After America, over-education and perpetual adolescence

[Túrin Turambar]

I’ve just finished reading Mark Steyn’s new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, the sequel to America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. I’m not planning on either summarising or reviewing the book here – he illustrates what he sees as symptoms of American decline, and while I enjoyed it I felt it wasn’t as tight or compelling as America Alone. Instead he made a particular argument in chapter four, ‘Decline: American Idyll’, which I found interesting.

It is obvious that the aging population in the western world is causing serious issues with public pension systems. An increasingly small workforce is supporting an increasingly large retired population. What is discussed far less frequently, however, is the impact of the workforce shrinking at the other end – people staying in education longer. And aside from the economic consequences, Steyn argues that our society’s extended adolescence has serious cultural impacts as well.

One of Steyn’s core arguments is that America has been less productive and innovative in the sixty years after 1950 than in the sixty years before. A time traveller from 1890 to 1950 would immediately be impressed by the automobile, aeroplane, refrigerator, radio, central heating and medical advances like insulin and penicillin. Going forward another fifty years would leave him disappointed, however – aside from advances in computing, not much seems to have changed. And the people are now mostly overweight and dressed like children (p. 26-27).

He cites the figure that, in 1940, most Americans had no more than a grade-eight education. In 2010, 40 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were in College (p. 148). The massive technological advances of the early and mid-20th century were made by a society with an average eighth-grade education, in many cases by tinkerers with little formal education at all. By contrast, college-educated America has stagnated. Indeed, he doesn’t use this example, but it occurs to me that the two men most associated with technology in the last twenty years, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, were both college dropouts. Steyn writes (at p. 149):

Education is the biggest structural defect in the United States…not every child has the aptitude to benefit from College, not every child who has wants to go, or needs to. For most who end up there, College is a waste of time, and money, and life. Hacks pretend to teach, slackers pretend to learn, and employers pretend it’s a qualification. Full disclosure: I never went to College, which is why my critics usually preface their dissections with a reference to “the uneducated” or “the unlettered Mark Steyn”. Guilty as charged: no letters on me. But I was doing Ancient Greek in high school and Latin by middle school, not because I was “gifted” but because that’s just the way it was back then. I long ago gave up marvelling at how little American education asks of its inmates.

As a side note, Steyn is an alumnus of the King’s School in Birmingham, like J. R. R. Tolkien. He has previously quipped that, no matter how well his books sell, he is unlikely to ever be able to claim to be the best-selling author from his school. He also criticises the education system for promoting student’s self-esteem at the expense of any sort of intellectual rigour – fewer and fewer courses require exams, and it is becoming harder and harder to flunk out of College. Aside from the waste of both money and human resources, Steyn blames this state of affairs for “later family formation and social infantilisation” (ibid). He spends a few pages attacking President Obama first. Indeed, I would say his tendency to veer off the tangent of his argument to attack the President on several occasions is one of the major weaknesses of the book – his contempt for Obama gets in the way of building his arguments.

On later childbearing age, he makes an interesting point that I’ve mused on in the past. In the past most people simply had children when they got married and worked them into their lives as best they could. But do older mothers (and fathers), who have carefully planned their children, tend to be over-protective of them? He points out that the goal of legalised abortion was to ensure that every child is ‘wanted’. But “is it possible to be over-wanted?” (p. 178).

This actually gels with my own experience (my mother was 35 when I was born, my father 54). It has been particularly the case with my brother, who is seven years younger than I am (hence our parents were 42 and 61 respectively when he was born). Part of it, I think, is the age gap – older people are, inevitably, further removed from their own childhood experiences and more inclined to be suspicious of a youth culture that they have no personal experience with. On the other hand, is there any sort of alternative? It seems unlikely to me that people will go back to having children at 21 under any circumstances.

He illustrates extended adolescence with the following example – the recent health-care reforms allowing children to stay on their parent’s plans until the age of 26. In the past, a 26-year-old would have been considered an adult, more likely to have parental responsibilities of their own than to be still dependant on their own parents. This is, he argues, symptomatic of decline. Western society is becoming one of adolescence, not adulthood – for example, ‘funemployed’ thirty-year-olds leaving their jobs, travelling and returning to stay with their parents.

While I think some of his tangents can be a bit loopy, I think that Steyn is broadly correct on his central argument. Western society in general and the United States in particular has got no real return on its enormously expensive higher education. As counter-intuitive as it is, it seems to me that we would be better off if most people left school at fifteen for apprenticeships or work-related training. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it would be ideal if nobody went to University straight out of high school, but instead spent at least a year in the workforce, but that is hardly a practical idea.

