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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

Taking b) and running with it, education is, in my opinion, the silver bullet for a number of societies ills. It's very interesting to note how higher education in the US has such a high barrier to entry that it actively discourages outsiders.

It feels as if the Australian Government wants to move in the same direction, and / or have already been doing so for a few years.

Education has its own benefits to society as a whole, therefore we all suffer when a majority are locked out of pursuits that require and encourage depth of thought and logical thinking.

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True, if you are on the right (political spectrum) you do not want to encourage higher education, it shifts people to the left, as analytical thinking starts undoing idealism. US is a good example of this, with most universities having more left communities around them.

Perhaps it is an intentional long play by the Right in Australia to pursue this kind of minimisation of education

You could say that analytical thinking undo gullibility. Idealism and principles though, may better be understood, applied and defended, with well-rounded education.

Good point. I think that is a better way to describe what I mean

I don't think analytical thinking has anything to do with political leaning, I'd argue that the US higher education system particularly the humanities is a breeding ground of idealogues. I would say the tendency of education to lean left is largely due to left leaning people being more attracted to working in academia.

This is an umbrellas make it rain reverse causation. If you look outside the US the education level does correlate with the political spectrum. The higher educated the population the entire spectrum shifts left. See Northern Europe, Japan, Australia, Singapore, China, even political ideology (democracy vs socialism) doesn’t change this correlation

> This is an umbrellas make it rain reverse causation.

I don't see how.

> If you look outside the US the education level does correlate with the political spectrum.

I didn't mention anything about the US, it's a global phenomenon. Personality is a largely biological construct, and it's also highly correlated with political leaning.

Looking at the big 5 model, left leaning people tend to be high in neuroticism(emotional stability) and openness, and low in conscientiousness. Right leaning people tend to be the opposite.

These same traits influence peoples decision to work in academia, openness is a beneficial trait for learning new ideas.

Meanwhile people high in conscientiousness, low in neuroticism are highly sought after in industry.

I’m saying even the right shifts left. It’s not about “left leaning people” it’s the entire spectrum moves. There are still of course right and left leaning people on that spectrum

What I'm saying is that the teachers are left leaning, and it influences their students.

I guess your education did not teach you that correlation does not imply causation. The simpler explanation for why people that are educated lean left is that the people teaching them lean left. Why do teachers lean left? Because they are often broke and underpaid. The fact that there is such uniformity of thought in higher education just goes to show the power of indoctrination.

I feel bad harping on common talking points but most degrees do not teach analytical thought.

I’m talking the whole spectrum, you are caught up on American domestic ideas of left v right.

As my example stated, the far right in Australia would be considered left in the US... the whole spectrum has moved... not talking about individuals... they still exist across that spectrum

I can tell you that in the former Soviet bloc, higher education correlates very powerfully with leaning right.

I'd bet it's more likely that higher education correlates well with elitism, and that elitism happens to have a left-ish flavor in some countries and a right-ish flavor in others, simply by accident of history, not by some general rule.

I don't think there is any general rule, the fact that higher educated elites in the US and western Europe happen to be left leaning is a self-perpetuating accident of history. In many other countries, higher educated elites are right-leaning.

I think that’s a mistake, because while I agree there’s a left lean among academics, I don’t think that necessarily translates into the graduate population generally. Conservatism needs educated leaders as well anyway. If there is a problem there the answer is balancing out education, not reducing it.

Diversity of thought in the education system is a problem - like hires like, and is demonstratively intolerant of challenge, so the dominant mood gets entrenched. If the political poles were reversed (conservatives dominating education) this would be just as much of a problem - it’s a function of human behavior.

(UCLA’s) Eugene Volokh’s blog has been examining this for some time from the perspective of legal education, and of course Bret Weinstein rather famously came into contact with it when (literally) run out of Evergreen.

I remember we used to make jokes about how off the wall Evergreen was, but now I think those things we used to laugh about have become more normalized. They are certainly avant garde, but it seems the tendency of entrenchment dictates that where Evergreen goes so goes the nation’s education system. If you want to see where the nation’s education will be in another 15-20 years, look no further than Evergreen today.

"education, it shifts people to the left, as analytical thinking starts undoing idealism."

True; college students are noted for their lack of idealism.

Conversely right leaning occupations such as veterans, oil rig workers and farmers always have their head in the clouds with high minded idealistic notions that don't work in the real world.

So why are the countries I listed Right way more progressive than the US? Is it’s function of culture something unique about US culture?

A lot of them were very supportive of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just because someone is more blue collar absolutely doesn't mean that they don't subscribe to high minded idealistic notions.

> Conversely right leaning occupations such as veterans, oil rig workers and farmers always have their head in the clouds with high minded idealistic notions that don't work in the real world.

Is this a joke?

> Is this a joke?

Yes, I think it was a joke.

> Is this a joke?

Yes. The person I was replying to seemed to assume that college was where people are disabused of idealism. My response was satirical.

I am not going to lie, I was really worried for a bit.

I don't know if I'm delusional at this point for mistaking sarcasm for mainstream political culture opinion, if it's scary that belief is even possibly real, or somewhere in between.

How a "shift" interacts with identity politics is interesting to consider.

One cannot "shift" demographic group merely by attending classes and many groups are highly polarized by demographic group often in excess of 3 to 1 for one party or another.

In Soviet Union, and I believe generally in socialist block, in its final times most young highly educated people were visibly right-leaning.

Probably it's fair to say education may give feelings of better understanding of things (whether it justified or not is a separate topic), and when it is not translated into higher social, and economic positions it naturally leads to growing hostility towards current system. Will it take a right, or left form, or something you cannot reliably put in this spectrum - is the issue if present conditions.

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