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

Oh? Is shit like this easier to sell to the low educated? Are high school drop outs more likely to buy the premise of this gender studies professor?

This is such a sleazy game. "Oh, the president, most voters, and all the elected leaders of one major party are batshit crazy? Well, check out this guy no one has ever heard of saying something outrageous! See, liberals are even worse!"
 
Why did you become a doctor? I ask, because having seen many premeds, I know the one of the main reasons.
There were a lot of factors. The work I was doing at the time paid pretty ok but was stressful to me, geographically restrictive, and not 100% dependable. Medicine offered more stability, more freedom, higher social prestige, and the potential for more income. Also, a Sherdog moderator who was a medical student at the time posted that I could never get into a US medical school. That was probably one of the catalysts that got the process started.
 
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.
Dude, this is perfect. I notice that everyone who fights for equality and all that, they don’t even know a single person of color! They’ve never been to the hood, and never lived even close to anyone of color. Sad reality is everyone I know who ends up living in a colored neighborhood ends up hating people of color. It is sad but it’s reality. Rich people and white people just like feel guilty and virtuous so they defend colored folks at every turn, however, they don’t know any and never ever will live amongst them.

long story short, we all know the bad neighborhoods are of color, and any virtue signaling whitey would get jumped ASAP and that would change their entire view of “equality”.
 
hi PainIsLife,

i think that lucky commented on this in another post.

his observation was that although there were dumb people in his locale (i believe it was the northeast), the dumb-people-per-capita statistic was more alarming in states like Alabama and Mississippi.

- IGIT

Interesting, but the majority (84%) of top 25 cities with the highest high school graduation rates are in red cities and with another 8% being swing states.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...re-most-people-graduate-high-school/37271113/

Now, I wouldn't equate a high school diploma with a college degree, but I wouldn't necessarily equate a college degree with intelligence either.
 
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.

Your first mistake is thinking that obtaining a college degree equates to intelligence. Anyone who has ever been to college knows there are plenty of stupid people who graduate

Furthermore not everyone who votes in those states you listed voted Democrat.
 
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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.
Tell that to the religious right
 
There were a lot of factors. The work I was doing at the time paid pretty ok but was stressful to me, geographically restrictive, and not 100% dependable. Medicine offered more stability, more freedom, higher social prestige, and the potential for more income. Also, a Sherdog moderator who was a medical student at the time posted that I could never get into a US medical school. That was probably one of the catalysts that got the process started.

So, one of the prime motivating factors is money, right? Most scientists aren't scientists for money. Yes, money is good and I'm not saying we don't care. I'm saying as long we can do a job that we somewhat like, money is not the motivating factor.
 
Your first mistake is thinking that obtaining a college degree equates to intelligence. Anyone who has ever been to college knows there are plenty of stupid people who graduate
Well, your first mistake is putting words in my mouth. Is the word "intelligence" used at all-- even once-- in my OP? No, because I specifically avoided it.
 
Your first mistake is thinking that obtaining a college degree equates to intelligence. Anyone who has ever been to college knows there are plenty of stupid people who graduate
Well, your first mistake is putting words in my mouth. Is the word "intelligence" used at all-- even once-- in my OP? No, because I specifically avoided it.
 
High trait openness -> Interest in abstract, novel ideas -> More likely to seek higher education
High trait openness -> Interest in abstract, novel ideas -> More likely to adhere to lean-leaning political ideology, especially combined with low conscientiousness

You can't "educate" Republicans to make them Democrats. Republicans aren't seeking out higher education because, as a group, they have lower trait openness and most university subjects bore them. I could see something like law and business potentially interesting them, seeing as they're subjects mostly devoid of abstract thinking and imagination and instead involve memorization and down-to-earth problem solving.

It's also worth mentioning that high achievers in education all have high trait conscientiousness, which is a predictor of conservative affiliation. With high trait conscientiousness + openness you end up with something like a centrist or a classic liberal. The prototypical far-left trash has low trait conscientiousness. The PhD holders, MA holders, etc, might be on board with liberal ideology, but they're not on board with your retarded open borders abolish capitalism transgender racial interest groups "utopia."

