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Meaning a live man like this man letting butterfly flattin

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is wave big down in a force.

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Speaker 8: Man, it will cause a tree fold letting five thousand

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miles away.

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Speaker 4: Man, nobody see nobody, see that.

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Speaker 9: You don't need no.

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Speaker 3: Man, you don't like you another story and you get back.

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Speaker 8: Man, go blackly dag.

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Speaker 3: All right, Steven Pimantel, Welcome to the Jay Burton Show.

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How are you doing that?

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Speaker 8: Thank you? I'm doing great, glad to be here.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, you and I I've introduced to your work

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by a mutual admirer. I guess I'll put it that way.

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And so if you could for my audience, could you

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describe who you are and what you do.

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Speaker 8: I live in the San Francisco Bay area. I work

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in tech, but I am pretty active in social media.

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On Twitter, and I write quite a bit. I've always

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been very interested in a number of topics around, like philosophy, classics, politics, governance,

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all kinds of things, pretty pretty wide ranging interest, and

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I've written for a bunch of places, like Palladium. I

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am seventeen seventy six, everything from like book reviews of

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books that have come out from like Passage Press, to

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my own articles on various topics, sometimes historical, sometimes more

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forward looking. Yeah, all kinds of stuff.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm interested. And this is a very broad question

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in your sort of broad opinions on the field of

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the classics. Like most people who embark on getting a

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classics degree, it ended up finishing it right, ended up

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deciding I needed to do something slightly practical, and then

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never actually got a job in that allegedly practical field.

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But the classicists I met had sort of an odd

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relationship with Western civilization or on one hand, it was

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their field, We're very well read in it, but they

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also sort of seemed to hate it and present the classics.

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And so I'm curious, what is your general feeling on

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the field of classics, like as an area of study.

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Speaker 8: So what you're referring to is almost a meme. I mean,

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it's like this very commonly noted thing where you know

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classicists who hate the classics, and it's part and parcel

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of the larger corruption of the humanities, And I would

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go so far as to say the larger corruption of

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academic culture in the universities, where there's just been this

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intense turning against the West, against any sort of Western

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heritage culture. And you see that very intensely in English departments,

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in classics departments. So part of it is this ideological

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thing where there's just this very anti Western and it

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goes under a number of aims, you know, postcolonialism, you'll

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hear you know, deconstruction, et cetera, et cetera. I mean,

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there's this whole stew of theory and whatnot that has

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a very tendentious kind of ideological bias, and it just

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sort of swept over academia. I mean it's actually the

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problems are a very long standing and go back a

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very far away, but they've just gotten worse and worse

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in recent years. So yeah, I mean, I know, I

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know class classicists who got their PhDs on who later

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left or either did not go into academia or who

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later left. Alice Petkiss Alex Pettkiss, for example, who does

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the Cost of Glory podcast as a friend of mine.

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He was got his PhD from Princeton in the classics,

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later had a tenure track position, very good career, and

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he left because of a lot of these issues. He

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wanted to do something that was much more substantive, much

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more actually contributing to you know, to the culture in general,

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but young men in particular, and he knew he couldn't

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do that in academia, so he left and did something different,

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and it's now doing excellent work with his podcast and

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with writing. But he's just one of many, many such examples.

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And none of this means that there aren't still good

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people in universities. You can find them, but it's hard

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and it's getting harder, and they are like under siege.

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Many of them are unhappy. Some of them are older

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and are like moving on. So yeah, it's kind of

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a mess. And you know, I believe that it has

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been true for a long time now that if you

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really want to pursue this kind of stuff seriously, it

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is actually better to do it outside the university than inside.

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That's very unfortunate that that should not be the case.

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It's kind of screwed up that it is the case,

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but it is the case. And it's just that so

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many departments, even formerly very good departments that had great

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reputations at elite universities, are like just shitholes now. And

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that's just the way it is.

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Speaker 3: I think, like many people, they're sort of these kind

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of moments of conflict that sort of stick in your brain.

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And I was in I believe it was a Latin

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class on the day that Notre Dame Cathedral partially burnt down,

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and my professor was, I mean, I don't want to

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hazard guess, but very old and seemingly the sort of

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person that in you where I could get along with, Right,

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kind of seemed to be a sort of kind of stereotypical,

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genuinely liberal aging professor Right kind of winding out his

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career teaching one or two classes, and when I just,

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you know, before class, you know, brought up the fact

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that I was very affected by the fact that Notre

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Dame was burning. It was very upsetting to me. He

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was genuinely baffled by that fact. He's like, well, what

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do you what do you mean do you not like

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what he could not comprehend why I not only thought

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this was relevant to a discussion about the classics, but

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also that it was something that I felt some sort

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of emotional attachment to. And you know, once I sort

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of saw that dissonance, sort of started to pick up

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on other attitudes towards you know, the Western canon more broadly.

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But it was a very it's a moment that is

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stuck in my mind ever since. That, Right, someone who's

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devoted his life to the study of Western civilization ultimately,

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and someone you can't even blame on the kind of

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great awokening you know of the Obama years, someone who's

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been around for a long time none less has that

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same sort of attitude towards our cultural heritage. And to

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your point about the sort of where the actual conversation

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is being held. Obviously, education has any number of major

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issues with it, but I think that, you know, on

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a very basic level, if you were interested in actually learning,

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you can still do that in academia. But it's almost

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in spite of the system, not because of it. And look,

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I graduated in twenty two. I should be able to

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I should remember that more. But I left feeling completely

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and totally disgusted. And you know, anyone who's made the

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mistake of giving their cell phone number to you know,

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where they got their degree from, will, like me, get

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texts and messages constantly, but one asking for money, which

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is you know, just shameless, but also saying like, oh,

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do you want to come back for a graduate degree?

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Do we think you'd be a good fit for this program? Again,

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let's be honest, fishing for money. But my reaction, and

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many other people I went to school with who were scholarly,

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who were interested in ideas, who you know, at a

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previous generation would make a great fit, their conclusion has

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largely been the same. It is not only no, but

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know and I hate you. You know, I have seen

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what you have brought. And it's interesting even talking to

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people in my parents' generation, right Gen xers, who have

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a very very different relationship to education and even just

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from a social level, many of them view those as

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their kind of best in most positive years. And not

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to say that I didn't enjoy my time in college,

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but the relationship between I guess sort of the you know,

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the consumer right of education and those providing it has

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changed dramatically, and I think that's an interesting kind of

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sea change.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, there's so much there. I mean, you're absolutely right

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about the relationship of older generations. I mean, my dad,

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who's now in his nineties, you know, had a deep,

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deep sort of respect for education in general and higher

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education in particular, and always encouraged me and all his

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kids to like seriously engage in that. And I think

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that was actually common of his generation that regardless of

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your political orientation, they viewed this as an important and

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very beneficial institution. And they were right. I mean, that

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is what it was supposed to be, and at one

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time that is what it was. And people would form

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these very intense bonds of loyalty with their alma mater.

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They would go back to their schools, whether it be

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in regard to sports or even more like directly academic things,

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they would donate and they there's always this lagging effect

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where people maintain these cultural attachments and attitudes long after

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the reality that that motivated them has gone away. And

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you know, you see on Twitter, you know, jokes about

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you know, that's not the thing you think it is,

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that's you know, something killed that thing and is wearing

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it as a skin suit. Well, you know if you

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have a kind of romantic, more classical idea of what

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the university is and what it should be doing. All

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I can say to you is, when you look at

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current universities, that's not what that is. That's something wearing.

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It is a skin suit. And and you know, you'll

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you'll even see like wealthy people, millionaires even billionaires, giving

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these and some of them think that they're right leaning

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or just dribe themselves as right leaning, and yet they

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will give huge sums of money to these institutions that

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are like pushing exactly the opposite of what they think

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should be going on in the world. And there's a

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kind of blindness there that's just inertial, like they're so

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attached to these loyalties that you know, it's like it's

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their parents or something. And I don't think you should

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really give any institution, especially these large, very rich institutions.

