Pardon Me, But Your Slip Is Showing… aka Mike Rowe v. The Press

a reply to: raymundoko

Funny - because this is what you said:

You are ignorant if you don't see the intent here.

To show how dense you are I leave you with this:

Also, perhaps if you were more educated your reading comprehension would be a tad better?

You also said this:

As an educated person I don't see an issue with calling someone uneducated. It's not an indication of their mental capacity. I do have a problem with how it's used in this context though. The obvious implication is that trumps base is stupid...why do I think that? I've never heard a media outlet call Black or Hispanic voters uneducated even though a 30% of black youth don't graduate high school and 25% of Hispanics don't either. Does that make them stupid? No, far from it, but why aren't they characterized as uneducated in the media?

We agree. I never said Trump supporters were stupid

a reply to: ketsuko

Mike Rowe is just the best. I am an uneducated white guy but I am currently trying to decide which job is best for me. I can go long term and make about $25 per hour or short time and make about $13 an hour. There are still jobs out there that pay well. You just have to put in the time and be skilful. Even if you aren't skilled, someone will hire you as an apprentice. You just have to want it

a reply to: ketsuko

Some of the other members have said it well in a variety of ways...

What's being done in the media is an obvious attempt to manipulate emotions. Just as in any other case, it's up to each individual whether to take it personally.

There's an old German saying I've always got a kick out of. It translates roughly to, "Too soon old. Too late smart."


When the day comes that I haven't learned something new it's time to close the lid and send me on my way.

originally posted by: Toolman18
a reply to: ketsuko
-- snip --
Even if you aren't skilled, someone will hire you as an apprentice. You just have to want it

There is a special kind of pleasure that comes from being able to learn a skill from someone who has put in the time to become a craftsman at what they do. You quickly understand that you'll have to come out the other side of some "Tough Love" in order to get where you want to be. The craftsman will let you mess up royally in order to go through, "Okay, now... That happens to just about everyone at first. Do you see where you went wrong?" If you are fortunate enough to be learning under the right person you will never be ridiculed, you'll be instructed instead.

When I had my first opportunity to be a supervisor I made the conscious effort to try to emulate the first foreman I worked under. He believed there are three types of supervisor:

#1. The guy that wants to be everybody's buddy. In the end, he does a disservice to his workers as well as his employer.

#2. The dog-eat-dog type that would step on his own mother's throat if it might mean another rung on the ladder. That mindset will, with time, experience karma in some form. More than likely the people that deserve to be there at the time won't witness it, but it will come in one form or another.

#3. The supervisor who sees the parallel between his position and a coach for a professional sports team. If his focus isn't on giving his team the motivation and resources to do their best, it is only a matter of time before all their jobs will be in danger.

I will always take pride in those of my crew that got transferred to my department. Our plant supervisor would transfer an employee to my/our department rather than fire them outright. In the entire time I was with the company I only had one employee that forced me to let them go. After all these years, when I run into any of the old crew in public it's just like catching up with any other old friend. Some of them absolutely blossomed when given the chance.

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Ignorant is not the same as stupid. Again you see an attack where one should not be perceived according to you.

The dense part was absolutely an observation. You don't even realize how your logic sounds.

You still skirt the question: Why has the main stream media never pointed out the lack of education in minority voters who overwhelmingly vote democrat? You say because Trump had an unprecedented GOP nomination, but Obama had an even more unprecedented DNC nomination...

When Obama was running against Hilary in that fight they pointed out that HILARY lacked the "educated vote". In fact, she was behind in the educated vote 70% to 30%. When the fight came in 2012 vs Romney the "educated vote" was split down the middle, still nobody pointed out that Obama was winning due to the minority vote, whose average education level was below that of their majority counterparts.

a reply to: CornShucker

But it could also be said, that the more managerial you get, the more removed you are from day to day operations because you're focusing on people not on the nitty gritty work your company does. Maintaining a network of competent people to perform the work is a skill in itself.

