Education and Modern Problems

24

Comments

  • tclune wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    And if your school is crap, or if you choose not to pay attention in the first place, nothing can save you.

    That last one is an important point. I remember an old schoolmate saying "They never taught us that in school" and I'm thinking "They most certainly did, and you were sitting two seats away from me."

    This is trickier than it seems like it should be. A dear friend of mine some years ago taught math in community college to kids who were convinced that they were too dumb to learn it. He did things like explain that, in word problems, "of" meant "multiply" (three quarters of 16, etc.) Many of the kids really blossomed, often going on to take calculus and continue to success in higher education. It's not always easy to tell the difference between being uninterested and having an ancillary deficit that holds you back. The reluctance of people -- especially adolescents -- to look stupid in public only adds to the challenge.

    As a late-50s adult one should own one's ancillary deficits and not try to blame them on lacunae in their education. It may be that it wasn't taught in a way they could understand. But it was taught.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    As a late-50s adult one should own one's ancillary deficits and not try to blame them on lacunae in their education. It may be that it wasn't taught in a way they could understand. But it was taught.

    If it was taught in classical Latin, and you don't understand Latin, was it actually functionally taught?

    I can certainly argue that late-50s adults have had some considerable time to attempt to remedy gaps in their understanding, and that for such a person to argue that their current lack of understanding is all the fault of their High School is a little unreasonable.

    On the other hand, education-by-zoom means that I get to witness kindergarten teachers lying to 5-year-olds on a regular basis, so I'm a bit disgruntled at the teaching profession at the moment. (Today's clanger was a kindergarten teacher teaching that only regular hexagons were hexagons, and irregular six-sided polygons were not hexagons. Yesterday the same teacher was under the impression that it was correct English to say "an unicorn".)
  • mousethief wrote: »
    As a late-50s adult one should own one's ancillary deficits and not try to blame them on lacunae in their education. It may be that it wasn't taught in a way they could understand. But it was taught.

    If it was taught in classical Latin, and you don't understand Latin, was it actually functionally taught?

    I can certainly argue that late-50s adults have had some considerable time to attempt to remedy gaps in their understanding, and that for such a person to argue that their current lack of understanding is all the fault of their High School is a little unreasonable.

    On the other hand, education-by-zoom means that I get to witness kindergarten teachers lying to 5-year-olds on a regular basis, so I'm a bit disgruntled at the teaching profession at the moment. (Today's clanger was a kindergarten teacher teaching that only regular hexagons were hexagons, and irregular six-sided polygons were not hexagons. Yesterday the same teacher was under the impression that it was correct English to say "an unicorn".)

    How do you know she was lying? Do you know what "lying" means?
  • I think echo chambers are part of the problem. Scientists, journalists, most medics & teachers will be left leaning & educated (UK speaking). Approximately roughly 40% of UK kids leave school at 16 without the basic 5 C’s (4/5 now) at GCSE including maths & English language. Scientists, journalists, medics, teachers etc. fall into those that do get the grades.
    There are still lots of kids who disengage early on. Academics need to stop being academic snobs & look at ways to engage with the “lay population” to get their views across without being condescending. I’m not saying it’s easy but I do think that if people feel shut off from academia at 10/11/12 how can they engage with complex science news at 20/30/40.

    (I am aware I’m possibly coming across as condescending in how I’ve written this. If so it’s my flaw rather than my intention).
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I think those average people of the past simply wouldn't have allowed the likes of Trump, Johnson, Berlusconi, Salvini - or indeed Corbyn or perhaps even Ardern - anywhere near top rank politics, ie people who although charismatic and perhaps good and sincere, are not heavyweight politicians. I suspect that there have always been plenty of voters who would have been willing to support such candidates if backed by a major political party.
    Thatcher and Reagan were allowed and they were every bit as damaging. Just in a different, and more efficient, way.

    I disagree. Thatcher did not try to undermine the democratic process itself for short-term popularity or shits and giggles. Her policies may have been wrong, but they had a philosophical underpinning that she could explain in a way that Johnson or Trump wouldn't be able to - because they don't have one and they aren't as clearminded as she was.