[River]

He illustrates extended adolescence with the following example – the recent health-care reforms allowing children to stay on their parent’s plans until the age of 26. In the past, a 26-year-old would have been considered an adult, more likely to have parental responsibilities of their own than to be still dependent on their own parents.

He's got this one wrong. That law was written to give the men and women who're graduating into a recession some relief. Assuming you can even find an entry level job, unless you're in a STEM field, entry-level jobs tend to absolutely and totally suck in terms of both pay and benefits. Some don't even offer them, or the health option is so poor you'd better hope you don't get sick. Or maybe, in theory, you can get a good health plan, but it takes so much out of your salary you can't pay down your student loan so you pick the crappier one. And if you decide to start your own business or something...well, there's a reason why my husband is on my health plan.

It must be nice to live in a place with a subsidized university system and a single-payer health system and look down your nose at the choices young Americans have to make. Must be real nice.

It is true though that not everyone needs to go to college. We used to have alternatives, but things shifted radically after WWII. But the European system of sending kids to either gymnasium or trade school when they're 14 has its own problems. Namely getting out of the track if you change your mind...

[Frelga]

One of Steyn’s core arguments is that America has been less productive and innovative in the sixty years after 1950 than in the sixty years before. A time traveller from 1890 to 1950 would immediately be impressed by the automobile, aeroplane, refrigerator, radio, central heating and medical advances like insulin and penicillin. Going forward another fifty years would leave him disappointed, however – aside from advances in computing, not much seems to have changed. And the people are now mostly overweight and dressed like children (p. 26-27).

That's a pretty big aside!

Also aside space exploration, instant worldwide communication, ebooks, treatment for many forms of cancer....

"No flying cars yet?", he wrote from a 2 inch by 4 inch pocket computer instantaneously to subscribers worldwide using only his right thumb.

[yovargas]

"No flying cars yet?", he wrote from a 2 inch by 4 inch pocket computer instantaneously to subscribers worldwide using only his right thumb.

[/quote]

[vison]

I tend to agree with much of what Lord_M reports Steyn as saying. Not all, not even most, but much.

While it's true that many young people can't find jobs, it's also true that many young people have a huge sense of entitlement and insanely unrealistic expectations of what their adult lives are going to be. Men and women in their twenties and thirties are not children, yet many of them live as though they are. So easy to live at home with mum and dad in a big comfortable house and use your wages to buy toys.

I know it's not EVERYONE, but by gum it's a lot.

I absolutely agree that universal college/university education is a vast waste of money. A society cannot function without plumbers, mechanics, carpenters or electricians. Yet training in those trades is hit or miss - trade or technical schools are not common in Canada or the US. Certainly it is possible that a person might start out in a trade and then decide that she wanted to be a doctor after all - but most won't. Policies have to be designed for what is likely, not what is remotely possible.

Speaking as a person who brought up 2 children in the sixties and seventies and then again in the first decade of the 21st century I know from experience that many aspects of "parenting" (not a term I like, but I guess it's the right term here) are very different the second time around. The world is different.

However, I am doing my best to try to bring up my boys as I was brought up: to be independent and self-sufficient. I have no plans to set any of them up with a house or a career: they can do what we did, do it on their own. No, it won't be easy. But it wasn't easy before, either.

Will they be prosperous? Will they get rich? Will they have more junk when they're old than I have now? Who knows? I never have thought it was necessary for my kids to be "better off" than I am, in material terms. If they are, good for them. If they aren't I think they can still live decent and happy lives.


The difference is that I grew up in a world that was getting better all the time. Kids nowadays don't have that certainty.

[Erunáme]

It must be nice to live in a place with a subsidized university system and a single-payer health system and look down your nose at the choices young Americans have to make. Must be real nice.

No kidding. It used to aggravate me quite a bit when I heard young adults whining about having to pay a £7 fee for prescriptions or the cost of university.

[axordil]

Burdens, like prosperity, are always perceived relatively.

Steyn conveniently forgets that when people got by in the US with an 8th grade education, you could support a family of six on the wages of one guy on an assembly line. There's also the fact that the pre-WWII innovations he lauds have had 60-70 years more to shape society than the ones of the last generation or two.

Here's the bottom line issue I have with his exceedingly modest proposal: there would be no more jobs or wages available for people entering the trades at 16 than there would be for those same people entering the white-collar work force at 22. You can't support an economy on inlaid tile floors and landscaping alone. Someone has to MAKE shit in order to create wealth.

