Elitism

is alive and well on the Tyee. I doubt if what Canada needs are more "liberals" educated at Harvard.

Does anyone really believe going to one of our Commerce schools and learning more Chicago School economics would have helped these neo-cons govern in the interest of Canadians? Its not like they were about to sign up for Women's Studies or Marxist thought if they got more education.

Higher Education Does Not Guarantee Good Governance

Britain's hoity-toity leaders are not worth emulating and often those who are overly-schooled have no concept of reality, of what it's like to live a blue-collar existence, no matter how left-wing they are.
While I despise many of Harper's policies, his cabinet should be condemned more for their dishonesty than their educational credentials.
I know many people who never attended university who have a lot more smarts than over-educated eggheads.

Ideology reigns supreme in Harperland

You can't teach common sense. Watching Question Period is a real eye opener to the MP's on the Hill. It leaves one asking how on earth did some of these people manage to get elected?

Kudos to Mr. Killian!

Kudos to Crawford Killian (and the Tyee) for addressing a complex but important subject. Years ago the Mainstream Media used to discuss such matters. But it's been so long since we've seen an essay like this in the Vancouver Sun it's almost impossible to recall. But I digress.

The role that higher education plays in politics and power are often avoided because, well, they're complicated. We all know that there are pivotal relationships between education, the ruling class, policy analysis and the greater good. But what ARE those relationships? Like other complex questions facing our society, answers will only arise from people who have the time, interest and yes, the education, to ask them.

The rise of the simplified world of neoconservatives has always eschewed intellectual finesse. Instead, they feel an immediate affinity for simplified power. Do things my way or else.

Everyone recalls the school yard bully whose sine qua non is brute strength and power, but whose bravado and threats are invariably thwarted by the careful application of intelligence and virtue.

But as MEW notes above, the complexity doesn't end there. A top notch education often leads to elitism. And elitism can meld with power to bring us horrific things...like the Roman Empire, the British Empire or the US empire.

As Prof. Noam Chomsky tirelessly explains, the privilege of intellectual talent and a formal education come with obligations. One of the most important is to speak out against the rise of force and power. Education teaches us that untempered force will become irrational. And harmful. And dangerous. It therefore is contrary to the greater good. And it must be checked.

It is people like Harper and his cronies and thugs who seek to trick the polity into allowing them to subvert and corrupt democracy. Not everyone can recognize this. But educated people are supposed to. The failure of many intellectuals to stand up to abusive regimes is a deep stain on all of us. It is the mark of elitism. In the end, weak intellectuals are no better than the powerful thugs and bullies who inflict harm on the defenceless.

Which leaves us with the courage of people like Crawford Killian, the Tyee and all those who are willing to stand up to the rise of tyranny.

Great coverage!

Why I Hate School But Love Education||Spoken Word

This video lends an interesting perspective to the article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI&feature=g-logo-xit

Credit where credit is due?

Credit where credit is due, indeed.

http://scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.blogspot.ca/2012/12/stuck-with-these-clowns.html

Note the date.

Think about it

chr says you can't teach common sense. True, but you can teach critical thinking, and that would go a long way in Parliament.

Education Pays ?

Wow you can be a minister with grade 10?

How about getting paid for your level of education, if so then 11 ministers would get minumum wage, right?

Fact is this is a one person government so having your staff being uneducated is the way it works best.

Sad fact is my child is watching all this and is not going for a higher education now.

Lets do the Math.
Phd. $60,000 + Debt.
Grade 12. Debt free.

$5,000 breast implants = Leader of the Liberals. Do photo opts collect $150,000 pension for life...get breast reduction free.

Yep my child is a quick learner!

BOB WATTS IS NUTS!

The best politicians and leaders

understand their limitations, respect expertise (whether they embody it or not), and have enough experience outside academia to enable them to sense and express what might be termed "the common touch," a necessary skill for reaching out to an electorate. The Tory government does not seem to understand its limitations or to respect expertise, but instead relies upon its corporate connections and its ideological framework.

All ideologies contain the seeds of their own undoing insofar as they fail to reflect the real world they try to model. They are often self-referencing, focused on the symmetries of their own beliefs rather than external evidence.To be stuck in an ideological paradigm (like the Harper tar-babies) involves consistently ignoring broader feedback from around you. Leftist ideologists can fall prey to the same error.

