​The smugness, it burns

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HOW THE EDUCATION GAP IS TEARING POLITICS APART: “The possibility that education has become a funda…

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"HOW THE EDUCATION GAP IS TEARING POLITICS APART: “The possibility that education has become a fundamental divide in democracy – with the educated on one side and the less educated on another – is an alarming prospect. It points to a deep alienation that cuts both ways.”

It’s more of a smugness gap, really, and people will put up with a lot but not with being openly despised."

What I have noticed is that the educated can do little outside their educational parameters. Some years ago, I had a neighbor come calling about a lighting problem in his bathroom. He knew I had remodeled pretty much everything in our home, kitchen, three baths, and a number of other rooms, and knew I would probably be able to suss out the problem. 

So I grabbed by kit, and walked down to his house. We chatted about what the problem was on the way. He said he had replaced a light and now every time he turned it on, the breaker blew. I was sure I knew the problem, but I was wrong. 

After I removed the fixture, I was faced with a large birds nest of lamp cord wiring. WTF? So, I pulled all that out, and found that the old lamp had had a couple of connections, and he did not understand that all of this old lamp wiring needed to be discarded with the lamp. Instead he undid all of the wires, but then only hooked up a single wire to the new lamp, leaving a wire or two unattached. Yowzer!

So, in two minutes I stripped out all the old wiring, attached the house wiring to the new lamp, replaced the fittings, and fixture, and the lamp worked fine.

Nice guy, but really, he could not plunge a toilet without a plumber handy. This seems to be the status of a significant number of Americans today, good at their job, incompetent at anything else. Thank God for lawn mowing services, or we might have a rash of serious lawnmower accidents. More likely these guys would simply mow till the bag was full then think the machine broken, and return to Costco for a refund. 

In my experience, the smugness is flowing the wrong way. I can live without my banker, and my accountant, and my lawyer, but the garbage guy, or the sewage worker, or the clean water guy, no so much. We place value and emphasis on the wrong people because they are paid much, when civilization runs on these lower status workers, not the high status.