David Goodhart | The crisis of cognitive elitism | SDP Talks

In this episode of SDP Talks, SDP leader William Clouston is joined by journalist, commentator, and author David Goodhart. William and David discuss how Britain's education system focuses too much on generating cognitive elites, the societal ramifications of this, and why we should turn away from this mentality.
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[@oblux]

I regret every day I spent at university, and especially regret being coerced into applying and signing up when I was a naive teenager. I did, what was in hindsight, a micky mouse degree at a respected Russell Group university. I managed 2 years out of 4 on the course, before realising that the whole course and experience was an utter charade. I also realised the reason I did a micky mouse degree was because I wasn't actually interested in an academic career, even though I was a straight-A* student throughout school and college. I'm now a self-taught, self-employed furniture maker doing quite well for myself. I shouldn't ever have been encouraged to sign up to a degree in the first place - I still have a massive student debt looming over me with nothing to show for it. It would be irresponsible to encourage a 16 year old to take on a cash loan that big for anything else, so why is it okay to sell them a supposed education that might be entirely wrong for them? There is a lack of effective regulation in this regard, and no way for young people to have debts cancelled for wrong decisions they were encouraged to make when they were still very young. Even going bankrupt isn't an option to remove a student debt these days - a true 'mort gage' for the modern under 40's.

[@ajs41]

What course was it, if you don't mind me asking?

[@oblux]

@@ajs41 Folk and Traditional music

[@oblux]

@SG Nice imagery.

[@ian_b]

You were, one might say, lucky enough to spot the charade early on, rather than spending a life in denial and full of bitterness at how their education had not "delivered". It's nice to read that you found a meaningful way to spend your life and are doing well at it. Also, I agree about the loan thing. I think a lot of this is because the system was turned into its current form by Boomers who had a great time at Uni in the 60s/70s, forming rock groups and planning the revolution in the Student Union bar -a time not of loans, but grants, remember- and can't imagine anyone else wanting anything different.

[@betalhimasres4703]

@@oblux would you consider history at a good Russell group to be a Mickey Mouse degree?

[@Nagisasan36]

Thank you chaps. This is the way forward. We are craving intelligent discussion like this. The world is gagging on the relentless torrent of junk flowing from the channels that are meant to inform us. The SDP has the pulse of the nation I think. It remains to be seen whether you can break through, but you certainly have my vote.

[@translunar1]

I have the biography about the Mercury Seven Astronaut Wally Schirra, which is an excellent view of a Navy Officer and Naval Aviator in the United States in the 40's, 50's & 60's and a point that he makes so succinctly, always come back to me about he says about academic vs vocational knowledge and the points that he makes about how important the mechanics and engineers were when he was flying aircraft and spacecraft. He makes the point about how much he learnt from these men, who kept the aircraft flying and the ships sailing and that none of them had degrees but lot's of vocational training. Of course in our country now manufacturing has been farmed out to the far east and there is less of a need for these engineers and toolmakers and lathe operators and unless we get control of this now, our country will suffer in the long term!

[@shelleyphilcox4743]

Minimum pay as a comparator in currency value is meaningless. Minimum wage value is only relevant to the cost of housing, utilities, food and tax where you actually live.

[@tomthumb2361]

The disparagement of practical skills and the disdain for 'provincial' centres - like almost the whole North - go together. As a retired teacher, I witnessed the bias against practical skills and many elements of the culture in which I grew up - and it was a culture of some distinction - every day. Systemic, really. Snobbery and ignorance. The obsession with 'who' you are - if you are qualified in terms of 'face fits' and 'the right attitudes' - rather than in terms of 'what' you are - what values you hold to, what you know and can do, and what your experience has been. The failure to push through the full Butler reforms. Ideologically-driven reforms. Centralisation. Lack of democracy in the running of educationalinstitutions.

[@kayedal-haddad9294]

I would love to see a video between William and an Economics Professor/Academic discussing the need for economic reform in this country!

[@mc.8391]

I so enjoyed this conversation, thank you, very enlightening

[@zadeh79]

Cognitive elite does NOT MEAN Academic elite. In fact, most of the purpose of cognitive elitism is, in large part, to deemphasize, if not nullify, the merits of education attainment. Cognitive elitism is why, nowadays, people only require H.S diplomas to get into management and IT fields. It's why mid-high level skilled jobs involving theoretical knowledge (tossing algebra equations, basic programming) are entirely neglected. 30 years ago: Cognitive elitism promotes: 1. Non-regulation of teasing/bullying within academic setting. This is for the intention of causing lifelong and potentially irreversible harm to empirical minded individuals, conventionalized as "Dorks" or "Nerds". 2. Anti-Education attitude - education is more about experience and building intuition, than about cognition. 3. Neglect of high level skill based jobs/Artificial over-emphasis on dynamic skill sets. Dynamacy involves learning, which in turn, involves cognitive load. Hence modern system involves reinventing protocols for largely the purpose of confusing and eliminating the less cognitive elite (a good example in computers is C++ --> Java)

[@REKandler]

I think probably Major (not Callaghan) was the last PM not to go to university ... but I"m splitting hairs. Great interview.

