The Cult of the Professional Class
We cannot solve our
problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
In a recent interview on BillMoyers.com about his book Listen Liberal, author Thomas Frank
spoke of the
professional class that rules the Democratic Party and the orthodoxy instilled
in them by their Ivy League institutions. Indeed, every president since
1988 attended an Ivy League university. Not only does this perspective from the
professional class cross party lines, their orthodox worldview extends far
beyond politics. It is based on an ideology that has served elites well –
(semi) free-market capitalism and continuous economic growth. It is an
orthodoxy that values corporate interests and personal gain over public good. It
permeates all fields of society and American culture.
In their book Manufacturing
Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky laid out the media propaganda model
of journalism, in which they articulate the small parameters of discourse
allowable in mainstream media, due to factors such as advertising, corporate
ownership, and the dominant elite mindset. The media propaganda model they
describe is akin to the Ivy League orthodoxy of which Frank speaks. Disciplines
cater to a small span of acceptable dialogue and thought based upon shared
assumptions. Within that realm, diversity exists, but that diversity does not
usually breach understood boundaries. Some voices reach the periphery of the border,
but retract from crossing the line through caveats. Those who traverse
boundaries have a tendency to be marginalized, regardless of the substance, depth,
and validity of their arguments and ideas. This orthodoxy is maintained chiefly
through tacit self-censorship and is internalized by those who practice it.
The professional, upper-class orthodoxy infiltrates more
than just Ivy League institutions because all others revere and aspire to it,
and therefore tend to mimic it. My educational background is fairly privileged.
My secondary school and undergraduate university were filled with students
whose families possessed tremendous wealth, power, and advantage. My
perspectives, experiences, and way of life from my modest, middle-class
background were quite different from the majority of the rich students around
me. People like me are subtly urged to fit in because we see that doing so
would better enable us to garner the successes of the elite. But students far
more disadvantaged than me have
a great deal of trouble assimilating, not because they lack the intellectual
ability but because they feel isolated. Thus, most who persist and whose
backgrounds are anomalous - like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama - adopt the
mindset of the privileged. They deny or ignore their own histories and the
voices they used to hear, voices that may call into question the veracity of
the elite orthodoxy.
This elite-generated social control maintains the status-quo
because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it.
People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically
analyze it. Intellectual regurgitation is prized over independent thought.
Voices of the dispossessed, different, and un(formally)educated are neglected regardless
of their morality, import, and validity. Real change in politics or society
cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the
legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them
achieve their status.
The orthodoxy is why issues such as poverty, hunger,
homelessness, and deterioration of public health and the environment continue unabated.
They are eminently solvable, but cannot be solved under the implicit and often defective
assumptions accepted by the orthodoxy.
We see examples of orthodox rules that benefit the
capitalistic elite, versus independent alternatives which are discounted or
overlooked, in all aspects of modern life:
Public education
Most privileged members of society have never set foot in a
public school or taught under the mandates therein. They have little
appreciation for the teaching profession, which is filled with intelligent,
overworked, over-stressed, caring and devoted individuals who are crippled by
lack of resources, lack of time, lack of money, and lack of autonomy. The elite
create their unsound educational policies without practical knowledge and
evidence – policies which (one could only assume at this point) exist to
crumble the public education system and pave the way for privatization. Charter
schools, common core, endless standardized testing, and erroneous teacher evaluations
do not support the needs of students.
The acolytes of the professional class have no clue about
what is best for students, particularly students with socioeconomic hardships
they cannot and do not fathom. Social support systems for students outside of
the classroom, equivalent funding for all students in all public schools,
teacher independence, administrative support for teachers, higher teacher pay,
and smaller class sizes would do well to tackle some of the fundamental
problems in public education, but these out-of-the-box solutions undermine
elite authority and corporate prospects. In a similar vein, technological
devices – computers, tablets, etc. – have been pushed relentlessly into
classrooms, even though their enhancement of learning,
according to studies, is questionable or nonexistent.
Economics
Even
Alan Greenspan admits that neoclassical economics has flaws in theory and
practice, yet it continues to be the dominant model at universities and in
society. The faulty belief in the uber-rational, self-interested homo economicus probably persists mainly
because it is a projection of the people who inhabit the privileged class.
