Dean Minnich: How the dream of education drove our political division

At the risk of sending my academic friends into a tizzy, I have to give some attention to a new book that seems to address a topic that should not be ignored by anyone who cares about education, social change, the future of the economy, and the turmoil of current American politics.

Will Bunch, a senior writer and national columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who shared the Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1992, is the author of “When the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics.”

This is not huckstering a book; I’m interested in the topic because it’s something I’ve written about repeatedly over the years in support of continuing education and discovery, with the authority of experience and observation.

Some might take issue with my taking on such an issue because I have no college degree. Which, it seems, is an example of the key point of Bunch’s analysis.

The book jacket synopsis of the topic is that the American dream of a college education for everyone got out of control and created a greater division between the college-educated population and the blue collar and clerical population. The result has been a gravitation into “liberal” and “conservative” camps, D’s and R’s.

Tune in to any political talk show, attend forums and political rallies, and the issue arises: The great rift in America runs along socioeconomic lines, with conservatives digging in to preserve the incursions of liberal thinking (indoctrination) taking place from elementary schools to post-graduate college programs.

We have divided into two camps. On one side, more liberal thinkers supporting social diversity, new ideas about the obligations of government and policies that allow a place at the national table for all races and identities and public behaviors that care less for tradition than for personal expression. On the other side, a dedication to frugal and limited government spending, but strong government control of law and order, traditional values in morals, historical social identity, and religious beliefs.

Another description of the divide is the generalization that it is largely between younger, college-educated “eggheads” who smugly think they have all the answers and the mostly older, less racially diverse population and blue-collar, non-degree workers whose lack of education keeps them from fully comprehending the issues of modern life.

That’s so simplistic on the face of it that you can wonder how it continues to grow. One problem is, we are not sharing a common definition of education.

Education and degree are not synonymous. Another one is basic: We will defend our self-perception at the expense of allowing common respect for those whose ideas and life history are different.

So, we hunker in camps of people who look and think like us, both ends of the argument, all the way out to the more radical, absolutist extremes, who preach no quarter, no compromise. We section off in camps by race, sexual orientation, religion (or lack thereof) and status as defined by possessions and job titles.

A lot of investment is put into our self-perception. We see others by standards taught early in American homes: The ideal of meritocracy. If you want to succeed, all you have to do is work hard, follow the rules, avoid calling negative attention to yourself or your family, and get a good job with a good salary so you can buy the respectability of a home, car, nice appliances, and so on. For some, it’s a myth, unattainable.

Education arrives in different ways: traditional campus degrees, experience, individual initiative, and the support of a community. Some of that comes down to luck and circumstance. But with the evaporation of trust in sources of information, belief in institutions, and even the value of virtue and honesty, we have resorted to justifying our own inability to communicate and accept other perspectives with a flimsy accusation that it is the fault of the “other,” just another form of schoolyard excuses like, “They started it.”

Unfortunately, there are those who build and protect their hold on power by stoking discontent based on disinformation and outright lies.

Dean Minnich served two terms as a Carroll County Commissioner, when he was still a Republican.