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In some cases, when when somebody has a seizure, it

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keep the area around the person safe, stay with them

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Speaker 10: I know what you're feeling, and I was there too,

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and I know you might think that there is nobody

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to talk to, but I promise that you're not alone.

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It was never your fault and you deserve support and

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healing in your own time. Whenever you're ready to talk,

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Dublin Rape Crisis Center will be ready to listen, called

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seven seven eight eight eight eight.

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Speaker 8: That kind of loyalty. I mean, it's like they are

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what they do, and if what they do is persistently bad,

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then they're bad. And that's kind of how I think

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of that. And again I don't say this with any glee.

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I think it's very unfortunate that this is the case,

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and we would all be much better off if it weren't,

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but it is.

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Speaker 3: I think additionally, there's a level to which education has

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been commodified, and there's a cheap version of that argument

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that I'm not trying to go into it all. But

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when I speak to older people, predominantly of you know,

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the silent generation, what few were still around the relatively

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small minority which went to college. In many cases, these

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were you know, regional colleges like I think of you know,

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one of my friends grandfathers who's now in his you know,

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mid eighties, and the fact that he went to college

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was not only a big deal, but he went to

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that college which was located, you know, within a relatively

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short radius of where he lived, met people from the

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surrounding community who would then form a sort of local

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elite if you were so you know, you had you know,

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prosperous farmers, the you know, the owners of you know,

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the funeral home, the bank president would all be from

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that same university together. It was a sorting mechanism, but

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it was a local sorting mechanism. And obviously, you know,

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this applied less but still to a large degree to

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you know, internationally known institutions like the Ivy's. But still

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there was very much a idea that a school produced

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a culture, in many cases locally derived culture. But as

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college became a sort of rite of passage for the

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professional class, where you have at this point almost a

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majority of seniors graduating high school going to college, and

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also it became a sort of bootleg IQ test right

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where you could sort of sort in the hiring market.

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You know, we need someone with one hundred and thirty IQ,

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so let's just find a college that only accepts people

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with that. Well, it became a marketplace, and if you

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were upwardly mobile or in our current times not downwardly mobile, right,

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needed to strive. You needed to market yourself. And so

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instead the game no longer became one will I go

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to college? Yes or no? It became how will I

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market myself to an entire nation's worth of colleges, And

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so you have one if they kind of derogatorily refer

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to them as the snowbirds in the southeast, where you're

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kind of the second sons of you know, places like

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northern Virginia, New Jersey who can't get into you know,

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the ivy's, the preciege institutions moving down the coast. So

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for instance, you know, Duke is very very hard to

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get into. UNC is extremely hard to get into because

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you have this massive influx of students from both around

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the country and also relatively recently around the world, and

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so that process has become commodified. You are effectively competing

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against the entire nation, in the entire world. And you

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could say, well, does not that allow those institutions to

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select the best of the best. Maybe it does. I

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would argue that results have not borne that out. But

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you see there a destruction of an organic culture. Whereas,

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for instance, I went to a a you know, a

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state school, and at that state school, not only was

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a large proportion of that graduating class foreign, actually such

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a high percentage that they ended up being sued by

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the state for violating the requirements of their you know, grants,

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But even then, almost all of them were from I'm

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from Virginia, the DC suburbs, where, let's be honest, they

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aren't really from anywhere, but it's a population center with

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a lot of wealth, and they can divert that endo education.

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And so what used to be a regional institution is

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now being dispersed over the entire nation. And again, if

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we were in an era of unparalleled prosperity, where we

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have more and more capable people, you know, every every

294
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school and every block is turning out in Einstein every year,

295
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then okay, fair enough, I'm just an old stick in

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the mud. But we have lost both. We seem to

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have lost the you know, the productive power of those

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institutions and also the sort of beneficial social structures that

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they gave to sort of small town America. But i'll

300
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kick it back to you, Steven. Yeah, No, I think

301
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you're absolutely right. You're right on target there.

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Speaker 8: Quite Apart from the ideological corruption that I was talking about,

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there's this issue of form. When you say that almost

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everyone or a majority is trying to go to college.

305
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I mean this is really a post World War two

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phenomenon where there was actually policy set at the federal

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level that college attendance was this great good thing and

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we should encourage everyone to do it. And this was

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done through things like the GI Bill, It was done

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through various federal granting and loan mechanisms, but it was

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actually sort of an official policy. And it leads to

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all kinds of distortions because there's really not clear thinking

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there about what higher education.

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Speaker 11: Is really for.

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Speaker 8: And I think part of it is a kind of

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homogenization where you imagine there's just this thing called college

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or university and it's a good thing, and therefore everyone

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should go to it and then they'll be smarter and

319
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better educated and more able to contribute to the workforce

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and in society, et cetera. And I think that's that's

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actually a very wrong way to think about higher education.

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That there's actually a kind of heterogeneity in terms of goals,

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in terms of appropriate goals, and in terms of what

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would actually be functional and helpful. So there's a kind

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of vocational training that's oriented towards career, that's oriented towards

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workforce preparation, and it's entirely appropriate. It's a good thing.

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I have nothing bad to say about that. I think that,

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you know, people need to make a living. People should

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be able to work and help contribute to our economy,

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not only support themselves and their families, but the broader economy.

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All of that is good and great, and there should

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be places that are oriented just mostly toward that and

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very practical majors. Yeah, But I think there's also something

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else that you can call liberal education and or liberal arts,

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and it's actually a quite different thing. It's not oriented vocationally.

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It's not primarily about what job you get or how

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much you're going to be able to earn, and it's

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not for everybody. Probably most people should not be steered

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toward a kind of liberal arts or liberal education. I mean,

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I think it's just fine if only a very small

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minority of people do that, people who have some like

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who feel called to it in terms of their own

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interests and background and what they're trying to seek. What

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I'm saying is there can be more than one thing,

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and there should be more than one thing. And I

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think our educational system would have been much stronger if

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in that immediate post World War two period that distinction

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had been clearly made, and if people had said, Okay,

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the real reason we want more people to pursue higher

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education is for our economy, for its economic effects, both

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for themselves and for the country at large. And we're

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going to tailor policies to that. And maybe you'll also

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have liberal arts schools that are doing something different and

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that's great too, and maybe we'll support them in some

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other way. I think you could have had a much

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more functional system. But when you try to funnel everyone

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through the same institutions, what we've seen happen from that

358
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is a lot of things like great inflation, decrease of standards,

359
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and here it begins to intersect with some of the

360
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more ideological stuff, because there's also like reasons around disparate

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impact why people want to lower standards. So there's a

362
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lot of things that kind of interact in a negative

363
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way and lead to where we are now.

364
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Speaker 3: Several things there to sort of paraphrase what you said,

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you know, if we assume that the purpose of a

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system is what it does, you could make the argument

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that the purpose of education is actually not to educate people.

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And when I say education, I mean, you know, big

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e it is. It is in fact to provide sinecure jobs, right,

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to provide these sort of cushy positions where and you

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see this in the growth of administrators dramatically since the

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two thousands, both on you know, the sort of K

373
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through twelve level and also you know in higher education,

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where there's been this massive growth of people who do

375
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certain things that are not related to the direct each end, right,

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gramming knowledge into people's brains, and it's sort of become

377
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this massive patronage network where you can just shovel money

378
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into you know, this this system sort of socialize the

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effects of that wealth transfer, and then now you've created

380
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someone who, incidentally, and maybe this is too conspiratorial, does

381
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promulgate your ideology, does you know, reproduce that sort of

382
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system of thought. But also they are paid workers, right,

383
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And you could almost imagine education the sort of an

384
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extension of generic government bureaucracy.