Corporate externalization of costs are absorbed by society and forgotten when
heralding the successes of industrialists and capitalists. Resource extraction
and environmental degradation, which are part and parcel of production, consumption,
and consequently, economic growth, are downplayed or ignored. Talk of a basic
income, a maximum income or maximum wage, and wealth distribution (except flowing
to the top) are left out of practical discourse. This, despite that way back in
the oft-mentioned halcyon days of the 1950’s under Eisenhower, the
top marginal income tax rate was over 90% and the rich did not seem to
suffer a bit from it. That tax rate, effectively a maximum income, could
support needed social programs and infrastructure and redistribute wealth to
those who have spend the past three decades (at least) earning far less than
their rightfully owed compensation given their abundant productivity. But such
ideas are considered ludicrous according to the orthodoxy.
Health Care and
Medicine
Medical orthodoxy tends to emphasize treatment over
prevention. Though increasingly stressed during the past several decades,
preventative techniques focus on personal lifestyle factors and rarely account
for systemic issues. American medicine is prone to dealing with proximal causes
of diseases, such as changes in physiology, versus distal causes, such as extrinsic
factors responsible for the changes in the physiology. For instance, you go to
the doctor for newly acquired migraine headaches and receive medicine to lessen
the pain. Medicine is a helpful immediate remedy, but you may never get to the
real cause, which is the fact that you have new carpeting in your home that is
outgassing toxic substances resulting in your having headaches.
Industrial causes of disease like pollution and toxic
exposure are not commonly accounted for under the dominant orthodoxy.
In psychology, social factors are discounted, so depression
and anxiety are treated as individual mental health issues rather than stemming
from an unjust and untenable society. If you are not on prescription
medications for something, you are quite atypical, because health care is a
business and always needs new markets under the orthodoxy.
In medicine, there is also the disregard for unnecessary and
questionable interventions. For example, use of CT scans proliferated before
enough adequate research as to their safety and efficacy. Consequently, studies
have found that excessive use of CT scans may now result in preventable cancers
in at least 1 out of 2000 people undergoing CT. But rather than further
understanding the body’s innate ability to heal itself in many situations and
rather than utilizing the comprehensive knowledge of well-learned critical
diagnosticians, medicine now over-uses technological and pharmaceutical
diagnostic and treatment methods. Though these sometimes harm patients more
than they help, they serve to enhance capitalism and expand economic markets.
Fiction
Writers such as George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Sinclair
Lewis and Upton Sinclair, who shed light on the ills of society and the reality
of the human condition, would probably not be published today. While dystopian
fiction - especially science fiction and fantasy - is quite popular, look more
closely and you will find that these novels, while characterizing some of the
unpleasant realities of modern society, almost always end on a bright note with
hope for the future. The benefits of technology are triumphed and the negative
consequences minimized. Positivity is mandated. Narratives are about escape and
denial. Protagonists are heroes who almost always save the day.
I recently finished the popular Ready Player One, and while it demonstrates some societal issues,
each time the protagonist faces an immediate, dire situation, he manages to
overcome the obstacle, often because of simple coincidence or blind providence.
The tragic heroes in Shakespeare and other classic works, who are doomed to die
in the end but are always better for the knowledge and experience gained, are
no more. What message is sent when heroes magically overcome obstacles instead
of learning lessons about themselves and their world? This narrative orthodoxy
of novels also pertains to most fictional films and television series. (Though
some cable shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Mr. Robot seem to be puzzling
exceptions.)
Environment
Market-driven, corporate-friendly, and technological
solutions to environmental issues dominate the discourse in environmental programs,
in the largest environmental advocacy organizations, and in governmental
policies. On the topics of climate change, toxic contamination, and pollution,
questioning the necessity or sustainability of ever-increasing production and
consumption is forbidden in polite company.
In a panel conversation I attended about sustainability in
agriculture, the discussion turned to ways of feeding a growing world
population. Everyone agreed that the problem is not
caused by a scarcity of food but by unequal distribution, but no one on the
panel seemed to think that fact merited practical consideration. Furthermore,
since at least 1/3 of food
produced in the world is wasted, addressing the waste stream might mark a point
at which to intervene in the problem, but the idea was scoffed at. Pragmatic discussion
and research on the issue of food usually assumes the current industrial
farming model. Ideas about small, independent, localized, organic systems of
food growth and distribution, though favored more and more by consumers and shown
in
studies to be the sole sustainable method for the future, are not
recognized as policy solutions by the orthodoxy. Home gardens, as anyone who
tends one knows, could sustain many families fairly easily, but those require
land and land is not given away for free under capitalist orthodoxy. Also, they
require time, which overworked and underpaid citizens (who are even able to
find work) are not allowed to have. So a system of universal gardening is not
even considered.