Civil servants are expected to be well-educated, because the politicians who have survived the grind of electoral competition often lack this form of expertise. This lack is particularly telling given the complexity of the interaction of the many and varied intellectual fields that might affect the creation and implementation of policy. But politicians such as today's Tories tend to dismiss expertise that might contradict their ideological framework. Hence the messy and shoddy job they have done as government.

If education does nothing else, it should attune people to their limitations. As one once argued, "Education is the journey from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty." In that light, the Tories seem a rather ill-educated lot. We get to suffer the consequences.

Male vs Female

Stephen Harper has a huge tolerance for lying and incompetence with his male cabinet ministers; this make them extra lucky.

Education is suppose to

Education is suppose to instill in a person the knowledge that they don't know everything. You want people educated or at least intelligent enough to acquire knowledge. Education can be through experience or it can be through a formal institution. The real problem is that a person can have an education either way and be a complete idiot. In politics it is about representing constituents and no type of education teaches you that skill if you happen to be one of those who thinks they know it all.

Economists are the worst type. They have been indoctrinated in a particular view of the world and they can repeat the cliches and talking points at the drop of a hat. I would rather have someone educated in the sciences where you are taught to probe, critique, test and then form an opinion rather than someone who learned the doctrine by memorizing a theory from the 18th century. It is not even necessary to be formally trained; you can be a trades person and be good at it.

The political arena needs representatives from all groups. It is when the leader thinks he has all the answers, won't listen to anyone else and his members act like puppets that we get into trouble. We need independent thinkers.

A formal education is more likely to make one less likely to be the puppet for a lesser intellect but it is not a guarantee.

The real question might be how did a bunch of seemingly normal folks, some of who a brighter than Harper, Baird, MacKay and Kenney, decide to follow these dolts? Where did all these people learn to follow the arrogant fool like in the song, "waste deep in the big muddy and the damn fool says to push on."

Education is not elitism

Education is not elitism, it's merely hard work. You do the work, you get an education.

White male privilege is elitism because it has nothing to do with merit. Likewise, inherited wealth--and most wealth is inherited, as are the opportunities to make more.

Education is not for everyone, of course. Not for the lazy, for instance.

Some pols offer sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity

Gail Shea, as fisheries minister for Canada, was asked about the poor salmon returns on the Skeena River. Her response, “Maybe the salmon will return a year later,”

For this, we paid a salary of $233,247 plus a gold plated pension all the $16 glasses of OJ one can

The Tyee is better than this.

"But those without degrees from high-prestige schools tend to feel inferior to those who do have them."

"Harper's lightly educated ministers might not have much talent at thinking and speaking on their feet"

"..while journalists (also clearly educated.."

Why not a story next about the physical appearance of Harper and his crew?

It's the Voters Not The Politicians

Perhaps voters choose the candidate that mirrors their own educational level.
Gerry RItz, no post-secondary, represents a rural farming riding.
Gail Shea, potato-growing PEI.
PhD Alice Wong meanwhile represents Richmond.

On Speaking Truth to Power

I agree this is an insightful article, as is the last comment by Jeffrey J.

However, I personally have experienced the greatest difficulty trying to deal with specialists / experts - in particular those who claim expertise in the law.

I'm actually surprised to hear that there are 11 members of cabinet with law degrees, and I'm wondering what the proportion would have been under previous Liberal governments.

Whether by express design or not, the Conservatives have been able to leverage a widespread, though perhaps rarely articulated, distrust of expertise.

In dealing with the legal establishment I soon came to realize that I was trying to "speak truth to power" and in fact not making any headway. Words are the most powerful tool. Formal education may give one an advantage in the use of that tool, but it doesn't result in any improvement in integrity. And so it appears the public's perception of a deficit in integrity is being leveraged to political advantage.

Ignatieff, Rae and the many other intellectuals surely could see that, yet they made no attempt to deal with it. So I would say the ball remains in their court.

Can't Call Canada's Cons Overeducated...You can call them...

