More Educated = More Liberal?

[bedstuy]

Unless by Postgraduate Study that you mean "Educated" I really don't see how this is the case.

WC, people 'with a college degree' are not very educated in America, as far as I have noticed.  So, yeah, I'd say 'educated' means post graduate - at least a master's degree.

I think that's a good point.  We need to define "educated."  Back in the day, a person with a degree in something like "business" (if that existed), would not be considered educated at all.  They would be considered an uncultured tradesman.  Indeed, elites used to disdain those who sullied their hands toiling at a "trade."  "Educated" meant that you were cultured, lettered, could read latin and were basically what modern Americans would call, "a pretentious, nerdy homo." 

By that old-time definition of educated, I think generally more educated = more liberal.

[The Simpsons Cinematic Universe]

You can look for a politically correct answer to this question all you want. The real answer isn't particularly elusive.

I'll direct your attention to a few studies I've come across in the past few years.

Firstly, a British study showing that the average childhood IQ of Green Party and Liberal Democrat voters was significantly higher than that of the Conservatives, which was slightly higher than that of Labour. The far-right parties - UKIP and BNP - came in last. This shows a clear correlation between social liberalism and high IQ. Given the fact that this study is based upon the 2001 election, in the midst of the Blair era, the economic implications are more unclear. It's worth mentioning, however, that some did view the pre-coalition Lib Dems as being the new "left" party, and this contributed greatly to the growth the Lib Dems have seen since 1997. The Labour Party is significantly more socially conservative than the Democratic Party, relative to its own country of origin.

I've read quite a bit from Satoshi Kanazawa, who was behind the study discussed in this link, which, completely unsurprisingly, correlates high IQ to atheism, amongst other things. The most obvious interpretation of this is that those with a higher IQ are more likely to reject the many inconsistencies and unlikely claims that religious doctrines tend to make, on top of rejecting the idea of "faith", which is fundamentally rooted in the triumph of emotion over reason.

We all know of the study discussed here, which correlated low IQ to social conservatism, unsurprisingly.

I realize IQ and education level aren't the same thing. But when you consider that social liberalism, atheism, and arguably leftism in general increase with IQ level, the fact that the ideology of social conservatism has a strong foundation in religion, and numerous other factors, the idea that more highly educated people are more inclined to vote Democrat should surprise no one.

[barfbag]

There are people who are too smart for their own good though. There are people with IQ's so high that other things start to go such as social skills, motor skills, organization, reflexes, creativity, and so forth. Think of someone who is so educated and intelligent, they're fluent in 26 different languages, but has never been able to figure out how to drive a car due to a lack of social and motor skills. No doubt they're intelligent, but obviously lacking in common sense. There's college professors who have 3 Ph.D's and 2 master's degrees, but couldn't figure out for the life of themselves how to use a washer or dryer. They're educated, but the bigger question is; how do we measure intelligence and education? It's clear that the higher education someone has at the university or college level, the more likely they are to vote Democrat in U.S. elections, but it could be argued that it's a result of being educated by our current education system rather than generally being educated.

[opebo]

What us conservatives object to is the victimization of various groups and the oppressed/oppressor type history shoved down our throats.

Hard to debate with someone who object to the facts, cheesey.

[cheesepizza]

What us conservatives object to is the victimization of various groups and the oppressed/oppressor type history shoved down our throats.

Hard to debate with someone who object to the facts, cheesey.

Here's the problem, opebo.  In our current culture, we have black illegitimacy rates that are 10 times the national average, 70% born out of wedlock, and total household wealth way below average.  These numbers have gotten worse since the civil rights measures.  This is because of the massive welfare programs introduced in the 1960's.  They created a disincentive to work and have led to perpetual poverty among the black community.  It also created a culture of laziness and violence.  Bill O'Reilly is taking tons of heat for telling the truth. 

Yes, some groups like blacks were oppressed in the past, but now it's government handouts and lavish benefits being showered on them that are perpetuating the cycle of poverty. 