    Reagan is perhaps more comparable to the current lot, but perhaps he was just the first of them, ie, a long line of incompetent Republican presidents, of whom I think GWB was actually the worst.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    How do you know she was lying? Do you know what "lying" means?

    They are asserting falsehood as truth from a position of authority. Whether they're doing it intentionally or through ignorance is a secondary matter.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    How do you know she was lying? Do you know what "lying" means?

    They are asserting falsehood as truth from a position of authority. Whether they're doing it intentionally or through ignorance is a secondary matter.
    Lying needs intentionality. Promulgating a falsehood through ignorance is not good, but it is not lying.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I think those average people of the past simply wouldn't have allowed the likes of Trump, Johnson, Berlusconi, Salvini - or indeed Corbyn or perhaps even Ardern - anywhere near top rank politics, ie people who although charismatic and perhaps good and sincere, are not heavyweight politicians. I suspect that there have always been plenty of voters who would have been willing to support such candidates if backed by a major political party.
    Thatcher and Reagan were allowed and they were every bit as damaging. Just in a different, and more efficient, way.

    I disagree. Thatcher did not try to undermine the democratic process itself for short-term popularity or shits and giggles.
    Perhaps not for fun, but she certainly did attack democracy.
    Her policies may have been wrong, but they had a philosophical underpinning that she could explain in a way that Johnson or Trump wouldn't be able to - because they don't have one and they aren't as clearminded as she was.
    A clearminded and articulate person who can justify their demolishing of democracy isn't as least as dangerous as a clown in charge?
    Reagan is perhaps more comparable to the current lot, but perhaps he was just the first of them, ie, a long line of incompetent Republican presidents, of whom I think GWB was actually the worst.
    Reagan wasn't incompetent, at least not through most of his reign. He and his team were very effective at stripping rights from black and brown people as well as selling an economic plan to the middle class* that would contribute to the erosion of the middle class.

    What Johnson and Trump have done is increase division and pushed populism to the fore.

    *In the American sense of the word
  • OK.

    You regard them as equally dangerous. Your comments show that that's a political judgement on your part. That's fine, but it doesn't address the point I'm making when I say that Thatcher was a heavyweight politician whereas Trump or Johnson are not.

    What I mean is that Thatcher had a coherent set of principles and reached at least a basic level of competence at carrying her admistrative programme into effect. What it entailed - reduction of state provision, removal of subsidies for industry, monetarism, banking reform and so forth is controversial but nevertheless her governments were elected to carry them out in a completely normal democratic way.

    Your comments on Reagan suggest that actually he did the same.

    Like them or dislike them: that's beside the point. I don't like them either.

    Whereas Johnson only appears interested in what makes him look good, has no grip on detail, has no political philosophy other than riding whichever hobby horse will carry him to power and will even try to shut down parliament when it asks inconvenient questions. It isn't clear that he thinks Brexit is a good idea. He appears to have become PM for fun. Same with Trump: a shallow celebrity and failed businessman who couldn't lie straight in bed, a man who has never grown beyond the 5 year old boy who grabs the biggest slice of cake on the plate. Both of these men are political lightweights, open to manipulation and without the ability to manage in a crisis: their only advantage is that they have enough charisma to gull enough people, and the people behind that have used it to their advantage.

    You don't have to like any of them to see a very, very clear distinction between Thatcher on the one hand and Trump and Johnson on the other.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    I think that whether they are heavyweight politicians or not is secondary to the damage they have done.
    And I think one can draw direct lines from Thatcher and Reagan to both of the modern clowns, Trump especially. They are more open and gross expressions of what the former were doing more subtly.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    How do you know she was lying? Do you know what "lying" means?

    They are asserting falsehood as truth from a position of authority. Whether they're doing it intentionally or through ignorance is a secondary matter.

    Not if you care what words mean, and want people to understand what you say or write.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    I didn’t pay attention well at school. Yet I worked ten times harder than my classmates to achieve the same results.

    My lack of attention is due to ADHD. Staring out of the window is due to neurological differences, not deliberate choice.

    Yes, a lot of ADDers misbehave. But this is due to lack of understanding of the condition and endless blame and shame - not the condition itself.

    Empathy and kindness are not connected to intellectual ability in my experience.