...overconfident, overarrogant, overignorant, overdouchnozzley

Informative, but not that significant . . .

I agree with the first comment. The premise of this article is pretty antiquated.

On the other hand, without having to get so philosophical, if I were a Conservative, I could simply respond to this perspective by arguing that my incomparable experience in the real world, private sector, and so on, constitutes my education.

Malthusian vengeance morality posing as a market-value Party?

The dullards and us dulled are easily led by the blunt.

When slick communications advisers can reduce a policy position to flash talking points, reiterating the hymn sheet mantra becomes, not a thoughtful articulation of ministerial responsibility voiced as response to press, public, or oppositional inquiry, but the parroting mouth organ of party script.

Jane Jacobs had lots to say about the vacuousness of credentialing as a perpetuation of status quo 'programmic thinking'. It is to Canada's democratic misfortune that the policy wonks seem more determined to project their own preconceptions than to tune their ears to espoused and traditional Canadian values. How many of us, by referendum, would choose, in 2011, to disavow the Geneva Convention so as to legalize torture generated 'information'? Or take advantage of the timing of our Libyan 'war' activity to platform single-engine fighter jets as the way to project Canadian values? Why not heavy lift aircraft to service our remote and diverse geography and assist in global disaster relief?

Independent thinking doesn't appear as a value cultivated by Harper's flavor of Conservative. His 'open for business' codeword to dismantle that which unites us.

The acumen and expertise of our civil servants is what each minister ought lean on to better the trajectory of their office's public purpose: For environmental protections, food security, nation wide child and youth protections, labor training and mentoring, the list could be long.
Instead Canada has over 450,000 Temporary Foreign Workers diluting wage standards in our domestic labor market. Doesn't that project abroad newCanada values of promoting human smuggling and snakehead payoff in a program of human trafficking euphemistically called TFW?

But Canada's own Tea Party rages on as a majority which is run, not by grace, but bullying obstructionism: Why has our PBO not seen the 'budget' Harper claims justifies 'austerity' punishment?
Why have patriotic Canadians not walked away from the vengeance moralizing which masquerades as policy?

Have they not invested the time to nurture the nature of the confidence which clarifies the public purpose of the content of each their own heart and mind?

A hint, the TFW documents for Chinese miners stipulates the necessity of 'some high school'.
Perhaps that standard is good enough for the conscience of the powers-that-be who lead Canada into the 21st century too.

intelligence is only confirmed with intelligent behaviour

This is not to say that post-secondary degrees mean intelligence and talent, but they do indicate some years spent reading, debating, and learning how to think critically.

What does that matter when virtually all these years spent 'reading, debating, and learning how to think critically' were mandated to be within the confines of the scholastic parameters laid forth by the status quo?

I think a more inquisitive look into the education system and its historic policy directives are in order for the author.

... Whatever you think of such leaders' policies, they are all clearly very smart and very well educated.

No, there is no reason to conclude that they are 'clearly very smart' despite the degrees.

I think this article could have had legs but was poorly written. For example:

This is not to say that post-secondary degrees mean intelligence and talent, ... Mitt Romney, has a combined Doctor of Laws and MBA from Harvard. Whatever you think of such leaders' policies, they are all clearly very smart and very well educated.

Mitt Romney has the degrees, agreed. Following the argument, this means he is (formally) educated, but does not necessarily mean he has 'intelligence and talent". But the next thing I read Romney is both clearly very smart and well educated.

What evidence is there that Romney is clearly very smart? He is a social piranha, an exploiter of people and an elitist who thinks 45% (arguably 99%) of the population is useless. So what chain of information is the author using to conclude he is 'clearly very smart'?

As for the Harper regime, well, Canadians have been brainwashed thoroughly enough to believe politics has something to do with "we the people" other than controlling us for ulterior purposes.

As Howard Zinn said, "if you don't know your history, it is like you were born yesterday".

If we truly want substantive change, is requires us to substantively change the way we behave and view the world. That time is not upon us, and incremental social change cannot keep up with the runaway train of our shadowy global government.

Better Biographies

The Tyee has obviously done some good research on the Harper cabinet but it is very hard to find this information on the web.
The Tyee should now upgrade the info on each of these individuals in Wikipedia so that it becomes more readily shareable.
in general, there is a real dearth of detail on public figures on the web - one can see why.
This would be a very useful, ongoing project.