We aren't told about this in school.......the epic failure of the AFDC is a good example.

[Franknburger]

What us conservatives object to is the victimization of various groups and the oppressed/oppressor type history shoved down our throats.

Hard to debate with someone who object to the facts, cheesey.

Here's the problem, opebo.  In our current culture, we have black illegitimacy rates that are 10 times the national average, 70% born out of wedlock, and total household wealth way below average.  These numbers have gotten worse since the civil rights measures.  This is because of the massive welfare programs introduced in the 1960's.  They created a disincentive to work and have led to perpetual poverty among the black community.  It also created a culture of laziness and violence.  Bill O'Reilly is taking tons of heat for telling the truth.  

Yes, some groups like blacks were oppressed in the past, but now it's government handouts and lavish benefits being showered on them that are perpetuating the cycle of poverty.  

We aren't told about this in school.......the epic failure of the AFDC is a good example.

Yeah, the data ...  How about this:
Non-institutionalised blacks over 25 years are double as likely to have dropped out of school than non-Hispanic whites. They are 25% more likely to never have visited college,  and 40% more likely to not obtain any academic or professional degree. Compared to holders of academic or professional degrees, the poverty risk is six times higher for school drop-outs, and three times higher for those who never visited college  (sources in my previous posts, took me some five minutes to calculate the figures).

Could it be that there are other reasons, possibly even some that are related to this thread's original topic, for sub-average black household wealth, aside from welfare programs?

[opebo]

What us conservatives object to is the victimization of various groups and the oppressed/oppressor type history shoved down our throats.

Hard to debate with someone who object to the facts, cheesey.

Here's the problem, opebo.  In our current culture, we have black illegitimacy rates that are 10 times the national average, 70% born out of wedlock, and total household wealth way below average.  These numbers have gotten worse since the civil rights measures.  This is because of the massive welfare programs introduced in the 1960's.  They created a disincentive to work and have led to perpetual poverty among the black community.  It also created a culture of laziness and violence.  Bill O'Reilly is taking tons of heat for telling the truth. 

Yes, some groups like blacks were oppressed in the past, but now it's government handouts and lavish benefits being showered on them that are perpetuating the cycle of poverty. 

We aren't told about this in school.......the epic failure of the AFDC is a good example.

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

[barfbag]

What us conservatives object to is the victimization of various groups and the oppressed/oppressor type history shoved down our throats.

Hard to debate with someone who object to the facts, cheesey.

Here's the problem, opebo.  In our current culture, we have black illegitimacy rates that are 10 times the national average, 70% born out of wedlock, and total household wealth way below average.  These numbers have gotten worse since the civil rights measures.  This is because of the massive welfare programs introduced in the 1960's.  They created a disincentive to work and have led to perpetual poverty among the black community.  It also created a culture of laziness and violence.  Bill O'Reilly is taking tons of heat for telling the truth. 

Yes, some groups like blacks were oppressed in the past, but now it's government handouts and lavish benefits being showered on them that are perpetuating the cycle of poverty. 

We aren't told about this in school.......the epic failure of the AFDC is a good example.

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

We eliminated slavery in 1865 as a condition of the Civil War. You'd like to behead those who have more money than you? This thread is about education.

[pbrower2a]

Europe already went through that.

Before, more you were educated, more you were right-wing.
In the recent years, it took a smile shape. Very uneducated and very educated people voted for the left, the averagely educated to the right.
And now, it's becoming more you are education, more you're left-wing, more or less.

Different factors must be factored too: race, religion, income, unions...

Being well educated in Europe before 1945 implied that one was almost certainly part of the Establishment. High levels of education were the norm only for entrenched elites, and working people (who were generally socialists except under fascist regimes) were usually thrown to the wolves in the economic order, often at an early age.  After WWII entrenched economic elites became less powerful if they were allowed to remain (a distinction between Romania and Italy), and as a rule post-WWII governments encouraged advanced education for anyone who could benefit from it. If there was an Einstein or Freud whose parents were industrial workers the educational system might find him and give him a chance -- especially after the people who gave the world Einstein and Freud were largely exterminated.