    For a topical example look at Dominic Cummings.
  • In my experience ( such as it is) intellectual ability is very frequently connected to both empathy and kindness. Some of the nastiest people I’ve ever met have been as dumb as dogshit. And their stupidity was often used as a get out of jail free card.

  • One can also be inattentive and gaze out the classroom window out of sheer bloody boredom...
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    In my experience ( such as it is) intellectual ability is very frequently connected to both empathy and kindness. Some of the nastiest people I’ve ever met have been as dumb as dogshit. And their stupidity was often used as a get out of jail free card.

    That is very much not my experience, but that is probably my fault for working in a couple of large commercial law firms. I don't think there is any relation between intelligence and empathy or kindness.
  • I work in a sexual health clinic; vive la difference. Mind you I have met some prize arseholes over the last 49-odd years in my profession and none were academic underachievers.

    There are no absolutes.
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    One can also be inattentive and gaze out the classroom window out of sheer bloody boredom...

    Boredom is one of the biggest problems for ADDers. We can hyperfocus for hours, forgetting to eat or sleep when we are interested.


  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    I work in a sexual health clinic; vive la difference. Mind you I have met some prize arseholes over the last 49-odd years in my profession and none were academic underachievers.

    There are no absolutes.

    I suppose that dealing with arseholes was a major part of your work.......

    Seriously, how would you define academic underachievers?
  • On the subject of ill educated teachers, I was once approached by a TA from a neighbouring class, concerned about something a student on teaching practice had taught the class - I can't recall exactly what, now, but it may have been concerned with spiders - number of legs, whether they were insects or not. I confirmed that the TA was correct, and we approached the student's supervising tutor on the subject, and she a) didn't recognise the error was an error, and b) said it didn't matter.

    I also approached one of our staff about including errata slips in an English text book, which emphasised on one page how dangerous gorillas were, while suggesting that bears were not, and on another that Indians (of the First Nation sort) were horrible savages and cowboys were nice peaceful people forced to defend themselves. It didn't matter, she said, as they won't remember the stuff.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Caveat - this is thirty years ago, but when I was on a Primary BEd the English specialists outnumbered the other subjects specialists combined around two to one. Many of them really struggled with the science and maths part of the course (which was really basic) and viewed actually getting factual information in science right as a form of intellectual snobbery, or at least pointless geekery.

    Mind you, I also went on a Biology field course with BSc science students and the lecturer gave a completely wrong* explanation of the earth's orbit and cause of spring tides but when I questioned this my fellow students only cared that they'd pass exam questions on the subject, not that they actually understood how it worked.

    *not simplified, like the electron shell model of atomic structure, but purely wrong, inasmuch as the lecturer's model put the sun in the wrong place relative to the earth's orbit and involved two perihelions, neither of which coincided with the real perihelion**. For someone with a physics A level and a lay interest in astronomy it was painful.

    **point where the earth is nearest the sun.
  • I think echo chambers are part of the problem. Scientists, journalists, most medics & teachers will be left leaning & educated (UK speaking). Approximately roughly 40% of UK kids leave school at 16 without the basic 5 C’s (4/5 now) at GCSE including maths & English language. Scientists, journalists, medics, teachers etc. fall into those that do get the grades.
    There are still lots of kids who disengage early on. Academics need to stop being academic snobs & look at ways to engage with the “lay population” to get their views across without being condescending. I’m not saying it’s easy but I do think that if people feel shut off from academia at 10/11/12 how can they engage with complex science news at 20/30/40.

    (I am aware I’m possibly coming across as condescending in how I’ve written this. If so it’s my flaw rather than my intention).

    Can you give examples of what you see as "academic snobbery" in this context?
  • My nastiest and cruellest teacher had the most letters after his name and proudly wore his academic gown at all times.

    As to being open minded - I’m not sure. The further you move forward in intellectual pursuits the narrower your subjects become. You may be enquiring and open to new concepts and research in your narrow field - but how does that translate into other areas of your life? Politics, family life, how you treat your colleagues etc?
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    I think echo chambers are part of the problem. Scientists, journalists, most medics & teachers will be left leaning & educated (UK speaking). Approximately roughly 40% of UK kids leave school at 16 without the basic 5 C’s (4/5 now) at GCSE including maths & English language. Scientists, journalists, medics, teachers etc. fall into those that do get the grades.
    There are still lots of kids who disengage early on. Academics need to stop being academic snobs & look at ways to engage with the “lay population” to get their views across without being condescending. I’m not saying it’s easy but I do think that if people feel shut off from academia at 10/11/12 how can they engage with complex science news at 20/30/40.

    (I am aware I’m possibly coming across as condescending in how I’ve written this. If so it’s my flaw rather than my intention).

    Can you give examples of what you see as "academic snobbery" in this context?

    The tendency to assume that anyone who disagrees with their political opinions and preferences does so because they’re stupid would be one.
  • Iu
    Gee D wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    I work in a sexual health clinic; vive la difference. Mind you I have met some prize arseholes over the last 49-odd years in my profession and none were academic underachievers.

    There are no absolutes.

    I suppose that dealing with arseholes was a major part of your work.......

    Seriously, how would you define academic underachievers?

    Actually dealing with ( literal) arseholes is but a small part of a day’s work.

    Academic underachievers are a motley crew: there are those who can but don’t , those that can’t and don’t and those who can’t, try hard and still don’t make the cut.

    Just can’t stand generalisations.

    But verily I say unto you; in my line of business the brain is stretched to extremes and you simply have to be both kind ans epathetic irrespective of whether looking up arse or anywhere else or handing over a new HIV diagnosis.
  • Boogie wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    One can also be inattentive and gaze out the classroom window out of sheer bloody boredom...

    Boredom is one of the biggest problems for ADDers. We can hyperfocus for hours, forgetting to eat or sleep when we are interested


    That does not downplay any other experience.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Iu
    Gee D wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    I work in a sexual health clinic; vive la difference. Mind you I have met some prize arseholes over the last 49-odd years in my profession and none were academic underachievers.

    There are no absolutes.

    I suppose that dealing with arseholes was a major part of your work.......

    Seriously, how would you define academic underachievers?

    Actually dealing with ( literal) arseholes is but a small part of a day’s work.

    Academic underachievers are a motley crew: there are those who can but don’t , those that can’t and don’t and those who can’t, try hard and still don’t make the cut.

    Just can’t stand generalisations.

    But verily I say unto you; in my line of business the brain is stretched to extremes and you simply have to be both kind ans epathetic irrespective of whether looking up arse or anywhere else or handing over a new HIV diagnosis.

    Why are those italicised underachievers? They may not reach the level set forth in some document to be that achieved, but your can't says to me that no matter what, achievement at that level is beyond them. Are you putting underachievement at an objective, across the board, level rather than at the level of the particular student? Coming at it from a personal level, there was no way that I'd ever get 1st class honours in a mathematics or science subject in my Leaving Certificate; I could and did get an A level pass.
  • I actually don’t give a shit. The whole thrust of my argument was directed against the baseless assertion upthread that academic achievement is not associated with either kindness or empathy.

    Underachievement as you and I both know is relative ( speaking as an underachiever in my profession as opposed to how the world might see me).

  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    edited November 2020
    Education as a process is the leading out of ignorance. Of course it doesn’t help if those with the responsibility for leading out are themselves ignorant, or biased, or both,

    Yet bias is normal. So what that suggests is that education can be a chancy business. Who educates the educators? Who oversees their efforts? And what are the objectives of the overseers?

    I used to think that the free availability of information was a real part of the solution. That book burning and censorship were dangerous, restricting the flow of information, getting in the way of folks making up their own minds. Now I’m feeling uncertain about that.

    To quote one example from the internet, the slogan ‘Stop the Steal’ has gone viral and there will be many thousands of people in the USA parroting that slogan today. Yet it is completely false. Free circulation of information on the internet has enabled its journey into minds which have a hunger for those kinds of lies.

    And if there is a failure of education there, what exactly has failed? Have people grown up with an inability to process information critically? Or as Vance Packard put it close to 60 years ago, how dangerous are “the Hidden Persuaders”? Those who have free access to mind manipulation and use it for their own financial or political ends?