Learning vs degrees, generalist vs specialist

The problem has existed for centuries, that is the difference between real learning and formal education with all their certification baubles. The latter leads to entrenched elitism.

In the case of quality leadership, the difference here is between a solid, generalist foundation and specialist accreditation.

But the increased complexity of global issues (did not say globalization) require considerable specialization, and that's where higher learning institutions are being pushed, at the expense of higher broad quality understanding. Surely serves the corporate agenda.

This does not produce well rounded citizens, or leaders. The "liberal" education, very generalist, is much falsely berated as useless. A history degree doesn't get you a job.

What it gets you is a clearer understanding of what is happening all around you. Much tougher to get scammed.

The specialist streams are much required in our complex techno world and should be an adjunct of larger lifelong learning, but they must not be the ultimate goal, excluding much else.

Besides, these too are no guarantee of good jobs. Consider the federal scientists multi layoffs. It's that old "not what you know, but who you know" (and obey).

Little Stevie is a Friedman Chicago/Calgary specialized economist with a megalomaniac tendency. That side hurts his leadership appearance while he pretends to perform in the real interests of Canadians.

Secretive deals with China and the EU cannot be foiled by phony, calm looking reason. Even John Baird rarely shows his fangs anymore. And Rona gets hotter with age. Yup, those PR specialists are doing a great cover-over job.

Meanwhile, our best and honest specialists are being removed and replaced to fit the Harper agenda.

Don't really need a worthwhile degree for that. And especially not an honest learning paradigm.

monetary expansion + fiscal contraction = undemocratic $$diktats

At least some in the world, Hong Kong and Australia, are waking up to the hollow economy bifurcation created, on the one hand, by ultra low interest rates, read 'monetary expansion', funneled through, and at great and increasing profits to, primary big private banks, and on the other hand, the lever of 'austerity', read 'fiscal contraction', which is gutting civil services and leveling 'labor unit costs' to the diktats of the 'open for business' global market state actors, read Harper and ChinaFIPPA.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-12/first-hong-kong-now-aussie-central-bank-gets-ugly-case-truthiness

Canada and the US had a healthy balance of manufacturing industry vs. financials back in 1969. At that time our economies were composed of roughly 40% manufacturing and 7% financials. Nowadays, financials: Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) absorb 40% and manufacturing 8%. Does that inversion improve life for ordinary people?
In case of emergency, if the Too Big To Fail do fail again, rather than bail them out (the Belgians are on their third bailout of their big municipal credit financing bank Dexia) and rather than the disaster of nationalizing the debt as the poor Irish leadership hoodwinked its citizens to do, we need only create a government bank for citizen's savings, and have it firewalled, that is, never expose that money to the hands of investors.
The investors are nimble, but fumble at public expense. And, which minister acts responsible to save our savings?

crumbling industry, austerity, and overly expansive FP

(foreign policy) brought down England from its Imperial reign within 50 years. America is in the exact same process. Only this time the world is connected to its monetary policy and so when the house falls, the world economy as we know it will collapse.

That means the political saviors whom you've been voting for will attempt to provide the solution. That being, a form of an international currency and government.

They have convinced the massses that they are the folks who know what is wrong and how to solve our social problems. The proof is in the millions who go vote for them each election; and the countless others who think politics and politicians are, in the main, educated on such matters.

This object of a global social order controlled by economics, the long-standing object of the shadowy international banking cartel and its directors, is almost here -- exactly as they planned.

That said, I suspect the mass awakening with come on the eve of its implementation. Better late than never, I suppose. :)

Tenure Back-Track

"In the end, weak intellectuals are no better than the powerful thugs and bullies who inflict harm on the defenceless."

Tenure track, at least in the humanities, has had an adverse effect on the formative (i.e. early) academic-intellectual years, putting the lie to the old adage that secured tenure allows one to speak without fear of retribution. From the outset, one becomes overworked to the point of distraction, bringing on a measure of self-censorship lest one get passed over for the Big Prize. Then, when that golden egg is finally offered, one begins contemplating "course relief" in order to get that second book published.