385
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Speaker 12: Right.

386
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Speaker 3: They're technically not state workers in all cases, but functionally

387
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might as well be. And again, maybe this is my

388
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inner kind of boss Tweed coming out, but it does

389
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seem like a very politically useful thing to have a

390
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lot of people who have a decent standard of living

391
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because they get money from you. And I'm look, I

392
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haven't done the political questionnaires of you know, uh, department

393
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,920
administrators at you know, Harvard or Nebraska or any given school,

394
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but I'm pretty sure I could guess generally, you know

395
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how they align.

396
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Speaker 1: Yep.

397
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Speaker 8: Yeah, No, I think that's exactly what's going on going on,

398
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And and you know, this doesn't have to be consciously

399
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conspiratorial in order from that dynamic to be very real.

400
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:36,319
I think you see it in multiple areas. You see

401
00:25:36,319 --> 00:25:39,920
it in government bureaucracy, you see it in healthcare frankly,

402
00:25:40,079 --> 00:25:43,240
this growth of bureaucracy and administration, but you see it

403
00:25:43,319 --> 00:25:50,559
big time and education when when you have I think

404
00:25:50,599 --> 00:25:53,160
a lot of this is a function of the amount

405
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of federal dollars, you know, ultimately taxpayer dollars that are

406
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funneled into that system. A lot of it just goes

407
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into this sort of metastatic growth of administration. You see

408
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:14,559
this at many of the top schools, and you're absolutely

409
00:26:14,599 --> 00:26:20,400
right about the political orientation of the people who hold

410
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:26,240
those jobs. Very similar in government bureaucracy as well. It

411
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is a kind of patronage network, and.

412
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Speaker 4: You earlier hearts out for the people who know you

413
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:34,720
inside out.

414
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,559
Speaker 5: Giants on the football pitch make everyone who knows them

415
00:26:38,599 --> 00:26:41,759
feel ten feet tall when you put the ball over

416
00:26:41,799 --> 00:26:42,079
the bar.

417
00:26:42,519 --> 00:26:46,279
Speaker 2: You put the pirates on the map, and one man sixty.

418
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Speaker 8: Minutes to me a whole town's spinerstone.

419
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Speaker 5: Because when it's club, it lives forever. This is the

420
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421
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429
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Speaker 8: I think what would in fact improve education a great

430
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,920
deal would be to shut off a great deal of

431
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:44,079
that money. And people will scream. Of course, they will

432
00:27:44,079 --> 00:27:48,240
say your anti education, why are you attacking education? And

433
00:27:48,319 --> 00:27:52,119
of course that's nonsense. I mean a lot of the

434
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:57,160
actual teaching of students can be done very inexpensively. I

435
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,119
mean there are some areas, like support for research in

436
00:28:00,519 --> 00:28:03,440
the sciences, where you could like maybe make an argument

437
00:28:03,519 --> 00:28:07,680
that some sort of research funding is actually playing a

438
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,119
more functional role. But there's just a huge amount of

439
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,839
money that isn't anything like that. And you're right on

440
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:20,680
target about the growth of administration as a percentage of

441
00:28:20,839 --> 00:28:25,359
university budgets, which themselves have ballooned. It's just very clear

442
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,720
that a huge amount of that has nothing to do

443
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with what we would sort of think of as functional

444
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load bearing education.

445
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Speaker 3: Well, I think that you may an apt point. I

446
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want to turn to something you said earlier about the

447
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distinction between vocational and a liberal education. Obviously, very great

448
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:50,720
number of people throughout time, I mean, look at American

449
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history who had a liberal education and proved to be

450
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quite useful. So they're not completely separate circles under then diagram.

451
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But when we look at a liberal education, like what

452
00:29:02,759 --> 00:29:05,359
does that mean? You go back to Aristotle and his

453
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:10,079
idea was that education was effectively a leisure activity, right,

454
00:29:10,359 --> 00:29:15,839
you needed to have time to educate yourself, and transforming

455
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:20,000
an education into something that is that has gotten you

456
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:24,559
get an education. It's sort of the same sort of

457
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:29,559
thinking you see often parodied as magic dirt, where these

458
00:29:29,559 --> 00:29:31,839
people live in a nice neighborhood. These people live in

459
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,359
a bad neighborhood. The bad neighborhood is full of crime.

460
00:29:34,519 --> 00:29:36,240
If we pick the people up and move them into

461
00:29:36,279 --> 00:29:39,920
the nice neighborhood, it will transform them into nice, productive

462
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,799
people with a white picket fence. Similarly, the idea is, well,

463
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,240
the products of this, you know, liberal education are very impressive.

464
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You know, they're they're discovering new animals, you know, inventing

465
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all of these sort of processes that benefit the human

466
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species for at large, and they passed through this door

467
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literally in the case of some institut And if we

468
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:05,720
could simply funnel through an additional ten twenty thousand people

469
00:30:05,759 --> 00:30:08,519
a year, we would create ten or twenty thousand of

470
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those impressive men. I think a lot about one of

471
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my friends who is multi generationally. I said that very badly.

472
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Many generations of his family have been to Harvard, I'll

473
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:26,200
say it like that, And he went to a prestige

474
00:30:26,359 --> 00:30:29,880
prep school in New England. His family has for generations.

475
00:30:30,599 --> 00:30:32,519
And one of the things that he talks about is

476
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that it was sort of up for debate how much

477
00:30:36,759 --> 00:30:42,960
the education per se made those men great, because he

478
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,799
said they were impressive people before, and obviously they learned

479
00:30:46,799 --> 00:30:49,319
from the best, they were able to fraternize one to another,

480
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,519
build the sort of connections that prepared them for life.

481
00:30:52,559 --> 00:30:56,880
But also they were drawing from an existing ruling class, right,

482
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,000
and many of them went through that prep school system.

483
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:04,039
And the same urge to universalize or democratize that we've

484
00:31:04,039 --> 00:31:06,839
seen in education more broadly hit that system as well. So,

485
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,720
for instance, Harvard instituted a program that said, and I

486
00:31:10,799 --> 00:31:13,240
might be off on these numbers. This is me remembering

487
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,400
a conversation I had several months ago, so don't crucify me.

488
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,400
But he said they instituted a cap on how many

489
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,799
students could come from any one school, so they could

490
00:31:22,799 --> 00:31:25,720
accept no more than I believe it's three students from

491
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:30,359
any given school. So whereas before you have a graduating

492
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,200
class of one hundred very impressive students, and the top

493
00:31:34,319 --> 00:31:37,200
seventy would all end up at Harvard and the stupidest

494
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,119
thirty would end up at Yale. That's what he said.

495
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,039
I assume that's what joke. That's funny to people who

496
00:31:41,119 --> 00:31:43,519
went there. I was never smart enough to go to

497
00:31:43,559 --> 00:31:45,480
an IVY in any time, so I don't have a

498
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,200
dog in this fight. But point is, when that system

499
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,599
goes away, you're only taking the top three, so competition

500
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,119
becomes very cutthroat for that top three. Sure, but where

501
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:57,920
did those people go? Will they go elsewhere? And all

502
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,160
of a sudden, right that Harvard graduating class is being

503
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,559
made up of a different sort of person drawn from

504
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,920
you know, in many cases still brilliant kids from different

505
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,680
schools who no doubt do well. But let's be honest,

506
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:14,000
that's not what's happening. They're not selecting an even meritocracy

507
00:32:14,039 --> 00:32:18,039
from everywhere, and so the products of that university have declined.

508
00:32:18,359 --> 00:32:21,160
They've gone through the same magic door, they stand on

509
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:26,160
the same magic dirt, and well, the magic hasn't worked.

510
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,039
We have not produced, you know, more of these kind

511
00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:34,599
of capable people needed to sort of lead to society.

512
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,279
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think your analogy with the magic

513
00:32:38,319 --> 00:32:41,920
dirt is very good. And just as the magic dirt

514
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,240
turns out not to be magic and not work, likewise

515
00:32:45,279 --> 00:32:48,359
the magic door turns out to not be magic and

516
00:32:48,599 --> 00:32:53,160
not work. It was always the case that Harvard and

517
00:32:53,559 --> 00:33:03,880
other similar universities were selecting from uparticular elite and propagating

518
00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:08,079
the next generation of that elite. It used to be

519
00:33:08,799 --> 00:33:12,599
that for Harvard, for example, that this was very New

520
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:20,400
England focused, and there was a kind of hereditary, de

521
00:33:20,559 --> 00:33:26,000
facto aristocracy that Harvard served and propagated. And you know,

522
00:33:26,039 --> 00:33:30,240
many people would would say, very frankly during that period,

523
00:33:30,279 --> 00:33:33,319
you know, the people going to Harvard aren't necessarily all

524
00:33:33,359 --> 00:33:37,359
that right. They simply came from the right families, the

525
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,519
right prep schools, and they will go on to work

526
00:33:40,559 --> 00:33:44,200
at the right law firms or what have you. And

527
00:33:44,559 --> 00:33:48,480
that was right, That was a correct description of what

528
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:54,039
was going on after World War Two, there was this

529
00:33:54,559 --> 00:33:58,640
very conscious sort of decision, and it didn't happen at

530
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,480
one time. It kind of went throughses, but a very

531
00:34:02,519 --> 00:34:08,800
conscious set of decisions to change that Harvard became was

532
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,360
very was always very conscious of what it was doing

533
00:34:11,519 --> 00:34:15,159
in terms of elite selection and formation, but it just

534
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:20,320
made a decision to broaden that well beyond its former

535
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:26,719
WASP kind of base into other parts of the population,

536
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,760
and it did that progressively more and more. There was

537
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:35,320
a period of, you know, a couple decades in the

538
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:39,280
middle of the century when they leaned very hard into

539
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:44,000
the SATs, which are really in the This is less

540
00:34:44,039 --> 00:34:46,639
true now, but what the SATs looked like like in

541
00:34:46,679 --> 00:34:49,800
the nineteen sixties, they were sort of a proxy IQ test.

542
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,880
They always denied that, but it really sort of was

543
00:34:53,079 --> 00:34:54,320
not that different from an IQ.

544
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:57,199
Speaker 3: I think the correlation and it depends because they've they've

545
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,360
messed with the test to such a degree that is

546
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,920
completely used, but I believe it's peak. The correlation is

547
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,320
zero point seven point eight something, so not perfect, but

548
00:35:04,679 --> 00:35:05,559
pretty damn close.

549
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:06,119
Speaker 6: That's right.

550
00:35:07,599 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 8: So they made a decision, well, we're going to be

551
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,119
more a meritocratic We're not going to cater to the

552
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:19,159
not so bright suns of wealthy wasps who are you know, alumni. Necessarily,

553
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,280
we'll still let a few of those into but you know,

554
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,280
we're going to try to deliberately have a more a

555
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:29,360
meritocratic focus. And that was you know, nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties.

556
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,760
But then what happens is various, you know, the civil

557
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:37,719
rights movement comes along, various you know, ethnic considerations come

558
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,000
into play, and they say, well, the way we're selecting

559
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:47,599
is still very non representative of the population. We want

560
00:35:47,639 --> 00:35:51,719
to make a conscious effort to make it much more representative.

561
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:56,880
So then you see this strong trend away from the SAT,

562
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:02,559
away from a kind of strictly meritocratic kind of emphasis,

563
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:08,159
towards other criteria, and this just gets pushed further and further.

564
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:15,199
It's still deliberate elite formation. They still know very well

565
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:22,079
what we're handing out are these sort of you know, parchments,

566
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,599
you know, declarations of minor nobility, as if you know

567
00:36:25,679 --> 00:36:28,920
that the queen had like made you a knight or something.

568
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:32,360
We understand that this is the function of the diploma,

569
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:37,480
and that we're giving people this ticket to elite jobs

570
00:36:37,519 --> 00:36:39,719
and whatnot. But we're gonna We're going to hand that

571
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:43,760
ticket out very differently than we were doing before. And

572
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:50,960
the problem is that the more that diverges from any

573
00:36:51,840 --> 00:37:00,960
common sense notion of merit or academic achievement, the more

574
00:37:01,079 --> 00:37:05,199
the credibility of the institution weakens, the more the brand

575
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:10,920
ultimately becomes questionable. Until I think we're at a point

576
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,079
now where you know, I hate to say this, but

577
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,360
I almost view a Harvard diploma as an anti signal,

578
00:37:19,639 --> 00:37:23,400
as a kind of a reason for me to look

579
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,960
more skeptically or more to provide additional scrutiny on a

580
00:37:28,039 --> 00:37:31,679
resume or something like that. Then then as some unquestioned

581
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:34,960
stamp of credibility.

582
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,679
Speaker 3: Several things there, well, one, and this is something that uh,

583
00:37:40,159 --> 00:37:43,960
Johann Kurz wrote about in his recent book Leaving a Legacy.

584
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,719
He's not paying me to say that, it's just beat

585
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,679
you should read it, uh, But he talks about that

586
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:55,159
term meritocracy, and he says there's there's sort of a

587
00:37:55,199 --> 00:38:00,039
Mott and Bailey being argument there where, you know, so

588
00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:04,559
of course the idea that systems should be just that

589
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:09,119
deserving people should you know, receive accolades, you know, the

590
00:38:09,199 --> 00:38:11,880
right man for the right job is almost autological, like,

591
00:38:12,199 --> 00:38:14,519
very few people disagree with that if you formulate it

592
00:38:14,599 --> 00:38:19,119
like that. But meritocracy often means is this sort of

593
00:38:19,159 --> 00:38:24,440
like like Manchurian obsession with exams, right, the idea that

594
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:27,880
you need to sort of craft yourself specifically to meet

595
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:32,199
certain entrance requirements. I remember this very distinctly when I

596
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,800
was applying to schools where there was this sort of

597
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,159
you know, complicated calculus of you know, you need to

598
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,880
you know, have your SATs, your gap, your gap geez,

599
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,880
your GPA, and then also you know, the requisite number

600
00:38:46,039 --> 00:38:48,960
of you know, extracurriculars you know, spread out in the

601
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,800
optimal way so you can optimize yourself to pass through

602
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,159
this gate. And you know, I think it created this

603
00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:00,920
very unhealthy culture where everything was being done entirely for

604
00:39:01,039 --> 00:39:04,480
mercenary reasons, right, Everything was being pursued so that you

605
00:39:04,519 --> 00:39:07,519
could fit through the filter. And again I think about

606
00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:10,559
my friend who was just mentioning Harvard as the system

607
00:39:10,599 --> 00:39:15,199
where they will pull in alumni to interview prospective students,

608
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,639
and I think this was the moment that he completely

609
00:39:18,639 --> 00:39:21,440
cut all ties with his alma mater. But he describes,

610
00:39:21,599 --> 00:39:24,679
you know, going up, you know, going there, sitting down

611
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:28,320
for this meeting with this girl, and apparently she she

612
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,440
nailed the interview, right, she had. She explained that she is,

613
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:36,079
you know, a deeply you know, involved tribal artist, right

614
00:39:36,159 --> 00:39:39,480
reconstructing uh you know, the culture from which she was,

615
00:39:39,559 --> 00:39:42,239
you know where she came, and you know, really nailed

616
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,400
the interview until you know, after it was done, you know,

617
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:47,800
they'd shaken hands and all that. Well, he asked her, well,

618
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,000
you know, how long have you been doing this, and she,

619
00:39:50,559 --> 00:39:53,199
perhaps unwisely answered honestly, she said, oh, well I started

620
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,800
last month. You know that that relatively like just just

621
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,519
flay write something I could just start doing. Train formed

622
00:40:00,559 --> 00:40:05,280
into you know, this lifelong passion for you know, the

623
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,960
sort of your ethnic heritage, you know, the passion for

624
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,920
the arts. And no doubt she was coached through that, right,

625
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,440
and someone told her to do that, right. But there's

626
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:19,719
sort of this over reliance on metrics that I think

627
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:22,039
is not healthy either.

628
00:40:22,159 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 8: Right.

629
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,639
Speaker 3: The idea that you can create, that you can craft

630
00:40:24,639 --> 00:40:27,719
a sort of I guess you could say a craft

631
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:31,159
is sort of like you know, genius algorithm to sort through.

632
00:40:31,679 --> 00:40:34,480
And again I think that that is a consequence.

633
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:38,639
Speaker 13: Of imagine heartburn protection that lasts up to twenty four

634
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:43,639
hours from first thing in the morning the last thing

635
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:49,719
at night. Don't just imagine. Nexium Control gastro resistant tablets

636
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:54,800
provide up to twenty four hour uninterrupted heartburn protection. Nexium

637
00:40:54,840 --> 00:41:01,199
Control twenty milligram gastro resistant tablets. Ask your pharmacistins smeprazol

638
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,679
used for up to two weeks. Always read the label

639
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:04,400
or leaflet.

640
00:41:07,199 --> 00:41:09,159
Speaker 14: The body is that of a thirty five year old.

641
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:14,280
Significant legians to the face, particularly the right temple, correlating

642
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:19,400
to the intracranial hemorrhaging observed, seatbelt operations, clear across chest

643
00:41:19,519 --> 00:41:25,119
and abdomen, broken femur antibor right leg. Cause of death

644
00:41:25,519 --> 00:41:30,039
drink driving, drink and drive, and you could put someone

645
00:41:30,079 --> 00:41:32,519
on a mortuary slab a message from the road safety

646
00:41:32,519 --> 00:41:34,480
authority visit orsa dot i e.

647
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,559
Speaker 3: You're turning every one of these institutions into first and

648
00:41:37,639 --> 00:41:43,119
national and then international contest, basically where you were no

649
00:41:43,199 --> 00:41:45,840
longer competing against you know that sort of you know,

650
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,599
local elite, you were competing against the world. And obviously,

651
00:41:49,679 --> 00:41:51,880
as you've said, it sort of becomes a writ of trade.

652
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:55,400
You know, the Emperor has given you you know, passage

653
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,880
into the you know, the the aristocratic class. So it's

654
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,239
you know, it's it's human nature, and it's rational for

655
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:03,519
those people to act like that, even if it's not moral,

656
00:42:03,559 --> 00:42:06,760
and even if it doesn't necessarily produce you know, the

657
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,000
best product. But do you see what I'm getting at

658
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:14,639
their kind of distinguishing between meritocracy and meritocracy as it were.

659
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 11: Yeah.

660
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,159
Speaker 8: Absolutely, just because there is a hoop to jump through,

661
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,280
a gate to pass through, doesn't mean that that hoop

662
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:27,920
or that gait, that filter genuinely represents what we would

663
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:33,280
intuitively think of as merit It could simply represent the

664
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:38,679
filter that some institution has created to shape the student

665
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:45,599
body that they have determined, perhaps for political reasons, ideological reasons,

666
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:53,760
financial reasons, that they want. And you know, on the

667
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:55,599
one hand, you could say, well, it's a private institution.

668
00:42:55,639 --> 00:42:58,079
It can do whatever it pleases. You know, why should

669
00:42:58,119 --> 00:43:01,119
I complain? But on the other hand, that doesn't that

670
00:43:01,159 --> 00:43:07,239
shouldn't elicit our respect, That that doesn't mean, you know,

671
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,000
we should think well of them just because they have this.

672
00:43:10,119 --> 00:43:13,559
Speaker 3: And to that point, they take a lot of my money. Yeah,

673
00:43:13,599 --> 00:43:16,360
you know, if they're committed to being a private institution. Well,

674
00:43:17,039 --> 00:43:19,559
then I guess you've committed to being a private institution then.

675
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:28,639
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean so much of this is just, uh,

676
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:30,480
you know, I think a lot there's been a lot

677
00:43:30,519 --> 00:43:35,440
of articles about the extremely unhealthy culture in some circles

678
00:43:35,519 --> 00:43:39,760
of trying to gain this system and get into the

679
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:44,239
best elite university you can, you know you can. There's

680
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:48,079
some people who start like literally with preschools. You got

681
00:43:48,119 --> 00:43:50,199
to get into the right private preschool, so you can

682
00:43:50,199 --> 00:43:52,400
get into the right elementary school, so you can get

683
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,360
into the right high school. And it's like there's whole

684
00:43:55,519 --> 00:44:00,280
chain more than K through twelve determining what you're going

685
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:01,960
to do with your life so that you can have

686
00:44:02,039 --> 00:44:06,400
this outcome, and people can become obsessed with that. And

687
00:44:07,119 --> 00:44:10,519
I think a lot of this has to do with

688
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:17,920
excessive credentialism. Why is there even the demand for this,

689
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:22,079
like on the job side, on the hiring side, I mean,

690
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,360
I think it's sort of inevitable that you're always going

691
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:28,360
to have a kind of stratification of different kinds of

692
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:35,079
careers where you know, some people graduating from some universities

693
00:44:35,159 --> 00:44:38,400
can get into some career tracks that aren't really practically

694
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:43,920
open to others. I think that's somewhat inevitable and is

695
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:48,920
not even necessarily a bad thing. Where it becomes a

696
00:44:49,079 --> 00:44:56,159
bad thing is when employers at large widely adopt some

697
00:44:56,519 --> 00:45:01,639
standard that you must have a batch lri's degree or

698
00:45:02,519 --> 00:45:06,440
more and more commonly now even a master's degree or

699
00:45:06,519 --> 00:45:09,719
a PhD in order to be eligible that this is

700
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,239
sort of like the bottom floor qualification. And I think

701
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:15,920
a lot of that is just completely inflated. I think

702
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,119
there's a lot of jobs where that degree is not

703
00:45:19,199 --> 00:45:24,440
necessary and we be much better served by some more

704
00:45:25,079 --> 00:45:28,679
kind of practical assessment, like you know, can you do

705
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:30,760
can you you know, show me that you can actually

706
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:33,840
do the job, you know, through some whether it be

707
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:37,559
some project work you do, or some on hands very

708
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,880
problem solving kind of interviewing or or something like that.

709
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:46,519
And and it depends on the field obviously, but yeah,

710
00:45:46,559 --> 00:45:52,280
and not simply using the credential as a kind of

711
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,920
shorthand for that, because the credential itself, you know, has

712
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,199
become so watered down. It's very low signal in a

713
00:45:59,199 --> 00:46:01,840
lot of cases, and I think the employers aren't even

714
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:05,320
doing themselves a favor by relying on it so much.

