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The Noeliberalcon Project For A New American Century - The Fruits Of Our Labor... by BerryBoy1969 in WayOfTheBern

[–]sandernista22 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have just one note to add to this rather first rate piece:

In a way (a preverse way) we are lucky to live at a time when the world is about to undergo radical change, one of those times that history books 100 years hence will belabor.

That change is the Decline of the West, or as some call them, the golden Billion. The "West" means however an entire civilizational edifice, built upon the evidently false concept that Democracy equals good Governance, virtually by definition. The Democracy we now have is obviously in name only, a thin fig leaf to cover the precipitous rise of the Corporatocratic state, which now rules supreme, even as it continues to rearrange the faux democratic playing field, in such a way as to benefit the very top oligarchic 1%. By the same token in the Economic field, the stakes are continually recast so as to favor a financialized model that begets the ruling rentier class, cf. Neo-Feudalism (cf. Michael Hudson).

In the process cultural, societal and public values are being corrupted, to the point they are hardly recognizable. Yet it's happening in full sight of the public, something that can happen precisely because competence at the highest levels has been compromised irrevocably as Gaius posits.

This, in a way, has already been predicted in Oscar Spengler's famous 2 volumes from early 20th century, called "Decline of the West". His contention, based on review of several past grand civilizations is that they all share a similar pattern of rise up to a peak, then plateau and then a period of decline, as the creative burst of energy that sustained the civilization peeters out. We are now in the decline phase, which appears to be accelerating.

As distressing as being part of such a decline phase, we can take comfort in knowing we are witness to historical tectonic shifts. There's much to analyse during this phase and some, like Gaius, excel in reading the tea leaves, even as many are merely despondent.

Who said "May you live in Interesting times"?

PS I happen to think also that the rise of the smart devices did much to stupefy an ever-increasing cohort of the young. Effectively robbing them of depth of know;ledge, creativity and tyhe very kind of indenpendent, objective thought that tyhe article highlighted as so essential to competence.

What do you guys think of affirmative action? by LarrySwinger2 in WayOfTheBern

[–]sandernista22 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Trouble is that affirmative action means very little in the context of a dismally low level of K-12 public education in the US. Currently, the standards are so low - even for e.g., the better high schools - that year after year the US students stand in the lower tier of the TIMMS int'l tests for OECD countries. What this effectively means is that those students who receive extra support from parents and/or hired tutors/after-school enrichment are the ones that excel later on. Effectively, with a piss-poor education that cater to the lowest performers and with a climate that increasingly turns against the very idea of high performance (witness the disappearing GATE and other gifted/accelerated streams), no amount of affirmative action will be able to bring up the levels of those who do not happen to grow up in an educated/education-committed household.

It is not for nothing that colleges are dumping the SAT and ACT as well as teacher certification tests. With over 80% of the incoming students exhibiting middlin' to low knowledge and aptitude, the colleges simply cannot continue to give preference to merit, including to those who'd be admitted using affirmative action criteria. IOW, even the best colleges must follow that race-to-the-bottom trend which teacher colleges are keen to promulgate (and have been, be it the idiotic Discovery learning, or limiting accelerated Math/STEM offerings so as to not let merit/motivation rear its ugly head). What with the average high school graduate showing up with barely sophomore level skills, and even above average applicants requiring much remedial education.

An aside: I often have opportunity to speak with various people who are college/university professors - both at top of the line institutions and run of the mill ones t(that are still plenty good) and they all bemoan the deteriorating abilities of new students, a trend noted well before COVID but now taking another turn for the worse. What with the gap between the highest performers and the average increasing ever more rapidly - especially in STEM areas, it appears that what all the diversity policies accomplished was to prove - decisively - that ASian students perform at a much higher level than even their white caucasian cohorts (with the exception of those who arrive from eastern European countries), while black and hispanic students trail [way] further behind. It's been further noted that this dismal trend has been accelerating for the past 25-30 years, with consequences taht are just too dire to even contemplate, especially as AI slowly but surely is beginning to penetrate even traditionally white collar/professional jobs, pointing to ever higher skill requirements from the human workers.

So what does affirmative action even mean when it is the home environment and parental education levels that make the difference, as just about every study keeps proving? How useful is it to admit a Middle school level performer from a disadvantaged background to an IVY league university, where the top students are 4 grade levels above them to start with? how does affirmative action compensate for effective illiteracy and serious mathematical deficiency? not everything can be remediated later. Oftentimes it's too late. And the ones admitted only thanks to affirmative action (twisted to make it even more prevalent) are still plenty bright enough to realize they are way behind and can never catch up, even with major grade manipulations and all manner of CRT introduced to beef up their confidence (where instead it just beefs up the resentment quotient. Not so helpfuly, if you ask me).

What are the solutions other than affirmative action, you ask? well, it is certainly not a further attempt to curtail and suppress the progress of the more advantaged students (as well as the more talented ones from disadvantaged backgrounds). There are solutions of course, as other countries have demonstrated, but the US education climate is such that only limited approaches can even be implemented, including shifting funds around, and trying to make changes locally (and I was part of such local/state based efforts in the past)..

PS I have raised this issue many times before , but never managed to get a good discussion going. After all, the issues are complex and varied and yes, they require serious and thoughtful commentary. Here's hoping......don Qixote that I am, that may be there are teachers, employed or retired who could bring in their insights..