[@shelleyphilcox4743]

Part of the problem is employers requiring degrees for jobs that really dont need to be filled by people with degrees. It makes no sense to me to have a degree in French qualifying you for a job in which you will never use French, it's a nonsense that just having a degree is an indicator that you are capable in any 'degree level' role. I think government institutions are particularly bad for doing this.

[@zadeh79]

It's actually the opposite, with cognitive elitism. ...their is a lack of jobs that require mid-high level skills and theoretical knowledge.. Nowadays, managers, IT professionals ect... can get their foot in the door, without background experience that was critical to job attainment 30+ years ago. Cognitive elitism is just the opposite of academic elitism.

[@GodsOwnPrototype]

@Social Democratic Party Thank you for a good conversation on an important topic. Would you perhaps at some point do a couple on the issues of demographic and cultural security. Most people are what Eric Weinstein has termed 'xenophilic restrictionists'; even the majority of those the media decry as racists and bigots appear on closer examination to fall within this category but with specific complaints, though perhaps poorly expressed, (that cognitive elite issue again). Even those that do have negative prejudices about different populations of foreign extraction do so out of personal anecdotal experience or data driven statistical probability rather than malice and genuine bigotry. Most people i've met who do hold these views also remain firm practitioners and advocates of performative individualism in their dealings with all people, both out of habit, practicality, what we might call 'empirical justice', (not unduly punishing worthy individuals for group categorical trends & tendencies), and because doing so is an aspect of British culture, which they have a strong desire to preserve as a whole. The policies of at least the last 25 years are undeniably causing the displacement and minoritisation of the indigenous peoples of the British Isles in the UK and the longer honest conversations and corrective action is avoided the worse the likely outcome and the harder it is to avoid.

[@John-he6yh]

William Clouston will not touch these issues in any meaningful way, since he is a civic nationalist, and has made a conscious decision to circumscribe the conversation accordingly. He has made this quite clear over the last several months.

[@GodsOwnPrototype]

@@John-he6yh Then he, like all the others are consequentially supporters of the continued effective native ethnic cleansing, cultural destruction, heritage erasure and an eventual violent conflict or increasing native repression and fundamental transformation of our country and it's peoples into something foreign and other. This need not be so & the return of many to their homelands can be facilitated & supported so as to be mutually beneficial to all of virtue & good will. It need not even restrict the presence of people of foreign extraction in the UK, the problem is less that they come and are here but more that they stay and natives have no cultural or demographic security.

[@John-he6yh]

@@GodsOwnPrototype Yes. Even if Clouston knows that people such as you and I are "coming from the right place" (as you so eloquently put earlier), he has made an irreversible commitment to "classical liberalism", be it due to cowardice or idealism/naivety, probably both (although to his "credit" I'm reasonably sure he is not an active subverter). Whether or not he is attempting to actively redirect people into his civic nationalist position (perhaps even against his better judgement), the result is the same; his waxing liberal with every sentence facilitates the loss of the very things he stands for. It is truly tragic.

[@GodsOwnPrototype]

@@John-he6yh I am merely calling for honesty an honest Liberalism will still shift things in the right direction.

[@John-he6yh]

@@GodsOwnPrototype I too am a liberal at heart, and the increasing feeling of antagonism is one which was quite alien to me until the last few years, but the liberalism we espouse is increasingly at odds with the world around us. The root cause of the erosion of the context that we so desperately need is one which archetypes such as Clouston, or Weinstein (for obvious reasons), or Peterson, or Murray, etc. will never acknowledge. Ethnic displacement, cultural subversion, as well as the "pandemic" can all be quite easily traced to this root cause, through both intuition and intellect. While Clouston is admittedly quite good with "important topics", he is utterly impotent with the crucial ones.

[@ajs41]

Although I agree with most of David Goodhart's ideas, I'm not sure about the idea that less intelligent people should be encouraged to be snowflakes who get offended by the fact that other people are more talented than they are.

[@seanmoran6510]

Agree with you if that’s what he’s arguing for.

[@gothicwestern]

Not long ago, iain Dale on LBC radio admitted that he didn't know what a btec qualification is. For a presenter on national talk radio who discusses the economy that was truly shocking.

[@vatsmith8759]

Hmm, in the Seventies I studied at University for a B.Tech. and then thirty years later I was given a Btec certificate by my civil service department for nothing more than handing in folder containing examples of my past work. There really is no point in having these modern qualifications that mean next to nothing.

[@martinjones8216]

Who is going to mend my diverse multiracial book shelf ?

[@tfking10]

Men who went to University stating too many people go to University. I'd bet their children will attend/have attended University. All based on this ridiculous notion everyone goes to University to have a good time. We certainly need manual workers but how the hell will we compete with Asia?

[@mogznwaz]

But these older men went to university when few did. There's nothing wrong with university but it's not for everyone. Kids now are expected to go to uni and it barely matters what degree it is. They're racking up loads of debt for degrees that will be worth very little as so many have them. Uni is NOT automatically better than a trade or an apprenticeship and the elitism of thinking it is, to me, is a big part of the problem. We DON'T need more Gender Studies graduates, we DO need more engineers, builders and plumbers. A degree in STEM is valuable. A degree in medicine is valuable. A degree in pantomime studies or colonial poetry is not.

[@martinjones8216]

Does this so called intellectual ever speak a sentence without humming or harming ?

[@ds6914]

Clouston talks too much