715
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 3: This is sort of an interesting thing because to your

716
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:16,400
point about the low value of a college degree, or

717
00:46:16,519 --> 00:46:19,639
we can extend that, I think perhaps the weakest signal

718
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:23,440
is an MBA. I've met exactly one impressive MBA in

719
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:25,679
my life, and the rest of them it is sort

720
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,159
of just a gold star, you know, put on a

721
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:32,440
you know, otherwise unremarkable resume. But you know, enough of

722
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:37,639
me trashing MBAs. You actually see an interesting outcome in

723
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,960
family businesses right where it is passed down by a

724
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,119
genetic line instead of you on the open market, they

725
00:46:44,159 --> 00:46:48,679
actually tend to outperform any given business, but not huge amount,

726
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,519
but significantly. And the argument that I've heard to explain

727
00:46:52,559 --> 00:46:55,679
this is effectively, it's on the job training. You have

728
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,800
someone who has been prepped for this job since they

729
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:03,159
were eleven, and okay, maybe they don't have, you know,

730
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:07,239
the sort of credentials you know associated with that, but

731
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:09,880
that sort of thing is invaluable, right. It is something

732
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:13,159
you can't necessarily measure per se, right, how much your

733
00:47:13,199 --> 00:47:15,719
dad showed you around the family business, but it is

734
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,599
nonetheless something that you can track the result of. I

735
00:47:19,639 --> 00:47:27,360
think that and this is something I oftentimes see from conservatives,

736
00:47:27,519 --> 00:47:32,800
which I think is not particularly positive, which is, they

737
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:39,920
accurately understand that higher education is as a system opposed

738
00:47:40,039 --> 00:47:43,880
to them, but then they assume that the correct thing

739
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:48,440
to do is you completely abandoned such a system, because

740
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:51,960
the problem is you do need a certain amount of

741
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,199
as you've said earlier, a certain amount of credentialism, a

742
00:47:55,199 --> 00:47:57,360
certain amount of like the Old Boys Club, is just

743
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:03,239
inevitable to human organization. And I worry that the constant

744
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:05,360
calls to oh, you know, don't go to college, get

745
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,960
a job in a trade. While that might be individually rational,

746
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:12,079
I believe Bloomberg in the last six weeks, Uh, I

747
00:48:12,079 --> 00:48:14,320
don't have it in front of me basically put out

748
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,280
that for a young white man, the expected value of

749
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,719
a college degree is zero. You're effectively exactly the same

750
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,960
as a high school education. So and while it may

751
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,239
be individually rational to say, you know, well, in that case,

752
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:31,199
why bother you know, I will simply, you know, support

753
00:48:31,199 --> 00:48:34,960
myself elsewhere. But you were sort of opting out of

754
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,239
the middle and upper class. You're basically saying I will

755
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,280
simply not apply. And maybe this has something to do

756
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,840
within the fact with the fact that in America, money

757
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:47,119
and class are much more linked than they are in

758
00:48:47,159 --> 00:48:49,480
other countries. But do you think that there is a

759
00:48:49,559 --> 00:48:53,239
danger of fully removing yourself from that system and in

760
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:59,519
doing so sort of resigning to a relatively lower position

761
00:48:59,559 --> 00:49:00,280
in society.

762
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:03,760
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, absolutely. Before I address that, let me go

763
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,119
back to the point about family businesses, because I think

764
00:49:06,119 --> 00:49:10,280
there's something important there. If you think of what is

765
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:15,119
the distinguishing feature of a family business that makes it

766
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:18,719
able to do what you were describing, I would point

767
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:23,239
to its continuity. The fact that it has the potential

768
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:27,800
for continuity not only over years and decades, but perhaps

769
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:35,440
even intergenerationally, allows for a kind of loyalty and investment

770
00:49:35,599 --> 00:49:39,960
in employees that you might not see in a regular corporation.

771
00:49:40,519 --> 00:49:45,400
I mean, some people who are like very cynical might say, oh, well,

772
00:49:45,599 --> 00:49:49,199
you know, family business, that's great if your dad happens

773
00:49:49,199 --> 00:49:51,840
to have one. But that's just you being privileged. Your

774
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:53,559
dad happened to give you this job. You know what

775
00:49:53,599 --> 00:49:56,840
does that prove? And I think that's very silly. That's

776
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,079
not seeing the point at all. A lot times when

777
00:50:01,159 --> 00:50:06,239
these businesses are successful, it's because the second generation, third

778
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,239
generation or whatever has worked very hard that on the

779
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:13,239
job training isn't just like a plum position that was

780
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,480
handed to them. It was that, No, they had to

781
00:50:15,519 --> 00:50:17,599
come up in the business and really learn it and

782
00:50:17,679 --> 00:50:21,719
learn how to run it successfully, and learned a whole

783
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,480
hell of a lot more of nuts and bolts than

784
00:50:24,599 --> 00:50:27,599
they might have in another company. And it's not even

785
00:50:27,639 --> 00:50:33,679
necessarily the members of the family. Even other employees in

786
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:37,079
a family business who aren't part of the owning family

787
00:50:38,039 --> 00:50:43,159
may have that opportunity for a longer term relationship of

788
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:49,960
the business investing in them in their training. So it's

789
00:50:50,639 --> 00:50:53,639
I think the key factor there is it's an institution

790
00:50:54,039 --> 00:50:58,360
that tends to think in the long term much more

791
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:00,280
than other companies might.

792
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:04,119
Speaker 3: Okay, weirdly enough, this is a point that that Happa makes.

793
00:51:04,639 --> 00:51:07,960
You know, obviously talking about monarchy, but he talks about

794
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,559
exactly that that you were. You were selecting for a

795
00:51:11,679 --> 00:51:16,159
ruler or an executive who has a stake. And obviously

796
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:19,840
there are bad kings, clearly obviously there are you know,

797
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:23,559
fail sons who tank the family business. Yep, but you're

798
00:51:23,599 --> 00:51:27,840
avoiding the principal agent problem that we see even in education.

799
00:51:28,159 --> 00:51:31,880
Right as an administrator, what is your incentive is it

800
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:37,599
to educate the best people or to effectively enrich yourself anyway,

801
00:51:37,639 --> 00:51:38,639
Sorry I interrupt.

802
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 8: No, that you're exactly right, And I think the point

803
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:44,360
I was making about continuity on the way I would

804
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:46,719
say this is it applies not only to businesses but

805
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:51,800
to institutions in general. That when institutions are incentivized to

806
00:51:52,039 --> 00:51:57,440
pay attention to their own continuity and succession, you know

807
00:51:57,639 --> 00:52:02,400
that who's going to run this after I, the founder

808
00:52:02,519 --> 00:52:07,400
or the current generation is gone, And how can I

809
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:11,280
structure things so that they can do so successfully or

810
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,480
at least maximize the chance that they can do so successfully.

811
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:16,960
That's where you see that difference. And I think that's

812
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:23,559
Happa's point as well. Oh yeah, we were should one

813
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:30,159
opt out or of the educational system that whole discourse about,

814
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:33,119
you know, I guess the caricatured version of it is

815
00:52:33,159 --> 00:52:37,519
just become a plumber. Yeah, I'm absolutely not saying that.

816
00:52:37,639 --> 00:52:43,639
I think that the fact that universities are in such

817
00:52:43,679 --> 00:52:48,360
a bad way is very unfortunate, as I was saying,

818
00:52:48,559 --> 00:52:52,639
not something that we can take any glee in or

819
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:59,639
even just walk away from. You have to look for

820
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:04,280
pop gifts of functionality, whether that be on the basis

821
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,519
of what school you go to, what department you go to,

822
00:53:07,639 --> 00:53:11,440
or even just individuals searching out individuals who have their

823
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:17,119
head screwed on straight among professors versus others. I think

824
00:53:17,519 --> 00:53:21,039
for many people, their best shot is going to be

825
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:25,559
to find the best school they can go into it

826
00:53:25,599 --> 00:53:32,280
with their eyes open, understand the biases, understand the corruption.

827
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:38,320
Take a very active role in piecing together a curriculum.

