" is a great read about this kind of thing -- http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ Her

by shoo 8y ago

Jeff Schmidt's book "Disciplined Minds" is a great read about this kind of thing -- http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/ Here's some discussion from a review of Disciplined Minds by Brian Martin: > Jeff Schmidt provides an answer in his book Disciplined Minds: professionals, including teachers, are selected and molded to have politically and intellectually subordinate attitudes, thereby making their creative energies available to the system. In short, "professional education and employment push people to accept a role in which they do not make a significant difference, a politically subordinate role." (p. 2). > The first step in Schmidt’s argument is the claim that professionals - including police, doctors, lawyers, teachers and many others - think less independently than nonprofessionals. He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. > Schmidt argues that what really makes an individual a professional is not technical knowledge, but rather "ideological discipline." > A key to creating docile professionals is professional training. Through their training, budding professionals learn to orient their intellectual effort to tasks assigned to them. Schmidt has a wonderful expression for this: "assignable curiosity." Children are naturally curious about all sorts of things. Along the road to becoming a professional, they learn how to orient this curiosity to tasks assigned by others. https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html The journalist Lyn Gerry read and recorded most of the chapters in the book, they can be listened to here: https://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Disciplined_Minds https://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Disciplined_Minds

yters 8y ago
> He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. If support for the war was lower among the less education, does this mean the less educated do not think as independently?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
nyolfen 8y ago
> He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. ie, people whose peers and children were less likely to be drafted.
philwelch 8y ago
> He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. The rationale for American intervention in Vietnam, rightly or wrongly, was based on sophisticated geopolitical concerns. Things that are harder to understand tend to be better understood by more educated people for fairly obvious reasons. US intervention in World War II, to name one counterexample, was justified by a sneak attack on American sailors in Hawaii. Almost any idiot understood why we were fighting then. Another difference was media influence, with the media firmly in favor of America going to war against Japan and Germany, and firmly opposed to America going to war against North Vietnam. If something is harder to understand, and the overwhelming message from the mass media is one of opposition to the government's position, then most uneducated people will oppose it. It's not that complicated.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
This insight should be more commonly accepted. That said - just like in Science - the consensus among thoughtfully educated people is probably 'more correct'. Where things can go wrong ... is when the systematic class is wrong, or where there is a value shift. Populism is a super example of this: educated business type see the world through economic lenses, and can't for a second understand how 'Brexit' could happen. Most people have an affinity for their culture and a few extra cents on off their pint (and massively more surpluses in the pockets of bankers) is not going to change their mind over it. Doctors are a funny bunch in this regard: all of them seem to me to be the most intelligent, boring folks! They have to be in a way extremely small-c conservative, very orthodox, there's no experimentation or zaniness with human bodies. The system, and frankly the work (years of total work, oversight, convention) keeps them in the mould. And frankly, they have no reason to try to go outside it either, once inside the mould, it's just too lucrative to leave.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >Populism is a super example of this: educated business type see the world through economic lenses, and can't for a second understand how 'Brexit' could happen. The same thing comes up whenever we talk about splitting states or cities/towns in the US. Some people are like "why would you want that, it's not in your economic interest" and the people who want whatever the split is to happen reply "we'd rather be poor and in control of ourselves"
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    The fundamental difference is that states and towns generally are not ethnocentric. Nations usually are. Germany in the EU with open migration may possibly present an existential challenge to the nature of what Germany is in the long term. Some people don't care, some people want that, some are against it. Whereas making SF Bay area '1 city' would be a matter of pragmatism, not much more. Also - there's actually scant evidence that federalization is better for everyone in the long run, it depends a lot on many things. I actually believe the EEC with slightly better rules for movement would be fundamentally better than the EU - even in raw economic terms. But that Bay Area - with the right leadership - would be better off.
scarface74 8y ago
He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. Of course they did. It wasn’t them or their kids getting drafted.... 76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/working class backgrounds. http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm

by shoo 8y ago

yters 8y ago

> He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. If support for the war was lower among the less education, does this mean the less educated do not think as independently?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

nyolfen 8y ago

> He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. ie, people whose peers and children were less likely to be drafted.

philwelch 8y ago

> He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. The rationale for American intervention in Vietnam, rightly or wrongly, was based on sophisticated geopolitical concerns. Things that are harder to understand tend to be better understood by more educated people for fairly obvious reasons. US intervention in World War II, to name one counterexample, was justified by a sneak attack on American sailors in Hawaii. Almost any idiot understood why we were fighting then. Another difference was media influence, with the media firmly in favor of America going to war against Japan and Germany, and firmly opposed to America going to war against North Vietnam. If something is harder to understand, and the overwhelming message from the mass media is one of opposition to the government's position, then most uneducated people will oppose it. It's not that complicated.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

This insight should be more commonly accepted. That said - just like in Science - the consensus among thoughtfully educated people is probably 'more correct'. Where things can go wrong ... is when the systematic class is wrong, or where there is a value shift. Populism is a super example of this: educated business type see the world through economic lenses, and can't for a second understand how 'Brexit' could happen. Most people have an affinity for their culture and a few extra cents on off their pint (and massively more surpluses in the pockets of bankers) is not going to change their mind over it. Doctors are a funny bunch in this regard: all of them seem to me to be the most intelligent, boring folks! They have to be in a way extremely small-c conservative, very orthodox, there's no experimentation or zaniness with human bodies. The system, and frankly the work (years of total work, oversight, convention) keeps them in the mould. And frankly, they have no reason to try to go outside it either, once inside the mould, it's just too lucrative to leave.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>Populism is a super example of this: educated business type see the world through economic lenses, and can't for a second understand how 'Brexit' could happen. The same thing comes up whenever we talk about splitting states or cities/towns in the US. Some people are like "why would you want that, it's not in your economic interest" and the people who want whatever the split is to happen reply "we'd rather be poor and in control of ourselves"
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The fundamental difference is that states and towns generally are not ethnocentric. Nations usually are. Germany in the EU with open migration may possibly present an existential challenge to the nature of what Germany is in the long term. Some people don't care, some people want that, some are against it. Whereas making SF Bay area '1 city' would be a matter of pragmatism, not much more. Also - there's actually scant evidence that federalization is better for everyone in the long run, it depends a lot on many things. I actually believe the EEC with slightly better rules for movement would be fundamentally better than the EU - even in raw economic terms. But that Bay Area - with the right leadership - would be better off.

scarface74 8y ago

He cites opinion polls taken during the Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with more higher education. Of course they did. It wasn’t them or their kids getting drafted.... 76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/working class backgrounds. http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm