Polarization
Our country has become pretty polarized. Some see the split between the folks who are in the entertainment sphere, the journalism sphere; the sort of “high IQ” is sphere, and the people who are actually working the jobs that are actually getting things done across the country, the deplorables. The deplorables voice seems to have been lost.
What do you think? Is there a gap? Do think that’s a bridgeable gap? How serious is the gap? Is that gap between the people who deem themselves to be smart and the people who deem themselves to be doing the jobs that matter? Is the gap destined to increase as time passes?
Is the Gap Widening?
Maybe there’s always been a gap. Sometimes it’s wide, sometimes it’s less wide. We all fall in love with the romantic version of ourselves, right? Whether we’re a journalist, an actor… whatever it is we think we are, and whoever it is we think we are. We become the sun in our own solar system. So everything else is just a planet in orbit.
With regard to the skills gap, and with regard to whether there really is any gap, it’s all just symptomatic of a series of “disconnects.” We’ve become slowly and inexorably and profoundly disconnected from a lot of very basic things. When I grew up, I was really connected to the basics. Basics like where my food comes from, where my energy comes from, basic history, and basic curiosity. These are things that fundamentally allow us to have a level of appreciation.
Appreciation of how things work and what it takes to create our comfort. That is the best way to bridge those gaps… if we don’t have appreciation… If we’re not blown away by the miracle that occurs when we flick the switch and the lights come on; if we’re not gobsmacked by flushing the toilet and seeing all of it go away. When we start losing our appreciation for those things, the gap deepens. The gap right now is extraordinary. There are way too many people who don’t know enough to know what they do not know. And that’s a problem.
What are we going to do?
How many Antifa supporters do you think have ever created or made anything? There are 6.3 million jobs that are available. 75% of those jobs don’t require a four-year degree. Yet we’re still pushing the four-year degree as the best path for the most people. Four year degrees just happen to be the most expensive career path. Now a lot of people … have enough common sense to realize that $1.5 trillion in outstanding student loans is ridiculous. It is senseless lending of money we don’t have, to kids who can’t pay it back, to train for jobs that don’t exist anymore. How crazy is that?
There’s great common sense still alive and well in a lot of people. As the people with common sense look at the headlines, they’re frustrated. People on the coasts are coming at it from their own bias, and they’re frustrated. A lot of frustrated people are talking really loudly past each other. A lot of truths are inconvenient for a lot of people. So it’s just gets really noisy a lot of the time. That’s a lot of words to say no, I don’t think that gap will ever close. Now what should we going to do with that belief…