828
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:42,199
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834
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835
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839
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840
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Speaker 8: One of the things that has happened as standards have

841
00:54:33,599 --> 00:54:40,159
fallen is that required courses have been sort of the

842
00:54:40,199 --> 00:54:44,360
course requirements or curricular requirements for different majors have been

843
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:48,480
relaxed and relaxed until the point where often you're being

844
00:54:48,559 --> 00:54:52,440
given very little guidance about what you should take. It's

845
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:54,280
just like, you need this many credits and we'll give

846
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:58,559
you a degree. And that's in general, that's a bad thing.

847
00:54:59,199 --> 00:55:02,800
But if you're sort of proactive and you go into

848
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,760
that with your eyes open, you can take advantage of

849
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:10,880
it to put together in affect your own major. I mean,

850
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:16,079
even though you know, within within the shell of whatever

851
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:19,800
majors they're providing, just by which what electives you choose,

852
00:55:20,199 --> 00:55:22,840
what courses you take, you you may be able to

853
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:28,760
you know, piecemeal together something that's actually useful and reasonable,

854
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:32,559
even though they're not making that easy for you. And

855
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:36,840
I think solutions like that, where you take it upon

856
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:41,800
yourself to you know, figure out what's up, what will

857
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:46,679
be helpful and kind of piece stuff together yourself, can

858
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:50,920
be one way. There are some smaller institutions that are

859
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:55,320
still very solid. Not a lot of them, but you know,

860
00:55:55,400 --> 00:56:00,239
you may steer that way. So yeah, I don't don't

861
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,280
think opt out or just you know, go be a

862
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:06,639
plumber or go be a tradesman. Nothing against those trades,

863
00:56:06,679 --> 00:56:08,400
by the way, I think there. I think there are

864
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:12,599
people who pursue them very fruitfully, who become wealthy doing that,

865
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,920
or you know who you know support themselves and their

866
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,519
families very well. And if that actually is something you

867
00:56:19,559 --> 00:56:23,119
were inclined to anyway, by no means am I disparaging that.

868
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:29,159
But if what you were aiming for was a more conventional,

869
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:33,079
you know, quote unquote white collar kind of career in

870
00:56:33,159 --> 00:56:38,599
any field, if you're looking for fields which require college degrees,

871
00:56:39,199 --> 00:56:43,000
whether reasonably or not, but they do, and you need

872
00:56:43,039 --> 00:56:47,159
to accommodate that, Yeah, by all means, still get a

873
00:56:47,199 --> 00:56:51,480
degree and try to navigate your way through the madness

874
00:56:51,559 --> 00:56:52,360
as best you can.

875
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:58,079
Speaker 3: Well to that point, I think that ultimately what you

876
00:56:58,079 --> 00:57:02,960
have to do is approach higher education with the correct attitude. Yeah,

877
00:57:03,119 --> 00:57:07,760
we spoke disparagingly earlier about getting an education. To your

878
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:11,199
point about the standards of your course reading, certainly, I

879
00:57:11,199 --> 00:57:14,079
mean geez, I could have had I not been, let's

880
00:57:14,079 --> 00:57:16,119
be honest, a giant nerd, I could have gone through

881
00:57:16,119 --> 00:57:19,599
my entire college career without actually reading anything in its entirety.

882
00:57:20,719 --> 00:57:23,480
I certainly gave it a good run, But like it

883
00:57:23,519 --> 00:57:28,280
was entirely doable. So to that point, if you actually

884
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,719
are interested in learning anything, it will sort of be up.

885
00:57:32,159 --> 00:57:34,239
It will sort of be up to you. I think

886
00:57:34,239 --> 00:57:37,840
that's ultimately a positive thing, right, Not necessarily economically, it

887
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:40,400
would probably do that without the you know, one hundred

888
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:43,239
thousand dollars in debt, but certain point, that's the that's

889
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:45,679
the price you have to pay to enter a white

890
00:57:45,719 --> 00:57:49,159
collar career. But if you you assume that you are

891
00:57:49,159 --> 00:57:52,719
earning an education that it requires deliberate, active work on

892
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:58,239
your behalf, then ultimately that is where the value is. Additionally, right,

893
00:57:58,239 --> 00:58:01,000
there's the social value, you know, of who you will

894
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:04,360
be rubbing shoulders with. You know, there is a value

895
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:06,239
to that, sort of like social I guess you could

896
00:58:06,239 --> 00:58:09,199
say entryism, but uh, I mean, when I look back

897
00:58:09,199 --> 00:58:12,840
at my own college career, I'm gonna be honest, in class,

898
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:14,559
barely learned a damn thing. If we're gonna be on

899
00:58:14,599 --> 00:58:17,079
hundred percent honest. Partially that was due to COVID, where

900
00:58:17,079 --> 00:58:20,719
nobody learned anything. But also, right, it's funny, you know,

901
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:23,760
mentioning Kappa or even earlier talking about these kind of

902
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:27,719
managers and bureaucrats. You know, James Burnham's Managerial Revolution. I

903
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,400
read both of those in college. In fact, I remember

904
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,880
where I was on campus reading them, and that was

905
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:35,800
what was valuable there. Right, I had the time to

906
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:39,599
do that, you could develop intellectually. And sure you could say, well,

907
00:58:39,599 --> 00:58:42,840
are you not just taking four years off from your life? Yes,

908
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:45,960
I didn't really have another option. Right, If there was

909
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:49,320
a way to both develop, you know, economically, be building

910
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:51,760
something and also you have that sort of you know,

911
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,239
gold star needed, I would have done it. But ultimately, right,

912
00:58:55,719 --> 00:58:58,159
we live in a world of constraints. You know, sure

913
00:58:58,199 --> 00:58:59,960
it would be great if we could fix the education

914
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:03,719
system the wave of a hand, But Stephen, unless you're

915
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:06,079
hiding something from me, I don't believe either of us

916
00:59:06,119 --> 00:59:08,679
have the ability to do that. And so ultimately you

917
00:59:08,719 --> 00:59:11,480
were dealing with the system as it is. Let alone

918
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:14,920
the fact that for most people, their time in education

919
00:59:15,039 --> 00:59:18,320
is a distinct, truncated part of their life, and relatively

920
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,360
few people go back later in life right to achieve

921
00:59:21,400 --> 00:59:24,800
those sort of educational accolades. So ultimately, it's sort of

922
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:27,719
similar to a lot of dating discourse right where you know,

923
00:59:27,760 --> 00:59:29,760
I wish, wouldn't it be great if this were different?

924
00:59:30,159 --> 00:59:34,039
It's like, well, it isn't and you can't make it different.

925
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,719
So ultimately, do you want to play the game or not?

926
00:59:38,159 --> 00:59:39,199
You see what I'm getting at.

927
00:59:39,480 --> 00:59:43,079
Speaker 8: Yep, none of us chooses the world into which we're born.

928
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:46,239
None of us chooses the system that is in front

929
00:59:46,239 --> 00:59:49,480
of us to navigate. What we get to choose is

930
00:59:49,519 --> 00:59:56,519
how to navigate it. So at some level, all education

931
00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:03,199
is self education. All education is the learner's own study

932
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:08,079
and engagement and sort of you know, thinking through and

933
01:00:08,159 --> 01:00:11,760
reading and practice. That's always true, and it's always been true.

934
01:00:12,239 --> 01:00:17,559
In a more ideal situation, the teachers kind of serve

935
01:00:17,719 --> 01:00:28,239
as guides and can often provide crucial encouragement, direction hints

936
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:32,880
as to what direction to go in, expose you to

937
01:00:33,199 --> 01:00:37,039
books and material you otherwise wouldn't be exposed to, and

938
01:00:37,119 --> 01:00:42,440
so they play an important role if you can find

939
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:46,360
good teachers. Now it's probably always been true that good

940
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:50,519
teachers are the minority. If you can find a truly

941
01:00:50,639 --> 01:00:53,360
great teacher, just one or two in your life, you're

942
01:00:53,559 --> 01:00:58,159
truly fortunate. They can make a huge amount of difference.