    I think it is necessary to recognise that the educators, imperfect as they are, also have to struggle with that aspect of our culture. We cannot put mind manipulation back in the bottle. But it does seem to me more necessary these days to teach means of critical assessment of information. Also to teach in our culture the ubiquity of mind manipulation that is actually going on outside the formal education process. The fact that we are being got at.



  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Underachievement as you and I both know is relative

    That’s as maybe, but if I’m hiring someone I’d much rather hire the one who can do the job without really trying than the one who tries their absolute best but still just can’t do it, bless them. I don’t really care which of them has achieved the highest percentage of their overall potential, because I’m not paying them to be the best they can be - I’m paying them to operate at or above a specific level of ability.
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Underachievement as you and I both know is relative

    That’s as maybe, but if I’m hiring someone I’d much rather hire the one who can do the job without really trying than the one who tries their absolute best but still just can’t do it, bless them. I don’t really care which of them has achieved the highest percentage of their overall potential, because I’m not paying them to be the best they can be - I’m paying them to operate at or above a specific level of ability.

    And you just might get ripped off by the the first example that you mention. And of course there is the middle way i.e . The slower learner who gets there eventually. Do you realise how condescending your “bless them” sounds to the reader?
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Education as a process is the leading out of ignorance. Of course it doesn’t help if those with the responsibility for leading out are themselves ignorant, or biased, or both,

    Yet bias is normal. So what that suggests is that education can be a chancy business. Who educates the educators? Who oversees their efforts? And what are the objectives of the overseers?

    I used to think that the free availability of information was a real part of the solution. That book burning and censorship were dangerous, restricting the flow of information, getting in the way of folks making up their own minds. Now I’m feeling uncertain about that.

    To quote one example from the internet, the slogan ‘Stop the Steal’ has gone viral and there will be many thousands of people in the USA parroting that slogan today. Yet it is completely false. Free circulation of information on the internet has enabled its journey into minds which have a hunger for those kinds of lies.

    And if there is a failure of education there, what exactly has failed? Have people grown up with an inability to process information critically? Or as Vance Packard put it close to 60 years ago, how dangerous are “the Hidden Persuaders”? Those who have free access to mind manipulation and use it for their own financial or political ends?

    I think it is necessary to recognise that the educators, imperfect as they are, also have to struggle with that aspect of our culture. We cannot put mind manipulation back in the bottle. But it does seem to me more necessary these days to teach means of critical assessment of information. Also to teach in our culture the ubiquity of mind manipulation that is actually going on outside the formal education process. The fact that we are being got at.


    Agreed
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    I’m a very slow learner and a very quick thinker, I’m excellent in crisis situations and often make connections others miss. I’m a natural comic and can have a whole room of people laughing (those were the days!). I’m a natural public speaker. I’d have made a good actor if only I could learn lines! I’ve never learned a poem n my life even ‘tho my school had lessons every day for learning poetry off by heart.

    Less of the ‘bless them’ @Marvin the Martian

    Academia can put people in boxes. Lots of us just don’t fit.

    I notice a lot of us are taking this thread very personally - interesting. 🤔
  • You don’t say
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    You don’t say

    :mrgreen: 😜

  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    I am in an odd situation in that I take it all very personally, but find myself somewhere between everyone. I have never had an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, and a great deal of time and thought would be needed to triagulate that with anxiety and potential cPTSD following a rather uneven emotional upbringing. School was a place of monumental boredeom and emotional abuse as well, through bullying from both teachers and pupils. I am, however, highly intelligent, and have 2 Masters degrees but no PhD because of difficulties with the management of my studenthood. I don't memorise things easily unless they are set to music, which is another of my skills and passions. I didn't get much of German grammar until I conceptually understood the whole system, at which point everything clicked into place.

    My point is that individual peculiarities can be the problem, and these personal issues interact badly with a system which, under the National Curriculum but also during the budget cuts of the 1980s, has become increasingly reliant on standardisation and incremental, cookie-cutter learning. If the system is not interested in the individual, all the people involved in it have to work against that bias to help people who do not fit into standard offerings. Or we grind against it and suffer as a result from constant cycles of engagement and disengagement, and the associated difficulties with attainment and mental health.
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Do you realise how condescending your “bless them” sounds to the reader?

