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Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

thesmartset.com

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Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#31

Post by dragonwriter »

This is, frankly, crap. It both ignores the diversity of experience that people that are not "professors, pundits, and policy wonks" have, and implicitly dismisses the idea that an understanding of the world can be gained by systematic study of the world (what academics actually engage in) that is superior to what is gained by isolated, unsystematic, experience with some small slice of it that happens to be at a lower socioeconomic status.

Its essentially a radical rejection of the idea of study and transmissible, shareable knowledge of the world.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#32

Post by pasquinelli »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #20

This article is saying smart people don't understand how the world works because most of the world's people are average intelligence. This sentiment is completely ridiculous, yet I'm sure a lot of people believe it because it makes them feel superior. Pundits and professors are often wrong, but it isn't because they are highly educated. I still trust the opinion of a professor rather than someone working at Pizza Hut…

i've noticed in myself how easy it is to turn any quality of mine into the thing that basically makes me better than everyone else. it's funny when i catch myself saying, "yeah, i got ingrown toenails because i cut them too low, but it's just an expression of the dogged, obsessive aspect of my personality that makes me such an amazing human specimen."

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#33

Post by redthrow »

klank wrote: post #12
rubidium wrote: post #3

Glad to see someone acknowledging the myopic view of most intellectuals. During my time in academia (PhD), I'll admit now I had very little idea of what life was like for the majority of people. Since then I've been living among many working class and poverty-level folks. Average household income in my neighborhood is <$22K (U.S.). As a result, my thinking has changed to unions are overall good ideas, UBI is foolish,…

> ramping up education investment is pretty minimal in its returns. Creating real neighborhood community (work, education, family, etc) is the best solution I'm confused about your stance on education. At first blush you seem to be diminishing it's impact while promoting it. Care to elaborate?

Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty

http://www.demos.org/blog/12/2/15/why-education-does-not-fix...

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#34

Post by throwanem »

pnathan wrote: post #19

One must argue that intellectuals are freaks, if one wishes to denigrate their opinions and understanding. One must pointedly ignore any possibility of the experts spending in-depth to understand a field to claim that they are out of touch[1]. Having come out of this Glorious Peasantry the author idealizes, I suggest the author quit idealizing it. Chasing egalitarianism leads to Know-Nothing nincompoops being selecte…

I'm not sure what it is to which you're responding, but I do not think it's the argument Lind makes in the article theoretically under discussion here.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#35

Post by endzone »

eitland wrote: post #15
klank wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ramping up education investment is pretty minimal in its returns. Creating real neighborhood community (work, education, family, etc) is the best solution I'm confused about your stance on education. At first blush you seem to be diminishing it's impact while promoting it. Care to elaborate?

If by education GP means higher education then I can possibly add something: IIRC there already seems to be a shortage of craftsmen (carpenters, welders, plumbers etc) and a surplus of people with various higher educations.

a shortage that's not reflected in the wages for skilled jobs (outside of powerful unions)

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#37

Post by Noseshine »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #25

"The fact that we members of the intellectual professions are quite atypical of the societies in which we live tends to distort our judgment..." << Someone care to explain to me how being atypical distorts my judgement? This piece is not very substanative beyond enumerating how PPPs are different, it then merely says "they don't understand because of their difference." That seems rather like ad hominem.

I see nothing wrong with it. I am very sure I don't understand the situation of poor working people. It has nothing to do with my IQ but with the fact that I don't live there live, never have.

What makes you think you know about other people's lives if you don't live among and with and as them? Just reading a few essays now and then? You would not accept that view if a committed layperson tried to give advice to physicists (referring to yesterdays thread that pointed to https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-f...) but instead insist they'd have to study physics and not just read a few papers. Thinking the issues of the "working class" are different because "how difficult can it be" doesn't seem consistent or right to me.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#38

Post by throw_away_777 »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #21
throw_away_777 wrote: post #20

This article is saying smart people don't understand how the world works because most of the world's people are average intelligence. This sentiment is completely ridiculous, yet I'm sure a lot of people believe it because it makes them feel superior. Pundits and professors are often wrong, but it isn't because they are highly educated. I still trust the opinion of a professor rather than someone working at Pizza Hut…

> This article is saying smart people don't understand how the world works because most of the world's people are average intelligence. Not at all. It says highly educated people are out of touch with the realities of life of average folks because these categories have very different ranges of first-hand experience.

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

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#39

Post by dbgllm »

Aelinsaar wrote: post #6

Interesting, but without any real suggestion of why being statistically rarer than the average somehow makes people blind to broader realities. It's just slipped in there, around the middle that intellectuals, "...tend to be both biased and unaware of their own bias." Well sure, everyone is, that's not a helpful or insightful statement, it's just an incredibly safe bet.

Yeah it felt like a superficial reflection the author wanted to concretize in words. It certainly prompts discussion but it provides only fragile arguments.

Re: Why professors, pundits, and policy wonks misunderstand the world

#40

Post by throwanem »

alricb wrote: post #28

Very American-centric (but then this is by someone who helped found the "New America Foundation"); for instance outside the US Academia is mostly supported by governments, not gifts. Intellectuals all over can still have their heads up their asses, but that's not particularly new. The figure of the out-of-touch intellectual was common in the 19th century (e.g. Peter in War and Peace). Many professors do realize that…

> outside the US Academia is mostly supported by governments, not gifts

Inside the US, too. Many of our academic institutions were founded on the strength of such gifts, but that's hardly where their money comes from today.

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