By this principal, the most skilled people are never going to be in charge, because their skills atrophy as they spend more time in management.

originally posted by: Toolman18
a reply to: ketsuko

Mike Rowe is just the best. I am an uneducated white guy but I am currently trying to decide which job is best for me. I can go long term and make about $25 per hour or short time and make about $13 an hour. There are still jobs out there that pay well. You just have to put in the time and be skilful. Even if you aren't skilled, someone will hire you as an apprentice. You just have to want it

$25 an hour is not "paid well". It is below the median income and has less purchasing power than minimum wage had in 1955. It is a far below average wage, and settling for mediocrity by just about any metric.

a reply to: raymundoko

Because a large chunk of a minority is still a minority. Yes Hillary has a demographic of uneducated voters, but as a total population size it's dwarfed by Trumps demographic of uneducated voters.

That's not to say though that everyone who votes for (insert candidate) is uneducated. Part of going through the mass media machine is to create broad appeal that hits all income and education demographics.

In the end it falls along geographic lines. The Republican base has a bunch of southern states that don't have the best reputation for smarts. Those people will support Trump just because of party affiliation. The Democrats have an urban base who again aren't known for being well educated but will vote for Hillary because she's a Democrat. At the end of the day though, a few urban centers don't have the same population as several states put together.

originally posted by: Aazadan


Not necessarily stupid, but I view people without a minimum of a 4 year degree the same as I view high school dropouts because they're the exact same thing... a person that wasn't willing to complete a necessary level of education. Are there jobs which don't need those 4 year degrees? Sure there are, but education is more than job training, it's also teaching problem solving skills, and more importantly social conditioning.

Have you taken a college course recently? I have. It was appalling.

Problem-solving? Right. Spoon-fed answers, more like.

Social conditioning? For sure--but certainly not in a good way.

What I saw was this: classes catered to the lowest common denominator--rather than failing people who didn't make the grade, entire classes were forced to do dumbed-down work. For example, in my "college algebra" class, half the students couldn't do basic pre-algebra they should have learned in middle school. They couldn't get their heads around the simplest things such as positive and negative numbers. Did they flunk the class? The class that should have been a step beyond Algebra One? Of course not. Everyone else had to backtrack and sit through a semester of pre-algebra instead.

In fact, during my short return to school, I had two classes--real academic classes, not "feminist theory in the 20th century" or somesuch--which I attended only for tests. I didn't read the text--because it was written at about 6th grade level. I didn't listen to the lectures--for the same reason. And even that level seemed beyond half the students. I showed up for tests.

And you know what? I passed both classes with a B. That is just...obscene. I went there to learn. Not because I wanted a degree, but because I wanted to actually learn something. But learning wasn't part of the program.

Now, this was not some little community college. It was a well-respected private university. And the work was what, when I was in school the first time around (I'm in my late 40s), would have been about 8th grade level. I was disgusted that I was paying thousands of dollars for this.

College degree? Wahoo. All it shows is that you're a good little zombie who can sit still for three hours at a time.

a reply to: Aazadan

College today has become the equivalent of high-school, and a college degree is looked on in the same was a high school diploma used to be. Problem-solving etc are skills that should be learned well before college, and once upon a time actually were. Today, schools are too busy "teaching to the test" to teach problem solving so it's left until college.

a reply to: rollanotherone

Many of my classes consisted of the instructor reading a PowerPoint presentation--literally, reading aloud what was on the screen in front of us--to the class. Every time, I thought, "Why can't I just read the damn PowerPoint on my own time? This is a college class. I can read. TEACH ME SOMETHING!"

a reply to: Aazadan

So, in order to get an education you must sit in a classroom? I fail to see the difference, quite frankly, between sitting in a classroom while someone drones on about the topic and simply reading about the subject yourself. From a textbook, if need be. What is it about sitting in a classroom that makes it a better form of learning than reading, watching videos, engaging on discussion boards, etc as a means of learning. Wait a minute--that's a description of an online college class...

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Toolman18
a reply to: ketsuko

Mike Rowe is just the best. I am an uneducated white guy but I am currently trying to decide which job is best for me. I can go long term and make about $25 per hour or short time and make about $13 an hour. There are still jobs out there that pay well. You just have to put in the time and be skilful. Even if you aren't skilled, someone will hire you as an apprentice. You just have to want it

$25 an hour is not "paid well". It is below the median income and has less purchasing power than minimum wage had in 1955. It is a far below average wage, and settling for mediocrity by just about any metric.