    I could run as fast as I possibly can, but I’m never going to even qualify for the Olympics never mind win a medal. And that’s absolutely right and proper. I shouldn’t be given medals just for trying hard, because no matter how hard I try I’m still shit at running.

    And if I did somehow end up in a race with Usain Bolt, he’d be well within his rights to say “you did your best, bless you” when I finally crossed the line. Frankly such a level of acceptance would be more than I’d deserve - especially if my participation in the race was denying a lane to someone who would actually deserve to be there.
  • I doubt that Usain would notice...
  • To stretch @Marvin the Martian s example on a bit.....

    What are folk supposed to do if they are “still shit at academic education”?

    Having a degree as an entry level qualification is excluding a whole heap of people from meaningful employment.





  • Nursing , Social workers, Teachers to mention the first three from my own experience.

    Back in the day, it was different.

    Why have we changed?
    Has it made any difference?
    And if so , why are we relying on imported professionals for these jobs?
  • Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Nursing , Social workers, Teachers to mention the first three from my own experience.

    Back in the day, it was different.

    Why have we changed?

    In the three examples you quote; it was because the fields became more complex, and it became necessary to know more in order to perform those jobs effectively.
  • Ethne Alba wrote: »
    To stretch @Marvin the Martian s example on a bit.....

    What are folk supposed to do if they are “still shit at academic education”?

    Having a degree as an entry level qualification is excluding a whole heap of people from meaningful employment.





    I think this is one of our society's great unanswered questions.

    We have championed the importance of education. The point is made and generally accepted that to be meaningful some must pass and some must fail academically. We assume that employers will want the successful.

    We never propose what we do with the people who fail, who we have already said must exist and no-one would want to employ.
  • @chrisstiles
    Those examples are from my own lived experience and truth to tell, I was very relieved to retire.
    Being surrounded by so called academic professionals who had the common sense of gnats was soul destroying.


  • KarlLB wrote: »
    We never propose what we do with the people who fail, who we have already said must exist and no-one would want to employ.

    Time was we could just send them down the mines, but there aren’t any mines left - I suppose the modern equivalent is call centres, but even they have mostly moved overseas where wages are lower. The armed forces take a few, of course, and there will always be a need for people to drive buses/lorries or sweep the streets. A handful have other kinds of marketable skills, such as sports, music, or just being very good looking.

    But you’re right that the question remains - what do we do with those who, while obviously having the same intrinsic moral and spiritual worth as all other human beings, are otherwise frankly useless? Got any ideas yourself?
  • Nobody is useless.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    NVQ 4 in hospitality And health and social care .... or.... a degree in any subject as an entry point for psychiatric nursing assistant anyone?

    @Doublethink nobody is useless. True.
    Time was when the Very best support staff in a psychiatric unit were ex bartenders, brickies, bus drivers or bingo staff. Why? Because they Liked People. They had all those soft people skills that cannot be taught. They had a bit of life behind them. A bit of ballast to help with the emotional cut n thrust of a draining work environment. And a way of engaging with Everyone.

    Ok
    Training on top was necessary. But give me one of Those people any day, over against a straight from school , university educated 22 yr old




  • Nobody is useless.

    I guess it depends what you mean by “useful”.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    We never propose what we do with the people who fail, who we have already said must exist and no-one would want to employ.

    Time was we could just send them down the mines, but there aren’t any mines left - I suppose the modern equivalent is call centres, but even they have mostly moved overseas where wages are lower. The armed forces take a few, of course, and there will always be a need for people to drive buses/lorries or sweep the streets. A handful have other kinds of marketable skills, such as sports, music, or just being very good looking.

    But you’re right that the question remains - what do we do with those who, while obviously having the same intrinsic moral and spiritual worth as all other human beings, are otherwise frankly useless? Got any ideas yourself?

    If people without good academic qualifications are "useless", it is because we have remodelled our economy around without considering them. There are people - I've met them - who it is very hard to imagine holding down any job, but whether they were always that way or have been made so by the hopelessness of having no place in our modern economy is a reasonable question.

    Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.

    I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
  • I thought Brexit was intended to allow for more free trade, not less. By what mechanism would it force the UK to make more things for domestically rather than just buying them in from elsewhere?
  • *more things domestically*
Sign In or Register to comment.