Privatization

I don't think I would hang around with Americans who had Ph.D's even if I had the chance, honestly. I have often thought about it and this is the ultimate conclusion I have come to after years and years of dwelling on it: I do not think I would hang out with you USA Ph.D boys and girls even if I had the chance, mostly because something just does not sit right with me about you.

 It isn't to say...well..no..you know what, it is to say  that I definitely have a *problem* with you, and I'm annoyed by you, and you leave me quite upset. Mostly, I think, because you are just so ridiculously removed from all the rest of us. Like, honestly -- who are these people?? I not only do not know any of them, but I wouldn't even really, in a certain sense, even know where they are to be found, anyways.

I have often wondered how bizarre the perspective of a glorious Ph.D recipient must be when it comes to a country like this, where education has been absurdly privatized, because in my opinion (and I was trying to write about this another time) but in my opinion I honestly think the view of the Ph.D individual, again in a country of extreme privatization like this, has actually got to be, more or less, just as "marginalized" as the view of the person in the ghetto or the prison, et cetera.

This is , in fact, the entire problem that I think the educated class of Americans is having when it comes to trying to reach the working class, as they do, through, apparently, the Democratic line: We are sort of in a hole right now , as a result of the fact that 'you guys' (meaning you Ph.D educated sorts) seem not just distant from the working clas.s..but you also seem like radically different , and yes, even obnoxious, creatures. The sense of being removed is so extreme that...well, for a regular 'little ol' person, it's almost impossible to want to listen to you. And this is honestly all because of privatization. The average person quite frankly has been so dramatically locked out of your privatized world that they not only do not understand the first thing about it, but they also of course start to resent it and then ignore it.

It's very simple really and yet no one ever says it: The privatization of the American higher education system, and  even the high school and elementary level,  has marginalized the educated crowd in much the same way, again, that the ghetto perspective or the woman perspective is marginalized.The reason no one seems to realize this of course is because, well, to put it simply, the people at the top with the Ph.D's are living such comfortable lives that they don't, I think, notice just how marginalized they actually are from the regular every day perspective. The idea right now floating around (in the upper class of course, where such things are discussed) is that marginalization is only something that happens to poor delinquents, etc etc. But marginalization can, in fact, happen to anyone, and as far as I care to tell it, it has most definitely happened to the educated Americans...and the worst part is that they did it to themselves, by locking themselves in these private institutions, which do not really have much to do with American life at large.

In a way, I think that the Ph.D people  are  (and don't get angry) but I think they are sort of like rappers are for the black folks, because rappers tend to (i am sure many liberals have noticed) utterly dismiss the fact that black people are marginalized as a whole.  Some people might remember, for instance, that around the time the Black Lives Matter movement began, Lil Wayne the rapper came out and said that "I have never experienced racism, I don't even know what they're talking about.." etc etc. In my opinion, and I understand it might sound perplexing, but I think the educated class in this country basically is suffering from the same sort of disillusionment as Lil Wayne. They are convinced that, because they write for the New York Times, or because they have a job as a "political analyst" (I honestly don't even really know what that is) that they're 'doing something', and of course they are doing something...but the truth is that what they're doing is **only reaching a very specific set of people and no one else**. As far as I am concerned, most of the great journalists or writers I've had a chance to read here are just writing for the choir....

 This is of course the same exact case with Lil Wayne and his rap songs: He thinks he's ultra famous, and he thinks he is so respected, and he is respected in that one crowd...but the second he tries to move out of that, and do literally anything else at all, he's going to get crucified. In fact, Lil Wayne's marginalization was so severe that, even when he just tried to make a move as a guitar player and appeal to a white rocker crowd , he almost lost his entire career as a result of it.

That is essentially a text book definition of marginalization in my opinion ...and it's **exactly** what is happening to the educated in this country, believe it or not. Working class people seem to be utterly convinced that educated people are somehow "pulling secret levers of deception" in this country, and I am sure that many of them are doing that, because there is definitely something horrifically funky going on in this country; but there is also, it is clear to see, a whole other world filled with very highly educated American people, who it is clear to me to see, just from following them on Twitter even, that they are very passionate about trying to help the working class, and get aid for the working class, so on and so forth, yet what I find so odd about this is that, well, these Ph. D people seem just as powerless as me at the end of the day, and just as screwed , and voiceless. Nobody seems to be listening to them or heeding their advice.