Openness is related to academic achievement constructs such as intellectual curiosity, aesthetic sensitivity, vivid imagination, preference for novelty and variety (Costa & McCrae, 1992; McCrae & Costa Jr, 1997), and intellectual investment (von Stumm & Ackerman, 2013). Individuals with high openness scores are characterized as being deep and complex with a positive attitude toward challenging learning experiences (Barrick & Mount, 1991), as opposed to being more down-to-earth and narrow-minded (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Higher curiosity and intellectual engagement results in positive correlations between openness and approaches to learning (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2009; Diseth, 2003; Geisler-Brenstein et al., 1996; Vermetten, Lodewijks, & Vermunt, 2001) and critical thinking (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007), as well as elaborate learning strategies, including deep-processing of information (Blickle, 1996; Komarraju et al., 2011).

(...)

Conscientiousness is closely related to traits and behaviors known to be crucial for school performance, such as self-discipline, ambition, persistence, diligence, dutifulness, and grit (Credé, Tynan, & Harms, 2016; Dumfart & Neubauer, 2016; Ivcevic & Brackett, 2014; Schmidt, Fleckenstein, Retelsdorf, Eskreis-Winkler, & Möller, 2017; Schmidt, Nagy, Fleckenstein, Möller, & Retelsdorf, 2018). Further, conscientiousness has been linked to learning behaviors that result in good grades (see Credé & Kuncel, 2008; Kling, Noftle, & Robins, 2013), such as self-regulated learning (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007), goal orientations (Sorić, Penezić, & Burić, 2017), systematic studying and methodical learning styles (e.g., Geisler-Brenstein, Schmeck, & Hetherington, 1996; Komarraju, Karau, Schmeck, & Avdic, 2011), as well as academic effort (see De Raad & Schouwenburg, 1996; Noftle & Robins, 2007; Trautwein, Lüdtke, Roberts, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2009; Trautwein, Lüdtke, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2006).
 
There were a lot of factors. The work I was doing at the time paid pretty ok but was stressful to me, geographically restrictive, and not 100% dependable. Medicine offered more stability, more freedom, higher social prestige, and the potential for more income. Also, a Sherdog moderator who was a medical student at the time posted that I could never get into a US medical school. That was probably one of the catalysts that got the process started.


That’s a funny story. Which mod was it?
 
Why do criminals primarily vote Democrat? Is it a "crime gap" rather than an "education gap? "
 
Well, your first mistake is putting words in my mouth. Is the word "intelligence" used at all-- even once-- in my OP? No, because I specifically avoided it.

Then what is your inference? Without intelligence, education is pointless
 
So, one of the prime motivating factors is money, right? Most scientists aren't scientists for money. Yes, money is good and I'm not saying we don't care. I'm saying as long we can do a job that we somewhat like, money is not the motivating factor.
Nah, money wasn’t the biggest motivator. 10 years ago, I was making almost as much as some of the lower paid specialties. If money was all it was, it wouldn’t have been worth it to be out of work for 8 years and go into massive debt just for a small pay bump. Luckily, it turned out to be more than a small pay bump, but that was not one of the initial major motivators.

I do see your point that a lot of people might go into medicine motivated mostly by money and maybe perhaps people working as scientists don’t have the same ambitions. I’m not sold on it though.
 
I think it ultimately comes down to what profession people seek/major in and what they make after. I live in California and some of my closest college educated friends own businesses, one a construction company, one with a catering company and another is a doctor with his own office. They all vote conservatively. Then I have other friends who majored in sociology, photography and psychology that have random jobs where their degree didn’t really do much for them. IE sales of some sort, bartenders/servers or HR and they all vote demo. I myself and pretty moderate with a mid level management position in the alcohol business. I think growing up in most of those states, what you major in and where you end up career wise more determining on political views rather than going to school itself. There are way more people majoring in liberal arts these days.


Edit: I think the entertainment culture and social media has a big impact on this as well. Things like music festivals have become extremely popular and the artists at these events are almost exclusively liberal.
 
Nah. The education gap, in part, is as likely to be a result of culture/mindset as the reverse.