Sure, there are exceptions (Gerald Kaplan, Michael Byers) but one only has to sit in a few panels at the annual Learneds, er Congresses, to observe that few, if any, intellectuals feel such "obligations."

Experience & ability more important that paper credentials

I look back now on the thousands of dollars and the precious time I invested in my own education, and continue to, and wonder what I learned.

Truthfully, the only education I really needed was literacy and numeracy, and I achieved that long before I graduated high school. with those two tools, I can and have taught myself everything else I needed to know up to this point.

Unfortunately, the education system of 50 years ago is not what it is today. It has become a business, and a very profitable one and to increase the throughput and thus profits, the standards have been gutted. I see it everyday, I work with people with a lot of paper credentials whom are nothing more than average people with fancy titles and big houses. There is the odd standout, but for the most part, "higher" education doesn't impress me anymore. Not my own, or those of others.

We need to stop measuring people by their list of credentials, but rather based on their depth of character and work ethic. Politicians should be measured the same way. They don't need PhD behind their name to be of worth. They need to be hard working, collaborative, caring, sincere and honest.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of my country being run by lawyers. I think that is the wrong mindset to employ for such an important job. No offense Lawyers.

multiple choice exams

When faced with fundamental contradictions between peacemaking and weaponry, these kindergarten graduates go with the gatling guns and smart bombs, assuming we can always kill and maim our way to a better world.

FAIL

When faced with a fundamental contradiction between a fairly solid scientific consensus on the unfolding climate change disaster and the faith-based protection racket provided by evangelical toothfairies, they put their bets on the tarred and feathered angels of Thermaggedon.

FAIL

But for rapidly transforming a caring democracy into a belligerent fascist state that has become a pariah on the world stage, I'd have to give them an A+

Tom Robbins once said in an interview

.... that the "only war worth fully supporting was the battle against the tyranny of the dull mind."

Whatever the level of the Conservatives' 'education', it is the walking dead that the Harperland ranks are filled to the brim with that must be taken on and defeated - those who neither value nor recognize what makes life worth living.

I think a plumber should be our next financial minister!

While I do not like people who flaunt their degrees (usually using big fancy words where they could have used simpler words or dressing up in clothes with labels sticking out,...), there is no doubt that a plumber (unless he or she has studied economics) is qualified to make decisions on economics or financial institutions! Likewise, would we want Harper, Merkel, Hollande to fix our leaky faucets?

While we might want to debate whether or not this or that degree in this or that university is better or worst than another, it remains that most degrees prepare people to think and to research. To be allowed to earn a degree, one should have been able to prove his or her worth as well?

As a tutor, I am helping several students who otherwise will not be able to make it there. Are they deserving to go on to higher levels of education or their success dependent on their parents being able to afford this kind of support? Maybe their parents are wealthy and not well educated? Maybe other are well educated and not wealthy and they can help their kids reach higher levels too? Maybe these kids are not deserving either? It is hard to say and it is a complex topic.

IMHO, too much of our education system deals with knowledge, tests, and not enough is on effort and desire to achieve and accomplish, discover, solve problems,... But, the ones who are leading things did not get there by working very hard, for the most part! We know they are tall, got all the girls (and support and self-esteem), and probably had supportive, wealthy, educated, or networked parents. Mine were not, did not go to university (but could have), and as an immigrant, I had to learn an incredibly complicated language at age 15! A definite disadvantage! (I have a solution for that problem, but I don't have the network to make it happen: http://reforming-english.blogspot.ca/) )

Who knows?

I'm not sure what is preferrable - a government full of lawyers, or a government full of religious hicks.
Canada is currently burdened with the latter

Not even Keynes

...was a Keynesian, at least not as people such as Harper and the acolytes Kuhl Hound and the like persist in misunderstanding him.

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth."

- The Economic Consequences of the Peace:

"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done... The introduction of a substantial government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available, with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise in the United States."

- The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money:

asking the masters to tax themselves at this junction

seems futile. We have not even engaged ourselves as a population, not in any sense of revolting against the machine. Until we stand together against the state as it currently exists, we will continue our march deeper and deeper toward self-imposed state servitude.