American Idyll, Chapter 2

 Chapter 2 is about the notion of an "average" American. I won't attempt to summarize it because it's a very dense chapter, full of summaries of other writers' summaries of the history and how they responded to it. I'll just note two big takeaways:

1) The "average" American is an artificial construct. While I'll go to the mat arguing that standardized tests are useful for carefully-defined purposes, they aren't everything, and they certainly don't tell you everything that you need to know about people. People with scores in the center of a distribution are a hugely varied bunch by every measure other than scores, and I reject any technocratic effort to shepherd all of them into a small number of paths. For that matter, I reject any effort to shepherd people anywhere else in the distribution into a small number of paths. A score may rule out a few things from a huge range of options, or add a few more things to a huge range of options, but there's a huge range of options in any case.

Much of what she is reacting to is efforts to over-use scores.

2) Test scores can be used for elitist purposes, but she notes that humanities education was actually critiqued as being unsuitable for the non-elite, and hence some commentators looked down upon humanities rather than looking down on the non-elite. If you celebrate the middle then you'll look with suspicion upon subjects for the elite. If you celebrate the elite you'll look with disdain on those not prepared for elite subjects.

I wish that the debate about "academic" versus "vocational" education wasn't an either/or. People should study "traditional academic subjects" both because they provide useful insights for life AND because stretching the mind is worthwhile in its own right. We can study Shakespeare for insights into power, relationships, etc., but let's face it: There are plenty of other ways to learn about those matters. First and foremost we study Shakespeare because the plays are delightful. We study disordered materials in physics in part because they are useful, but for many applications all you really need to know is a few parameters that engineers already know how to measure.  We also study disorder because it is fascinating.

People should stretch their minds. People should also learn how to do useful things. The real world requires both. Some might focus on one more than the other at a particular stage of life, but why does it have to be either/or?

American Idyll, Chapter 1: Meritocracy

 Chapter 1 is written as a summary of history and thinkers. She covers a lot of things I've heard before, including standardized tests and Hofstadter's critiques of anti-intellectualism. I could summarize everything she's said, but that would be a lot of space (she packs a lot in) and frankly I don't take issue with much. The meta issue is that she is critiquing meritocracy as a technocratic hierarchy. I have more than enough issues with that, so I don't disagree. But meritocracy is an idea with two very different usages, subject to two different critiques. Besides an overall societal hierarchy based on technocracy, "meritocracy" also refers to hiring workers or selecting students based on qualifications for the particular position in question. Merit for the job is narrower than merit to run society. Being qualified to study a particular subject at a particular level is different from being qualified to enter the leadership class.

Liu critiques standardized tests alongside efforts to make education more "relevant" that Hofstadter critiqued. I'm not sure that the two things really belong together for critique. Sure, testing can be combined with tracking to give some people a less "academic" and more vocational education, while others get more traditional liberal arts or whatever. Whatever the advantages or disadvantages of such tracking, when you DON'T track you wind up having to dumb things down. (Ask me how I know.) Testing and tracking is the best hope for offering rigorous education at all. Otherwise we have to go to the lowest common denominator.

I'm not sure that I'm seeing how Liu will tie these things into anti-elitism. Testing is elitism.

Now, Liu does note that if we make teachers accountable for test scores then we can wind up stripping the richness from education and make it into desperate attempts to boost scores. That ultimately weakens intellectualism and is a form of anti-elitism. But testing is also one of the few tools we have to actually preserve some truly academic education. Educators who know their students are ready can demand more than educators who fear that their students aren't ready. (Ask me how I know.)

Now, Liu does make the point that one of the early goals of testing was to smash a hereditary elite by opening it to smart kids of every background, e.g. Columbia opening up to children of immigrants instead of traditional WASPs. That's a type of anti-elitism, but also a new type of elitism.

American Idyll: Intro

 Liu's book is a heavy read. She assumes a reader well-versed in intellectual history, political philosophy, etc. The intro was a hard read, rapidly summarizing many different ideas over the years. She gives a lot of attention to Richard Hofstadter in her intro, and her synopsis of him matches up with my recollection.

A few choice quotes:

If in the 1890's the People's Party demanded economic justice for producers, the populists of the 1980's demanded freedom from cultural condescension. (page 4)

I freely admit to having some of that sneering condescension in me. I know that I shouldn't, but it's hard to let go of it. As much as educated liberals can drive me crazy, their opponents refuse vaccines while pushing back against elites by rallying behind a rich asshole from NYC (Trump) and previously a rich asshole from Connecticut (Bush The Lesser). How do I not look down on that? At least when I support an elite I'm a knowing elitist, you know?

But I just did what she's talking about: I shifted from economics to culture war. That's her point. Everyone shifted from economics to culture war. Maybe it's in part because calories are now cheap, so the economics of farming is no longer so politically central? We've hardly solved all our material problems, but we solved a key one: Getting enough calories. (Yes, I'm quite aware that calories aren't the be-all and end-all of nutrition, but getting sufficient energy is certainly important. If anything we have the opposite problem now...)

Also on page 4:

For the most extreme academic populist, any criticism of popular culture and popular taste was associated with elitism, universalism, normative masculinity, consensus politics, liberalism, and Marxism.

I don't know the humanities as she does, but certainly I've seen more celebration of middle-brow culture. That's not all bad--Shakespeare did plenty of stuff for the low-brow and middle-brow parts of the audience. But, yes, there is insecurity about denoting something "high" culture. We're all supposed to be egalitarians now.

On page 6 she critiques right-wing populism for embracing superficial trappings of common life--pork rinds, NASCAR, etc.--while pushing policies that dismantle or privatize the post-New Deal state. We can debate how much has actually been dismantled, but she's certainly summarizing a well-known critique. She spends a lot of time on Thomas Frank, who has made these points better than I have time to summarize. (I've only read him in excerpts, not full books.)

Her outline of the rest of the book is as follow:

Chapter 1 will critique meritocracy and standardized tests. I'm not favorable to such critiques, but given her sympathies we might be able to find some common ground. Chapter 2 will continue the critique of standardized tests and take on the concept of the "average student." I think I have some common ground with this notion: As much as I think tests tell us something with some relevance for some endeavors, they aren't everything, and the big middle ground of humanity needs varied paths. In chapter 3 she looks at advice, self-help, counseling, etc. She freely admits to covering some of the same ground as Hofstadter in "Self-Help and Spiritual Technology." In Chapter 4 she looks at myths about student radicals in the 60's and how that played into critiques of elites and experts. Finally, in Chapter 5 she looks at Cultural Studies and the Professional Managerial Class. Apparently there will be a discussion of Alan Sokal and the Science Wars of the 90's.

Should be an interesting read.

Back to Book Blogging: American Idyll by Catherine Liu

I have been reading a bunch of non-fiction, but not blogging has hurt my retention. The next book will be American Idyll: Academic Anti-Elitism as Cultural Critique by UCI Professor Catherine Liu. I recently read an essay of hers (alas, I can no longer find it) and that put her on my radar. The title should make it clear why I decided to read this book from among her works. Haven't started it yet, but this post commits me to blogging about it.