In the US  much the same process happened in the early 1960s, when high-grade universities quit using class identity as a criterion for acceptance or rejection. School board scores began to matter greatly and family connections (he is at the bottom of his prep-school class but a couple years at Ivy might do him some good) didn't matter so much. Why have someone like that at Ivy when you could have some middle-class Jewish or Italian-American kid from Brooklyn who takes learning seriously and has the grades and board scores? The results from such choices looked increasingly good, and they stayed in place. The kid who might use a couple years at Harvard ended up going to some 'alternative choice'.

The Republican Party used to have the advantage with educated people because the under-educated, bigoted white people of the South voted Democratic and often well-educated Northern moderate voters despised those people and identified with Eisenhower and Rockefeller. The Republican Party began to court those under-educated, often bigoted white voters hostile to highly-educated people and lost the well-educated Northern moderate voters to the Democratic Party.

The Republican party has been pandering to anti-intellectual white people; by such it lost the chance to pick up a rapidly-growing (and well-educated) Hispanic middle class that seemed set to drift increasingly into the Republican Party. But by disparaging formal education the Republican Party has lost many of the sorts of people who voted Republican at least until Dubya.

Just look at an overlay between elections involving Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama. In 2008 President Obama won 365 electoral votes -- all but 15 from states that Eisenhower lost. In 2012 Barack Obama didn't win any state that Dwight Eisenhower ever lost.     

       

[barfbag]

Your wording is very misleading. There are many ways to be educated other than the liberal academic environment funded by Democrats.

[pbrower2a]

Your wording is very misleading. There are many ways to be educated other than the liberal academic environment funded by Democrats.

UC Berkeley and the University of Texas at Austin get much the same political results from their graduates.

 

[All Along The Watchtower]

Areas with high rates of education have historically been associated not just with Liberalism but also urbanization, advanced industrial development, expanded international trade, and "modernization" (for better or worse, depending on who you ask). Liberalism has always had a fairly elitist flair to it, especially when it comes to education, "cosmopolitanism"/worldliness, and cultural sophistication, so it's not (or shouldn't be) much of a surprise when less educated, working-class people find Liberalism's advocates off-putting, at best.

[pbrower2a]

Areas with high rates of education have historically been associated not just with Liberalism but also urbanization, advanced industrial development, expanded international trade, and "modernization" (for better or worse, depending on who you ask). Liberalism has always had a fairly elitist flair to it, especially when it comes to education, "cosmopolitanism"/worldliness, and cultural sophistication, so it's not (or shouldn't be) much of a surprise when less educated, working-class people find Liberalism's advocates off-putting, at best.

...and with higher-than-average investments in human capital and infrastructure, which tends to suggest economic liberalism.  Highly-educated people rarely go to rural areas except for recreational purposes, and such places tend to have very urban amenities (like places with skiing, boating, hiking, and camping).

 Small, isolated communities have long had difficult times attracting physicians and dentists. What is to be offered? Cheap golf on a nine-hole course?

Add to that, urban areas have costly infrastructure. Two-lane blacktop roads are adequate for local traffic in the Dakotas, and such highways as I-29, I-90, and I-94 exist to connect people and freight to such destinations as Winnipeg, Omaha, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Seattle. But a four-lane divided expressway in northeastern New Jersey or the San Francisco Bay Area is usually inadequate for local needs.  Indeed, ten lanes of expressway may be inadequate.