$25/hour is above median wage for the whole of the United States. It does have less purchasing power, but that isnt dictated by wage but the rather the strength of the US Dollar.

What metric are you using to suggest that 25/hour is "not well paid"

You also state it is "well below" the average...mixing terms here between median and average, im still failing to find data that supports your claims.

originally posted by: ownbestenemy1
Here is my take on education.

Find what you want to do and go for it.

If the field of interest requires you to get that college degree, dig deep and get that degree; albeit, dont discount experience on that path.

If on the contrary you can achieve the knowledge needed via "alternative" means do it, but dont write off the education of a college or any other means.

They are part and parcel to each other. Educate yourself in whichever means you see fit. I have known taxi drivers with a wealth of knowledge and doctors with a wealth of texts.

Set your goal, ignore what the media portrays you as, and make a life for yourself. I believe that is what Mr. Rowe is getting at.

That's it in a nutshell. Like the old Nike commercial: Just do it.

originally posted by: Aazadan

I have just under 400 college semester credits. That doesn't mean I'm educated though, there's still way more in life that I don't know than I do.

You may think poorly because I'm defending getting an actual education, but that's better than the opposite approach which is defending ignorance.

Again, I don't consider education and learning to do a job to be in the same category at all. Job training is how you make a living, learning how the world works (both in theory and practice) is education.

On re-reading this, I find I'm a bit confused (maybe it's because I'm uneducated). You say you have "just under 400 college semester credits." Do you mean actual credits? You have almost four hundred credits? At 12 credits per semester and 2 semesters per year, that's sixteen years of college. Are you saying you have sixteen years of college? Or are you talking about credit hours (which, at an average of 3 hours per credit, would put you at around 5 1/2 years of college)?

Please clarify for the uneducated among us. Thank you.

a reply to: Aazadan

That depends entirely upon where you are, what the cost of living is, and the job you're doing. In my area, $25 is not just "paid well," but paid VERY well.

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Do you see though how a group can feel marginalized by the broad strokes of demograpic polling?

Lumping those without a college degree as "uneducated" does just that. If I recall, such polls catorgized in the past as "without a college degree" or such manner.

A degree doesnt denote education, just as not having a degree denote uneducated.

By labelling as a modern day poll does, it attempts to minimilze a large swath of the populace and those caught in that demographic seem to be sick of such generalizations.

So call it wounded pride, for it is, but it is an attempt to unjustly peg those thay chose a different path as such.

a reply to: ownbestenemy1

Do you see though how a group can feel marginalized by the broad strokes of demograpic polling?

Of course I do. This will sound more antagonistic that I intended :-)

But, why wouldn't I?

Since I'm one of maybe three leftier leaning folks that felt like wading into this thread - I do feel a little conspicuous. I am going to say this - It's interesting to me how bothered this particular group seems to be by being lumped - into a group

I have to point out that other groups have been getting these kinds of labels for years. But, I'm not really in the mood for that angle now

This thread is as much about class as it is about anything else - and there's a class war happening right in front of our eyes. It's weird to see how it all bubbles to the surface in different ways and at different times

This is really a big conversation, but wounded pride goes towards explaining why Trump. If Trump is your guy, you won't be able to see him through the same lens as I do

This, if you ask me - is part of why things in this country are so nuts lately. We've become so polarized that we can't see each other anymore. We honestly can't understand each other. Won't even try...

Makes it hard to have some very important conversations

:-)

a reply to: Aazadan

You do not understand...

The "minority" I am discussing makes up 30%+ of the population. The "majority" usually gets split between the two parties, the minority groups do not. The articles are very clear this is only WHITE VOTERS. They exclude minorities from the numbers.

When you combine the minority with the portion of the majority who vote democrat, you end up with democrats getting the "uneducated" vote. If you need help let me know. Math can be a problem for those who lack education.

a reply to: Aazadan

Ok, so now we know you just have no idea what you are talking about. 25 dollars an hour IS the median income in the USA, or 52k a year.

You should educate yourself.

Maybe start with google