 DT won after all and the educated boys have been thrown out of the room yet again. They have all these fancy degrees, Ph.D's and Bachelors and Masters degrees hanging all over the walls...they write for the New York Times and show up to work in, I would imagine, a suit, with nice slacks and polished shoes. And yet they seem to have just as little of a voice as I do, with no college degree and the majority of my childhood friends not even HS graduates.

 Which is really absolutely mind blowing and doesn't make any sense --- how on earth could that be?---until, of course, I then remember to remind myself about the privatization epidemic that this country has unfortunately suffered.It has unfortunately, in my opinion, split the cohesion of this country to such a degree that, frankly, the USA isn't so much a "country" in my eyes, as it is a collection of privatized places where very different people hang out and pass all their lives, whilst never really participating in America at large.

This means to say basically that, for me,an institution like Harvard is not so much a symbol of United States culture as it is a symbol of just, strictly, Harvard culture, and personally I think most Americans would agree with me when I put that idea out there. Most Americans, I  think, would never say that Harvard is a defining aspect of US culture, in the same sense that, say, the Grand Canyon, or even Hollywood is, in fact, and the reason that Harvard gets left out of the "real American pile" is not at all because it's wealthy (Americans dont actually have a problem at all with merely wealthy) but rather because it is privatized. There is a big difference to me, between someone who is independently wealthy, and then a huge, wealthy institution that is keeping itself locked off from everyone else .... .

The problem of course is that Harvard and other institutions like it want to eat both cakes, as they say: It wants to remain entirely privatized and tuition based and lock its doors and keep 90% of us out, whilst at the same time constantly trying to stick its foot in the door and tell regular Americans what this culture is supposed to be about or even what their voting habits ought to be...and in my opinion, this has created an enormous blowback of resentment where we now see that the working class masses have hurled this grenade, and they essentially seem to think that they have hurled it at the educated "elites", though they have really only hurled it at themselves.

The fact that they hurled it at themselves ,however, is almost irrelevant because they thought they were knocking out "educated elites' with it.  In other words, they thought they were knocking out and angering  privately educated individuals from institutions like Harvard, or Princeton, and other such places by throwing the grenade, and it seems as though there was apparently nothing that they wanted more. They in fact, it seems to me, don't seem to have listened to so much as a word of what you various privately educated individuals were saying to them, and...of course... still aren't listening. At all.

And so what you see here is , again, a classic example of so-called "marginalization" because, just like Lil Wayne having "black rapper" attached to his name has meant that many folks will blatantly ignore everything he says, so too, in fact, does having "Harvard" attached to ones name and credentials, mean that one will be - intruth - blatantly ignored by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

It even happens to me, as I said in the beginning of the article, and I am generally someone who is, or who would like to be, pretty respectful of folks, whether they were much "luckier" than I, or not at all lucky. Yet even I, in truth, probably would never feel comfortable having, say, something like a favorite author who was Harvard or Yale educated, or a favorite actor, or a musician, etc. Would I read a single book by someone with those credentials? Certainly I would. But would I call it my favorite? No, I wouldn't.  And, in truth, I would probably be rather disappointed if I found out my favorite author had gone to Harvard. I would not like them anymore, I don't think, because it would leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I would feel like, I don't know, I suppose I would feel they were "marked' by the experience. Basically I think I would always be sort of suspicious that they were trying to sell me Harvards opinion, rather than their own opinion. I would never feel motivated by them, because it would ultimately lead me to think a number of possibly untrue things about them.

This is very dangerous when you think about it, and I cannot help but think that the vast majority of Ameriacns seem to have the exact same idea as I do, somewhere in the back of their heads, when it comes to something like this. It is a problem because it really is like a sort of  cattle branding. The Harvard experience elevates someone to this "elite" pile... but when you get in that pile, you also get kicked out of so many other very very important piles..... piles that can make or break the culture at large. This is bad bad bad. I mean, just really try to dwell on the implications of what I am saying, when I tell you that I wouldn't choose someone from Harvard as my favorite author, just because they went to Harvard. I'm kicking the person right out of the room. And I promise you ... I know it is what the other American people are doing ...even if only in the back of their heads.. not totally "conscious" of it. You pick up a novel, you read it, you get to the end, you see "and he was educated at Harvard..." and then you throw it out of the bus window. "Fuck that guy, I aint readin him no more, the pompous dick!" "Oh Johnny Depp went to Harvard, did he? Eh, he can go fuck himself!" 