Expanding I-94 in North Dakota from two lanes on each side to three on each side would be comparatively inexpensive -- but pointless. Widening an expressway from ten to twelve lanes in an extant urban area implies costly land acquisition, the relocation of utilities, and major reworking of bridges.  Labor costs are higher in big cities, of course, just to accommodate the higher cost of living. Public services don't come cheaply. San Francisco has bad public schools in part because teachers have plenty of alternatives. Because a good teacher is essentially a salesperson or at least a good talker, just about any sales or tourist job offers a career alternative to any teacher who thinks himself underpaid. In rural areas, teaching is the only game in town for someone with a teaching credential.  Cops who can be paid cheaply in small towns have to be paid enough in big cities and suburbs so that they don't find going onto the informal payroll of organized crime an attractive way in which to supplement a meager income. Costly infrastructure and public services mean high taxes.     

 

[opebo]

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

We eliminated slavery in 1865 as a condition of the Civil War. You'd like to behead those who have more money than you? This thread is about education.

No, capitalism still enslaves in a functional sense all who are not owners.  Yes, this thread is about education, but like all other issues, the 'problems' of education are imposed by the ruling class.

[barfbag]

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

We eliminated slavery in 1865 as a condition of the Civil War. You'd like to behead those who have more money than you? This thread is about education.

No, capitalism still enslaves in a functional sense all who are not owners.  Yes, this thread is about education, but like all other issues, the 'problems' of education are imposed by the ruling class.

Redistribution of the wealth enslaves those dependent on welfare to the Democratic Party. Democrats impose the problem of slavery on the poor by getting them addicted to welfare.

[DC Al Fine]

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

We eliminated slavery in 1865 as a condition of the Civil War. You'd like to behead those who have more money than you? This thread is about education.

No, capitalism still enslaves in a functional sense all who are not owners.  Yes, this thread is about education, but like all other issues, the 'problems' of education are imposed by the ruling class.

Redistribution of the wealth enslaves those dependent on welfare to the Democratic Party. Democrats impose the problem of slavery on the poor by getting them addicted to welfare.

Barfbag and Opebo are fighting. This should be fun.

[opebo]

Barfbag and Opebo are fighting. This should be fun.

Oh sorry, I thought I was talking to you, DC.  I get you confused with barfbag.

[cheesepizza]

What us conservatives object to is the victimization of various groups and the oppressed/oppressor type history shoved down our throats.

Hard to debate with someone who object to the facts, cheesey.

Here's the problem, opebo.  In our current culture, we have black illegitimacy rates that are 10 times the national average, 70% born out of wedlock, and total household wealth way below average.  These numbers have gotten worse since the civil rights measures.  This is because of the massive welfare programs introduced in the 1960's.  They created a disincentive to work and have led to perpetual poverty among the black community.  It also created a culture of laziness and violence.  Bill O'Reilly is taking tons of heat for telling the truth. 

Yes, some groups like blacks were oppressed in the past, but now it's government handouts and lavish benefits being showered on them that are perpetuating the cycle of poverty. 

We aren't told about this in school.......the epic failure of the AFDC is a good example.

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

No, it is the point.  Often we're told that black people are doing poorly because we're oppressing them.  The truth is that it's their own fault.  It's their fault they had kids out of wedlock.  It's their fault they do drugs.  It's their fault they commit crimes.   It is exacerbated by the welfare system, which unfortunately can lead in the direction of socialism, though not as extreme as you're proposing.  opebo, you simply promote class warfare and you think that people who worked hard, studied, and became doctors/engineers/businessmen and earned a lot of money should be punished for their success.  You talk all about the evil "rich" when they are the ones who worked harder and innovated more than any of us will.  Think about Bill Gates.  Could you do what he did?

Opebo, frankly, you're just a pathetic Marxist who probably failed at life and thus is blaming his misfortunes on the bogeyman, "the rich".

[barfbag]

All that is utterly beside the point CP.  I do agree however that welfare is not the right approach - we should be eliminating private property and guillotining the rich.  Giving welfare just reinforces capitalism, and after all slavery is still the problem.

We eliminated slavery in 1865 as a condition of the Civil War. You'd like to behead those who have more money than you? This thread is about education.

No, capitalism still enslaves in a functional sense all who are not owners.  Yes, this thread is about education, but like all other issues, the 'problems' of education are imposed by the ruling class.

