"Elite Credentials" Has Become Oxy (and-just-plain) Moronic
October 28, 2010
The creation of new books has done more to destroy knowledge's advancement than burning books. This becomes obvious when one read's today's political commentary.
Ezra Klein and many others have sought to defend elitism - what they mean by elitism is rule by the elite. How does one define elite? Simple - credentials. If you have the right degrees, then you are elite.
Yet rule by the elite is not a novel issue. It's been tried before - in the United States and many times. It failed. Does anyone remember the Vietnam War? How could the Vietnam War have gone so badly? It went badly for the same reason the Iraq War went badly - namely, the elites ran it:
The Best and the Brightest (1972) is an account by journalist David Halberstam of the origins of the Vietnam War published by Random House. The focus of the book is on the foreign policy crafted by the academics and intellectuals who were in John F. Kennedy's administration, and the consequences of those policies in Vietnam.
You mean there's an old (well, it's older than I am, anyway) book out there that already ended this debate? Why are we talking instead of reading? And yet here is Ezra Klein, today:
This isn't a very popular statement, but there is a role for elites in public life. Just like I want knowledgeable CEOs running companies and knowledgeable doctors performing surgeries, I want knowledgeable legislators crafting public policy.
It was "knowledgeable" - that is, credentialed - people who brought the United States into the Vietnam War. It was "knowledgeable" people who failed to regulate Wall Street. It was "knowledgeable" who orchestrated an invasion of Iraq, and "knowledgeable" people who crafted the bailouts. Washington and Wall Street are full of "knowledgeable" people? As an old wise man might ask a young man who knows it all: "How's that working out for you?"
Rule by the elite plainly fails. Why? In a society of narcissism, the answer should be obvious: Elitism has no connection accomplishment, but instead is defined by credentialism.
What does a lawyer who has never tried a case have to say about trials? In a sane world, not much. And yet there is not a single trial lawyer on the Supreme Court. To become a Supreme Court Justice, you need to attend Harvard or Yale law school, work in the Department of Justice (among other Harvard and Yale law graduates), and kiss ass.
No one dares ask: How many trials have you tried? What were the sizes of your verdicts? What are some things you learned from decades of experience?
None of that matters. Accomplishment means credentials. Indeed, people would "refute" my arguments by saying, "Simply graduating from Harvard or Yale is itself and accomplishment." Yes, indeed: Even being accepted into an elite institution is evidence that one is very good at being a student. It says nothing about whether a person is qualified to do anything else.
One reason elitism fails is that elites reward credentials over accomplishments. The commenters to the insufferable Megan McArdle make the point well:
The elites have credentials, not knowledge. I have multiple graduate degrees. I've earned my distrust of "I have an academic credential, so submit peon".
I could get into Harvard's School of Public Policy. After playing nice for a few years, I'd have a degree. Would I then be qualified to rule the world? Does reading a few (or even few hundred) books prepare you to rule the world?
Another commenter notes:
I work in Washington and it's common to run into "senior fellows" and vice presidents and the like at think tanks who are all of 28 or 29, whose main qualification is that they went to the right school and got in the door by virtue of a key connection or the willingness to spend a stint at said think tank as an intern. Most of them have never had a real job and have no real world experience, so their output, while often clever and well written, has little grounding in reality. I particularly enjoy reading a paper authored by one of these geniuses about how the military could improve this or that when I know the author hasn't spent a day in uniform, couldn't tell an M-16 from an M4, and has fired neither. On the other hand, I work with, on a regular basis, industry leaders who make real things and run real companies and I don't see many who aren't sporting gray hair.
That's true. Peruse the websites of chicken hawk think tanks. You'll see many fancy degrees, but not many purple hearts.
The elite have had their -too many - chances. They've failed. It's time to give populism a chance.