Is the "Culture War" Really Just "The Education Gap"?

[luckyshot]

Who are you trying to convince? Your sources are all left leaning.

I have masters degree in a health related field and I work with surgeons. Now you tell me your background?

My sources are "Democratic leaning"? They are based on campaign donations and hard data, lol. What are your sources, btw?

 

[IGIT]

Btw, statistics suggest that the more education someone has, the more likely they are to be liberal regardless of what field that education is in. So, while I know a lot of conservatives will be tempted to explain away this trend by blaming the supposed "indoctrination" that happens in women's studies, or anthropology, or the humanities in general, this argument doesn't hold a lot of water; since, degrees in mathematics or the hard sciences are also correlate with more liberal views.

hi Luckyshot,

an interesting OP and a relief from the multitudes of coping threads.

let me ask you, do you think its possible that the less educated someone is, the more open minded they are?

i don't want to simplify things too much, but for example; if someone is kinda of stupid, wouldn't it be easier to convince that person that Barack Hussein Obama was muslim or a Kenyan implant? it would seem to be that the burden of proof is much lighter the dumber your subject happens to be ("i mean, just look at the man's last name. that should tell you all you need to know, right?").

whether its the culture wars, or....well, any number of topics, aren't dumb people more easily won over than intelligent ones? i mean, do you think its fair of me to say that one needs a certain baseline of stupidity to buy into QAnon?

- IGIT

 

[Jack V Savage]

Are you simply hand-waiving the 17 for 17 correlation away, then? Or are you suggesting that educated people tend to cluster around urban centers (which is also true)?

No, he just associates Democrats with blacks, and he has some, let's say, feelings about that that we're not allowed to notice.

As for the thread topic, in America, there's a pretty strong relationship between social trust and education, and that seems to be a major driver of this relationship. For example, why do voters whose lives are profoundly affected by pollution not support legislators who want to fix the problem? In part because they just don't believe it will happen. Despair is the main driver of conservative thought. The conservative criticism of every attempt to fix a problem is that either it won't work or it'll be counterproductive, or politicians who advocate it don't really want it. This also explains the connection between True Progressives and the right. And, of course, there's religiosity (which is not the same thing as faith). And various regressive social views (like the one that we're not allowed to notice) have a negative correlation with education. And then there's the fact that the rightist movement in America is based on objectively false claims that proponents use distrust, despair, religiosity, and tribalism, to drum up support for (climate change is a hoax, COVID is a hoax, regressive tax cuts supercharge economic growth, debt is an existential short-term problem when a Democrat is in the WH, etc.).

 

[Lubaolong]

It didn’t used to be this way. There has been a recent shift in college-educated people becoming more liberal.

Part of it is probably related to more women going to college. Women tend to be more liberal than men. As more women stop making bologna sandwiches, the percent of liberal college graduates increase.

it may also be related to the type of people who are attracted to these locations. Likeminded people may be more likely to cluster. I’m sure the demographic of people moving into Berkeley is very different than the people moving into Mobile, Alabama.

 

[Jack V Savage]

hi Luckyshot,

an interesting OP and a relief from the multitudes of coping threads.

let me ask you, do you think its possible that the less educated someone is, the more open minded they are?

i don't want to simplify things too much, but for example; if someone is kinda of stupid, wouldn't it be easier to convince that person that Barack Hussein Obama was muslim or a Kenyan implant? it would seem to be that the burden of proof is much lighter the dumber your subject happens to be ("i mean, just look at the man's last name. that should tell you all you need to know, right?").

whether its the culture wars, or....well, any number of topics, aren't dumb people more easily won over than intelligent ones? i mean, do you think its fair of me to say that one needs a certain baseline of stupidity to buy into QAnon?

- IGIT

It depends how information is presented. Low-trust, low-information, low-education voters are harder to convince with evidence and sound reasoning. It's easier to get them on board with conspiracy theories, though.

Someone should do more of these:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/04/prospiracy-theories/

Ex:

 

[Islam Imamate]

Btw, statistics suggest that the more education someone has, the more likely they are to be liberal regardless of what field that education is in. So, while I know a lot of conservatives will be tempted to explain away this trend by blaming the supposed "indoctrination" that happens in women's studies, or anthropology, or the humanities in general, this argument doesn't hold a lot of water; since, degrees in mathematics or the hard sciences are also correlate with more liberal views.

I don't think its indoctrination as much as it is acculturation. Universities are generally liberal and people generally attend them in their late teens and early 20s which is a formative time for a lot of people so its going to have an outsize impact on them.

I would anticipate that those who attend college in their later years are less likely to be as affected by it.

 

[IGIT]

And then there's the fact that the rightist movement in America is based on objectively false claims that proponents use distrust, despair, religiosity, and tribalism, to drum up support for (climate change is a hoax, COVID is a hoax, regressive tax cuts supercharge economic growth, debt is an existential short-term problem when a Democrat is in the WH, etc.).

hi JVS,

would you say that these objectively false claims are easier to sell to the less educated?

- IGIT

 

[usfbrah]

From what I’ve seen, college aged millennials are self entitled, lazy and think the world is somehow not supposed to revolve around competition which is the foundation of our economy. It’s funny, they’re fighting for equality and for 15 dollar McDonald’s but if they came to the hood, they’d get robbed or killed. And this is coming from someone who lived in a really dangerous area.