Redistribution of the wealth enslaves those dependent on welfare to the Democratic Party. Democrats impose the problem of slavery on the poor by getting them addicted to welfare.

Barfbag and Opebo are fighting. This should be fun.

Do you not like me?

[Mechaman]

Europe already went through that.

Before, more you were educated, more you were right-wing.
In the recent years, it took a smile shape. Very uneducated and very educated people voted for the left, the averagely educated to the right.
And now, it's becoming more you are education, more you're left-wing, more or less.

Different factors must be factored too: race, religion, income, unions...

Being well educated in Europe before 1945 implied that one was almost certainly part of the Establishment. High levels of education were the norm only for entrenched elites, and working people (who were generally socialists except under fascist regimes) were usually thrown to the wolves in the economic order, often at an early age.  After WWII entrenched economic elites became less powerful if they were allowed to remain (a distinction between Romania and Italy), and as a rule post-WWII governments encouraged advanced education for anyone who could benefit from it. If there was an Einstein or Freud whose parents were industrial workers the educational system might find him and give him a chance -- especially after the people who gave the world Einstein and Freud were largely exterminated.

In the US  much the same process happened in the early 1960s, when high-grade universities quit using class identity as a criterion for acceptance or rejection. School board scores began to matter greatly and family connections (he is at the bottom of his prep-school class but a couple years at Ivy might do him some good) didn't matter so much. Why have someone like that at Ivy when you could have some middle-class Jewish or Italian-American kid from Brooklyn who takes learning seriously and has the grades and board scores? The results from such choices looked increasingly good, and they stayed in place. The kid who might use a couple years at Harvard ended up going to some 'alternative choice'.

The Republican Party used to have the advantage with educated people because the under-educated, bigoted white people of the South voted Democratic and often well-educated Northern moderate voters despised those people and identified with Eisenhower and Rockefeller. The Republican Party began to court those under-educated, often bigoted white voters hostile to highly-educated people and lost the well-educated Northern moderate voters to the Democratic Party.

The Republican party has been pandering to anti-intellectual white people; by such it lost the chance to pick up a rapidly-growing (and well-educated) Hispanic middle class that seemed set to drift increasingly into the Republican Party. But by disparaging formal education the Republican Party has lost many of the sorts of people who voted Republican at least until Dubya.

Just look at an overlay between elections involving Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama. In 2008 President Obama won 365 electoral votes -- all but 15 from states that Eisenhower lost. In 2012 Barack Obama didn't win any state that Dwight Eisenhower ever lost.      

      

This is a really good non-biased post that recognizes the northern affluent WASP "moderate" Republican class for the Civil Rights crusaders and open minded angels that they really are.  It's good that we have well informed non-hack posters like pbrower to set the record straight instead of someone coming on here and pointing out that those highly "educated" affluent Republicans often held bigoted paternalistic views towards non-protestant working class people of Irish, Italian, Polish, German, Jewish, (insert other non-"respectable" European ethnic group here) descent.
. . . . . . . oh wait.

[tpfkaw]

Mr. Brower has in the last few months stopped enlightening us on his brilliant "hub cities" theory to the even more insightful "all Hispanic voters have post-graduate degrees" theory.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

If so, it's probably because academics tend to be very left-wing in their politics.  In terms of actual life experience, however, more educated probably means more conservative.

[barfbag]

If so, it's probably because academics tend to be very left-wing in their politics.  In terms of actual life experience, however, more educated probably means more conservative.

All of the research, talking points, facts, and big words in the world couldn't add up to what you have said. Oldiesfreak you really just summed it up here. All of us were trying to sound better than we really are. I should send you a friend request. Excellent point!

[MalaspinaGold]

I have to say I disagree with what you both said here. When you say "actual life experience" how do you define that? That is a VERY vague choice of words that could mean one of a million things.

[H. Ross Peron]

I'd say Malcolm X and Vladimir Lenin has plenty of "life experiences".