This at first might seem , naturally, horrifically close minded.... until of course you realize that, when you look over to West Europe, I don't have the slightest 'problem'  with, in truth, even the most highly educated  people upon that continent, as a direct result of the fact that no university name in West Europe is at all similar to Harvard or Yale etc, since the vast majority of them have no tuition for the citizens of the countries and are instead tax based and completely free, and have thus escaped the "brand name' syndrome. Versace is brand name in Europe. And I hate Versace . But the universities? I don't know the first thing about it, beyond knowing that they're all tax based and free . I thus read the educated people of Europe under a totally different light than I read the educated US Americans. The European educated people seem very elegant to my perspective I suppose, I know they sip wine and I know they go to posh restaurants and all of that, and yet they don't seem like snobs to me, either. They don't seem like "penny loafer" people, or "preppies" or any of this. In fact, many of them often seem to be able to switch between a number of faces. They do not seem like snobs. They don't seem to represent something beyond themselves....

They are not, in short, branded, with a tattoo on their face....

The perspective has thus changed entirely, because the educated "elites" of Europe are, of course, more INTEGRATED into the actual society at large. They are not in a privatized 'ghetto' of sorts, living on the outskirts of Europe, on these immaculate campuses that no one has ever seen and only ever - for the most part - heard about. They are not stamped with a brand name. They are not hidden behind locked doors. And, last I heard, in many European colleges, **there isn't even an application process** ....so they are also not at all like, you know, a MAFIA to which you have to be accepted . The whole culture is unbelievably different as a result of this.....

And all of this is to say that, you know...whatever gains the privatized universities think that they have made here in respect to the European universities , as a result of being privatized (because I would imagine that the American privates think they are better in some sense) the truth is that all those gains (if there even were any gains, which personally I do not believe there are any) were completely IN VAIN , because you have received them at a pretty steep cost...and the cost has been that the American people have not only utterly disregarded the educated elites, but even pretty much anyone who smells even slightly "educated", completely. In my opinion, and maybe I am a lunatic, but that seems like a pretty steep cost, and it also seems pretty lousy, and definitely lonely. Harvard sounds like a great place I guess --- until you realize that it is a prison and a ghetto all its own, and that having that little "he went to Harvard" asterisk next to your name, is gonna automatically get you disregarded by, probably, 90% of the American people, depending upon what the Harvard graduate pursues.

I suppose if I were a Harvard graduate, I would probably want to do something in this country that didn't at all involve contact with the wide public , because it cannot be stressed enough that, the second the public is involved, the Harvard guy is often immediately stripped , disregarded, and thrown off into the distance to be utterly ignored, insulted, made fun of, and essentially laughed at. So basically, for a Harvard guy, being a doctor in the shadows would work wonderfully, or a writer for very specific academic magazines that nobody besides other people from Harvard read; but when it comes to a profession where one has to truly integrate with a mass of people, like political people have to do, these Harvard boys and girls have both their legs broken and no arms to write with , because everything they say just goes in one ear  and out of the other, and, I can assure you, it always shall, until  the universities are made public, and taken off of the private road.

Until that day, all of you Ph.D people with your private educations,  you will ultimately mean nothing to the American people, and everything  that you try to do, and all the politics that you try to put upion them, and all the remarks and comments that you try to make, will  be routinely ignored , insulted, denigrated, twisted, turned around, and used against you, over and over and over again. You might think that having the IvyLeague or private university name attached to you makes you look good for the American public, but the truth is that it just makes you look like, well...an absolute asshole, and "there go your arms Jack, there go your legs".

It is kind of ironic really, when you think about it, but institutions like Harvard and Yale suffer from the same thing they say they hate Trump for, or that they say they feel bad for black rappers like Lil Wayne for: They got a big tattoo of a brand name stamped right on their fucking forehead, and we all walk by and throw shit at it and laugh at it and kick dirt at it, no matter what it is saying, or what song it is singing, etc etc etc, and this entire situation, of this privatization epidemic, has created quite the political circus.......

It is really bizarre... and certainly sad...but of course this is why privatization isn't good. At all.....

Keep the wolves locked out. The wolves rip things up you know....

--LOGGING OFF