Seventy Thoughts on Turning Seventy

The aftermath: On cruelty and education

Of all the cruelty on display by trump and his supporters, the most vicious and unforgivable is the targeting of transgender youth, their families and all who love them. The MAGA ad which strategically ran during NFL games, about the "woke" agenda and pronouns --- she works for "they-them" he works for you... was the Willie Horton ad which tipped the scales of this election. Sure sure, the price of butter, sure sure, landlords raising rent, sure sure the economy.... BUT -- grown men playing girls sports? Well that was an issue "they" could rally around. In these times ( and always ) I promise I will do everything in my power to support people who are living their most authentic lives often at great emotional and financial cost. I will make their lives easier. Not harder.

And all this stuff about education? How the educated are out of touch elites? It is significant that there is an education divide among the parties. But the answer is not to cut funding and programs for education. The answer is not to white wash history or demonize a college education. The answer is not to celebrate ignorance as the ultimate way to "stick it to the libs."

Sure people without college degrees are angry that their earning capacity has not kept up with their peers who earned a degree or two. It's easy to see some people who made the choice after high school to devote 4-8 years gaining knowledge and preparing for a career as somehow unfairly benefiting from that choice with higher incomes and better health. But there has always been an anti-intellectual streak in American culture which has not served us well at all.

As if education itself were the root of all evil and the cause of our conflicts.

The people without college degrees who are not making as much as their parents made for the same kind of work need to understand that the world is changing and as the world changes, the work force has to keep up with those new needs. We can't make America great again by turning the clock back to 1950. That way of life for better or for worse is gone.

Trump's plan to get back at the so called elites by destroying the Department of Education and having the federal government fund home schooling and religious schools will only widen our divide and leave even more people behind.

What we need to do is invest MORE in education than less. The G.I. Bill made college and technical school accessible to returning soldiers who were then able to have careers and support their families. In the 60's and 70's The National Defense Act and the NDEA low interest college loans and the EOG -- Education Opportunity Grants which gave lower income families tuition money made it possible for the children of those G.I's. including their DAUGHTERS to get a college education.

We became the teachers and nurses and doctors and engineers and computer scientists and cancer researchers and innovators.

Our country needs more people with educations not fewer.

Programs that educate young people for a future which is already here. Sure we can bring some factory jobs back. But even the manufacturing sector needs educated people who understand science, economics, sociology and history.

A long time ago a friend said to me with great pride -- "What one man can do, any man can." He was saying this in reference to health issues and alternative health movements. He believed that because one person can come up with a medical remedy for an ailment, any person can. Peer review? Bullshit. Who needs others to prove your assertions. Scientific methodology? Research standards? Actual knowledge of cells and proteins and the function of organs? Who needs it! Try my elixir. I say it works. On 39.99 a bottle! What one man can do...

We saw this when trump stood at the podium with all of his health officials behind him and suggested to the country that drinking or injecting bleach could cure Covid.

The belief in the primacy of one's own ego without humility, discernment or even genuine curiosity cripples us all. The rejection of actual knowledge, the demonization of higher education, the lessons of history and the often liberal values such an education introduces to young people is very dangerous for any society. This kind of thinking makes people prone to believe outrageous conspiracy theories.

Jewish space lasers anyone?

Somehow in trump's America, those who have worked for years, decades to develop knowledge, information and expertise-- like educators, journalists, medical professionals, climatologists, historians et al are now "the enemy within."

I will not apologize for my education. I am grateful to the Federal Government and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through PHEAA ( Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency) for providing the funds to make it possible for the daughter of a single mother to go to college and graduate school.

I don’t know if there has been any research done on the relationship between education and empathy. I do know that there are plenty of educated individuals who can be intolerant and mean. Those people know exactly what they are doing and why they excuse, even revel in trump’s vulgarity and support his divisive policies. But this election has revealed something bigger — a kind of collective ethos of ignorance and antipathy which has taken over a large percentage of our population. That they are celebrating a victory that will bring misery and suffering to others does not bode well for our future.

Below is a video which traces the trump campaign’s use of anti transgender ads during professional sporting events, targeting men’s fears about their own masculinity and ignorance about the science of gender and sexuality.

We need more education and empathy. Not less.