 

[rj144]

Who are you trying to convince? Your sources are all left leaning.

I have masters degree in a health related field and I work with surgeons. Now you tell me your background?

I'm a scientist and have never met a single republican colleague over many, many years.

 

[Jack V Savage]

hi JVS,

would you say that these objectively false claims are easier to sell to the less educated?

- IGIT

Those particular ones, yes.

 

[blaseblah]

It's a correlation, it's hard to find somebody with a college degree that will really believe QAnon, "hydroxy" as a treatment for COVID-19, or that the main problem afflicting the world is the prevalence of abortion.
On the other hand, in the US at least, you will also find the least educated groups, racial minorities including some that do not even speak English, voting reliably democrat. Washington D.C, for example, is overwhelmingly Democrat thanks to, among other things, it's black population–they are not composed of PhDs.
You can also find some professions that are mostly Republican.
Extrapolating these results as some kind of law where people who spent some years at a college will vote for Liberals or Progressives is too bold. If you go some years back it wasn't weird to see large cities filled with well educated people voting for Nixon or Reagan.
It's just that the Republican party has adopted these people:

Minorities tend to vote Democrat specifically because the Republican party is so hostile to them. It's really a tragedy. Dems just have to be less racist and pay them lip service without actually having to do anything for them.

 

[machidafan99]

I believe people without degrees are more educated in the realities of lower middle class life. They tend to also have more street smarts.

The Democratic party is now the party of the well

There as been a lot made of the "culture war" between the left and the right. There has also been a fortune spent trying to explain and predict (often unsuccessfully) how different demographics will interact with our two political parties and, therefore, how various states will vote.

All of this belies the fact that one variable seems to predict a state's culture-- at least electorally-- very accurately. That variable is post high school education.

These are the places that rank highest in percentage of population attaining post-high school degrees:
1. Washington D.C.
2. Massachusetts
3. Maryland
4. Connecticut
5. Virginia
6. New York
7. Vermont
8. New Jersey
9. Colorado
10. New Hampshire
11. Illinois
12. Delaware
13. Washington
14. California
15.Oregon
16. New Mexico
17. Minnesota
18. Pennsylvania
19. Kansas
20. Georgia

I think the pattern is pretty clear: the top 17 states in educational attainment ALL vote reliably Democratic in every single national election.

This is an incredible correlation that cannot merely be a coincidence or an accident. It makes me wonder: is the "culture war" really an overblown idea? Might it more accurately be described simply as "the education gap?"

It also suggests the question: "Does more education make someone more liberal, or are liberals just more likely to seek out more education?"

Let's say we had free college-- like many countries-- would that create a more liberal population? Could that be one of the reasons Republicans are so dead set on fighting it?

Btw, statistics suggest that the more education someone has, the more likely they are to be liberal regardless of what field that education is in. So, while I know a lot of conservatives will be tempted to explain away this trend by blaming the supposed "indoctrination" that happens in women's studies, or anthropology, or the humanities in general, this argument doesn't hold a lot of water; since, degrees in mathematics or the hard sciences are also correlate with more liberal views.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

You can argue that the group that would be most impacted by illegal immigration are people with only high school diplomas..

Dems are hell-bent on bringing anybody and everybody from any poor country south of Texas.
Maybe we don't think they have our best interest at heart.

 

[Wet Blanket]

No. Liberals are not more cultured by virtues of allegedly being more educated. They're simply more gullible and more easily manipulated by hucksters and con-artists.

 

[IGIT]

I don't think its indoctrination as much as it is acculturation. Universities are generally liberal and people generally attend them in their late teens and early 20s which is a formative time for a lot of people so its going to have an outsize impact on them.

I would anticipate that those who attend college in their later years are less likely to be as affected by it.

hello and well met, Khabib Khanate,

by why are universities (meaning the faculty) generally liberal?

is it because "the truth" generally speaking, has a liberal bent to it?

- IGIT

 

[Lubaolong]

I'm a scientist and have never met a single republican colleague over many, many years.

I wonder if scientists were paid $500k a year if more of your colleagues would be republican.

 

[Fluffernutter]

It would be interesting to look at what the economies are like in the sates on the top of the list and those at the bottom of the lists.

My assumption is that to get a high paying job in MA, DC, or CT...you need a college degree.

For states that are more "red" like AK, AL, and SC, you may be able to get a decent high paying job without a college degree.

 

[THEfightsAREfixed]

If you are aligned with either political party you are dumb imo, that prob makes me borderline genius I’m guessing

 

[Crom Cruach]

No. Liberals are not more cultured by virtues of allegedly being more educated. They're simply more gullible and more easily manipulated by hucksters and con-artists.

What is this... Opposite day.

You didn't even get one correct sentence into that post.

 

[Rygu]

Leftists think women can have dicks, that there are 70+ genders, that microaggressions are a thing, need safe spaces, think Aunt Jemima pancake syrup is racist, use terms like mansplaining, think women in the western world are oppressed, think meth should be decriminalized, think knowingly spreading HIV shouldn't result in a harsh penalty, think open borders is a good idea and anything less is racist, believe islam is less violent than christianity, use their pronouns as a primary way to define themselves, believe there is a legit gender paygap, and chant BLM while completely ignoring the fact that most black people who are murdered were murdered by black people.

So your side isn't exactly top-tier either.