943
01:00:58,559 --> 01:01:02,280
But even in the absence of that, you shouldn't despair.

944
01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:07,480
You should simply know that that means there is more

945
01:01:07,559 --> 01:01:13,440
burden on you to lean into this and to you know,

946
01:01:14,119 --> 01:01:15,920
you can. There are there are there are lots of

947
01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:21,320
resources other than the university you may be attending at

948
01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:24,719
the moment. There are book lists, there are you know,

949
01:01:25,239 --> 01:01:29,280
resources on the web. There's lots of things where you

950
01:01:29,320 --> 01:01:32,280
can find books. You mentioned, you know, two good books,

951
01:01:32,400 --> 01:01:39,079
Managerial Revolution and Hoppo's Book on Democracy, and you know,

952
01:01:39,119 --> 01:01:42,039
there's lots of books like that, And there's there's lots

953
01:01:42,119 --> 01:01:46,679
of you know, places on the web where you can

954
01:01:46,719 --> 01:01:50,960
find people listing such books and discussing such books. And

955
01:01:51,039 --> 01:01:54,719
it doesn't mean that you have to like adopt this

956
01:01:55,039 --> 01:01:59,039
entire shadow curriculum in addition to what you're doing with

957
01:01:59,119 --> 01:02:03,079
the university, so that in effect you're doing two university degrees,

958
01:02:03,119 --> 01:02:06,280
although it may turn into that or it may seem

959
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:10,360
like that, but even just pulling on a few resources

960
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:17,519
like that that may or may not intersect with your

961
01:02:17,599 --> 01:02:22,880
university studies just can be hugely, hugely valuable just to

962
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:28,920
know that there are intelligent, knowledgeable people in the world

963
01:02:28,960 --> 01:02:32,280
who have thought about these things, written on these things,

964
01:02:32,599 --> 01:02:35,400
and you can learn from them, and you can find

965
01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:40,400
other people who are interested in them, interested in discussing them,

966
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:43,840
seriously studying them, and that can be done in conjunction

967
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:48,159
with the process of getting a degree, and when you

968
01:02:48,199 --> 01:02:50,280
finally do get that degree, you may be in a

969
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:55,280
much more oriented place than if you had not leaned

970
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:56,079
into it that way.

971
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:01,079
Speaker 3: Well, Stephen, this has been a fascinating conversation. I appreciate

972
01:03:01,119 --> 01:03:03,480
your time and also for bearing with me where I

973
01:03:03,519 --> 01:03:08,079
gave you absolutely nothing to prepare that episode. But if

974
01:03:08,119 --> 01:03:09,960
people want to find you, they want to find your work,

975
01:03:10,119 --> 01:03:12,519
what's the best way for them to do so early?

976
01:03:12,639 --> 01:03:15,400
The easiest thing is on Twitter. I'm active on Twitter.

977
01:03:15,559 --> 01:03:22,239
Speaker 8: My handle is at Steven piment That's s T E

978
01:03:22,440 --> 01:03:27,119
P h E n p I M E n T.

979
01:03:28,239 --> 01:03:31,599
That's actually not my last name. My last name is Pimentel,

980
01:03:31,719 --> 01:03:36,559
but I shortened it for the handle, and from there

981
01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:40,119
you can see various stuff I've written. I've you know,

982
01:03:40,199 --> 01:03:43,320
I've written for a bunch of different publications. I usually

983
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:47,800
post about it and uh yeah, people should be happy,

984
01:03:48,119 --> 01:03:51,039
feel free to reach out to me DM whatever.

985
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:54,679
Speaker 3: Well, and I should say what actually intended to talk

986
01:03:54,719 --> 01:03:57,880
about completely different? I was you read a really interesting

987
01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:00,880
article about bronze age Global is a and now that

988
01:04:01,079 --> 01:04:04,639
sounds interesting. Check that out. I'll be sure to link

989
01:04:04,719 --> 01:04:07,760
to it and you can read that and wonder why

990
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:11,119
didn't you talk about this? This is really interesting. Guess

991
01:04:11,159 --> 01:04:15,039
what to quote the great bill? O'Reilly? We'll do it

992
01:04:15,079 --> 01:04:18,239
live anyway. Man, it was a ton of fun to

993
01:04:18,239 --> 01:04:22,039
have you. As far as my stuff, the Jay Burdens Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

994
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:24,000
this is what I do and if you want to

995
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:26,559
support me, you can throw me a few bucks on Patreon,

996
01:04:27,679 --> 01:04:30,599
Substack or gum Road. Managed to get it out without

997
01:04:30,639 --> 01:04:32,559
flubbing it. For a few bucks a month, you get

998
01:04:32,559 --> 01:04:34,760
the episodes early in ad free. Check out our sponsor

999
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:38,360
Axios Remote Fitness and Coaching for something more direct. Again, Steven,

1000
01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:39,119
I appreciate it.

1001
01:04:39,039 --> 01:04:41,039
Speaker 8: Man, great to be with you.

1002
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 3: Ne everyone in home, keep your head up well, I

1003
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:44,559
can't last forever.

1004
01:04:44,679 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 6: Good night.

1005
01:05:04,599 --> 01:05:22,159
Speaker 9: That's anover square story from Toblerone work Christmas do time

1006
01:05:22,159 --> 01:05:25,119
for the gifts you got your boss, Tina bath bombs

1007
01:05:25,239 --> 01:05:29,159
shaped like mince pies, but added Toblerone diamond truffles just

1008
01:05:29,239 --> 01:05:32,599
in case she unwraps the bath bombs silence.

1009
01:05:33,199 --> 01:05:38,159
Speaker 15: Then the Toblerone truffles velvety diamond shaped chocolates with a

1010
01:05:38,280 --> 01:05:42,880
crunchy new golf filling. Oh big smiles from Tina. Whatever

1011
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:47,039
you gift added diamonds just in case, toblerone never square.

1012
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:49,960
Speaker 16: Are you applying for a first time passport or a

1013
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:53,920
renewing one, whether it's for you or your child, The

1014
01:05:54,039 --> 01:05:57,480
fastest and easiest way to do it is online at

1015
01:05:57,800 --> 01:06:01,800
Ireland dot ie ford slash passports, and if you find

1016
01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:05,639
applying online challenging, the Passport Assist team is here to help.

1017
01:06:06,239 --> 01:06:07,719
Speaker 13: Call Passport Assist.

1018
01:06:07,599 --> 01:06:11,119
Speaker 16: On zero one six one three one seven ninety five

1019
01:06:11,360 --> 01:06:12,320
and talk to someone.

1020
01:06:12,159 --> 01:06:13,000
Speaker 9: Who can support you.

1021
01:06:13,559 --> 01:06:15,760
Speaker 16: Brought to you by the Government of Ireland.

1022
01:06:17,239 --> 01:06:22,320
Speaker 14: For the twelve days of Christmas. Eurospar had for me

1023
01:06:23,559 --> 01:06:28,280
twelve Christmas billings, eleven cakes of baking, ten salmon smoking, nine.

1024
01:06:28,079 --> 01:06:31,840
Speaker 16: Christmas crackers, eight Lovely Jesus even sheets of wrappings, six

1025
01:06:31,880 --> 01:06:33,400
stocking fillers.

1026
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:39,679
Speaker 11: Five mines spons for Christmas, case, three Brussels rouse, two

1027
01:06:39,679 --> 01:06:43,719
turkey legs and the Christmas made Super Easy.

1028
01:06:44,400 --> 01:06:46,480
Speaker 13: You're a spar You're super easy.

1029
01:06:46,519 --> 01:06:47,199
Speaker 16: Supermarket