As far as toxic substances, one cannot suggest banning an
unnecessary and potentially hazardous product or technology. The controversial
endocrine disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) probably does not need to exist
at all, as its applications are mostly superfluous to our lives, but not only
are policymakers reluctant to regulate it, if they do, they will only apply the
mandate of “safe levels” of exposure, even if there is no way to truly
determine or evaluate a safe level for human health or the environment. Though
there is no credible evidence to support the notion that limiting exposures to
hazardous substances, that techno-fixes, or that “win-win” market driven
solutions to environmental problems can be at all sustainable in the long-term,
these are the only acceptable answers to pollution, climate change, and
environmental degradation available within the orthodoxy.
Much is taken as a given under the orthodoxy. Certain ideas
are taken for granted; others cannot be uttered or even thought, such as:
- Why can’t all trade be fair trade?
- Why can’t all crops be organic? Two corollaries: why do we call pesticide-laden crops “conventional” rather than “poisoned”? Why not call “organic” food just “food,” as it was prior to the petro-chemical revolution?
- Why is single-payer universal healthcare, the model in most countries throughout the world, not discussed in U.S. congressional hearings on healthcare reform?
- Why do we automatically denigrate poverty? Why do we not heed stories from the poor themselves?
- Why is democracy celebrated as a political structure while only hierarchy is allowed in the workplace?
- Why can we not question the ethical implications of wealth and excess with regard to economic inequality or environmental sustainability? Why does our dominant Judeo-Christian society value wealth and excess despite scripture clearly stating its immorality?
- Why can we not factually declare the immorality of Wall Street and the general obscenity of commodifying basic necessities of life, such as food, water, and homes (real estate)?
- Why is the work ethic venerated, even when that hard work may be only self-serving, or worse, may be generating tremendous harm? What’s the use of being constantly “busy” if your busyness is not useful (and may be destructive)?
- Why do we not consider the direct and indirect ways our occupations - and the organizations from which we earn money and power - exploit other species, other humans, and the environment as a whole? What might happen if we were all to do so?
- Why do we equate wealth - rather than empathy or altruism - with intelligence and success?
- Why can we not fundamentally question capitalism?
The Ivy League-derived orthodoxy of the professional,
educated class saturates all areas of American society. Alternative voices and
viewpoints are ostracized through a number of means. If you do not possess the
expertise and stamp of approval as authorized by the academic infrastructure,
your ideas are often dismissed out of hand, however profound and substantive.
If you posses the authorization to speak, but step outside of the boundaries of
permissible thought (and action), your voice will remain virtually meaningless,
or worse, maligned. While scholarship, research, writing, and practices outside
of orthodox parameters exist at universities and in other professions, the work
of these professionals does not generally penetrate the paradigms of larger
society, nor does it affect large-scale public policies. Some academics suffer
job loss for their unorthodox views. Steven Salita, Norman Finkelstein, and
Ward Churchill are emblematic of the consequences to those who exceed the
limits. Whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Jeffrey Sterling, John
Kirakou, and Thomas Drake who began within the parameters, for moral and
ethical reasons violated the border of orthodoxy and paid a price. Environmental,
social justice, peace and animal rights advocates like Tim Christopher and Jessica Reznicek also know the penalties for defying the orthodoxy.
Our biosphere is in a global death spiral. The sources of
life support, for those who can still afford them, are diminishing in quality
and quantity. None of the orthodoxy coming from the Ivies and the professional
class is effecting change in this trajectory. We need other voices – voices of
the disposed, disenfranchised, maligned, harmed, victimized, and powerless – to
help find answers. We need to value voices of the indigenous, who have lived as
close to sustainably on this planet as we have ever witnessed and whose
traditions and knowledge may well be fading into oblivion. We need to respect
the voices of those whose knowledge comes from experience, rather than just
from books. We need to consider the voices of those whose main purpose is not professional
advancement, but public good. We need to consider information from others based
on the merits of their arguments and evidence, rather than the letters that
follow their names.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the orthodoxy is that we cannot
truly speak to that fact that humanity is no longer facing the downfall of a
single nation or the destruction of a single people, but the decimation of an
entire planetary ecosystem. If we do not challenge the cabal of political and
social power in America
and around the world, it will likely be the death knell for us all.
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