Even in the States, I'd imagine that a more conservative-minded, individualistic sort would be more likely to forgo tertiary education in favour of business opportunities or real-world, hands-on experience. Some people are also just not suited to the college/uni environment, not just in terms of academic requirements but also temperament or even political leaning.

Migh-performing conservatives might be more likely than high-performing democrats to find something more traditionally constructive to do with their time when they leave HS. While low-performing conservatives, who'll largely be white, aren't really the target market for college admissions, so that'll skew the numbers somewhat there.

Conservative-minded youths are probably also more likely to be concerned with things like starting families, in which case they might feel like tertiary education, and the debt it incurs, is just not worth the delay it would force their lives to take.

Just random, speculative examples.
 
That’s a funny story. Which mod was it?
Daruckus337.

There was a big thread with this guy named Polynikes crying about the MCAT and getting rejected by medical schools. I made some comment about taking the MCAT and how I ended up doing private tutoring instead of going to medical school, and everyone piled on me and wanted to see my scores. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but Daruckus377 said something to the effect of I couldnt cut it, and even if I did get a godly score, I still couldn’t get in.

I don’t remember exactly how much time passed, but at some point shortly after this, I signed up to retake a few expired science courses, the MCAT, and applied in the next application cycle.
 
Can I see some data on criminals voting history and trends ?

"Marc Meredith, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, told Newsweek. "In states where the ex-felon or felon population is more African American there is probably going to be a slightly greater Democratic bent to the group just because of the demographic nature of the population. And in places where the ex-felon population is mostly white you'll see much less of a partisan difference in how that population votes."

"I do think, on average, that Democrats would get more votes than Republicans if we nationwide all of a sudden got rid of felon disenfranchisement,""

Not a study by any means but a logical assessment IMO.
 
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.
Here are SAT scores by state:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/sat-scores-by-state

And here are the top 10 states versus democrat/republican percentage in 2020 election:
  1. Minnesota (1,295) -> Democrat
  2. Wisconsin (1,291) -> Republican and democrat
  3. Iowa (1,275) -> Republican
  4. Missouri (1,271) -> Very republican
  5. Kansas (1,260) -> Very republican
  6. North Dakota (1,256) -> Very republican
  7. Nebraska (1,253) -> Very republican
  8. Kentucky (1,247) -> Very republican
  9. Mississippi (1,242) -> Very republican
  10. Utah (1,238) -> Very republican
If you go by SAT scores (which I think is a good indicator of academic aptitude), then you can see that it heavily favours republicans (and that is reflected beyond the top 10 as well).

Obtaining a post secondary degree is not necessarily a sign of academic aptitude, but also by the ease of the program people are taking. If a college just gives away post secondary degrees then of course a lot of people will have them, rather than a college that puts students to the test and as a result fails a lot of them. Also what degrees the person is obtaining also matters, a STEM degree is much more indicative of intellectual aptitude over a feminist dance theory degree for example.
 
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Here are SAT scores by state:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/sat-scores-by-state

And here are the top 10 states versus democrat/republican percentage in 2020 election:
  1. Minnesota (1,295) -> Democrat
  2. Wisconsin (1,291) -> Republican and democrat
  3. Iowa (1,275) -> Republican
  4. Missouri (1,271) -> Very republican
  5. Kansas (1,260) -> Very republican
  6. North Dakota (1,256) -> Very republican
  7. Nebraska (1,253) -> Very republican
  8. Kentucky (1,247) -> Very republican
  9. Mississippi (1,242) -> Very republican
  10. Utah (1,238) -> Very republican
If you go by SAT scores (which I think is a good indicator of academic aptitude), then you can see that it heavily favours republicans (and that is reflected beyond the top 10 as well).

Obtaining a post secondary degree is not necessarily a sign of academic aptitude, but also by the ease of the program people are taking. If a college just gives away post secondary degrees then of course a lot of people will have them, rather than a college that puts students to the test and as a result fails a lot of them. Also what degrees the person is obtaining also matters, a STEM degree is much more indicative of intellectual aptitude over a feminist dance theory degree for example.
While these states might have larger rural populations that vote conservative, not all these farmers are taking the SAT. Metro areas in these states are heavily liberal and could be where a lot of these SAT scores are coming from.
 
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