On a deeper note, in the most technical of fields--the ones producing the innovations he dismisses as being insufficiently large and loud--it is nigh impossible to finish a course of study to work in them before you're 26. A PhD will keep you in school until 25 easily in most scientific, and then you get to do post-doc work for an indeterminate length of time.

[vison]

It must be nice to live in a place with a subsidized university system and a single-payer health system and look down your nose at the choices young Americans have to make. Must be real nice.

No kidding. It used to aggravate me quite a bit when I heard young adults whining about having to pay a £7 fee for prescriptions or the cost of university.

That's very true, as far as it goes.

But since Americans keep voting against these systems, and are usually loudly and firmly sure they are living in the Best Country in the World, it is hard to have much sympathy.

Nations, like actual individuals, must live with the consequences of their decisions. The US chooses to spend its money one way, other nations choose differently.

[Holbytla]

Last I checked, most of Europe was in financial straights as well.

Education is way overpriced and degrees are less meaningful than they were. Still education is hardly a bad thing. I don't see how being less educated will solve anything.

And there is no such thing as free education or free health care or free anything. The tax rate in many European countries far surpasses that of the US.

It is a question of ideology. Do we want government to spend money for us, or do we want to spend our own money and take our chances? Many people in this country opt for the latter, but the pendulum is swinging to the other side. It isn't a crime to not want a socialist agenda. Some people are okay with basic public services.

[Erunáme]

Last I checked, most of Europe was in financial straights as well.

Some European countries. Not the whole of Europe. Though those countries are affecting the Euro currency.

And there is no such thing as free education or free health care or free anything. The tax rate in many European countries far surpasses that of the US.

Sure, as a consquence, they seem to live a better quality of life. I didn't actually notice being taxed any higher when I was in England. I think it worked out better since I wasn't paying exorbitant insurance premiums. I felt a hell of a lot more secure in England. I can't comment on the Netherlands yet as I'm still learning about it. I can't just go read up on all this since it's all in Dutch.

I far more prefer the way Europe works. I don't think I could ever go back to the US for a variety of reasons.

Good points, Axordil. If one has an 8th-grade education nowdays, you'd be lucky to have a minimum wage job most likely. :/

[vison]

It isn't a matter of being "less educated". It's a matter of being "differently educated".

Some people think that any kind of degree at all is "better" than a trade certification. I don't think that way.

I've never lived anywhere except in Canada. We have, I suppose, what many Americans see as a "socialist agenda". Most of us understand perfectly well that we don't get "free" anything. We do know we're paying for it. It's just that we have chosen to spend our money that way, rather than how the US spends its money.

I think health care is a "basic service". But I also think that the US system is not going to change. It's terrible, it's so wasteful it's crazy, but there are so many vested interests involved that it isn't likely to ever be any different. Looking in from the outside, it seems apparent to me that the wellbeing of American citizens is nowhere near the top of the list in your healthcare system, such as it is.

I might pay more income tax than you do, income for income. But you, and all other Americans, pay TWICE as much per capita for health care as Canadians do, or the British.

I don't really think you have "a choice", either. It's more like choosing between the frying pan and the fire.

[River]

A PhD will keep you in school until 25 easily in most scientific, and then you get to do post-doc work for an indeterminate length of time.

25 is fast, unless you were really precocious and started grad school at 20. It takes a good 5 or 6 years these days. Also, it's become more and more common for people to start after they've been out of school for a year or two or three. I went straight from undergrad to grad and I was one of the youngest people in my class. I was also the youngest person in the lab I joined for a couple years after I joined. We picked up more students, but they were older than me. And, though I'm not the most junior post-doc in my current lab, I am, again, the youngest.

[Holbytla]

There are lots of broken parts of the system, like health care and education, and there are pros and cons to every society. We could do better and we could do worse.

And for the record, for the past 27 years, I have not paid one cent towards health care premiums, a plan that would cost me about $1200/month if I had to shell out the money myself. All I have to pay is a $5 or $10 co-pay, depending on the service. And that plan includes free eye care and dental.

But it still isn't free. I get that in lieu of raises. Most of the 20 somethings where I work would rather have the cash, and who can blame them? Generally that is a benefit for older folks, stats-wise.

Yes that system is broken, and the costs are stupidly high, but someone is making money from that high cost. There are people in the medical and pharmaceutical companies that earn a good living from that expense. It is just a question of ideology and shuffling money around. The cost is still there regardless. Cheaper health care means less monetary gain to workers.
There is no robbing Peter to pay Paul. Just a question of who gets how much of the pie. The pie is still a pie.

[axordil]

Less monetary gain to the workers, or to stockholders and executives of hospitals, pharma companies, device manufacturers and insurance companies?

[vison]

Holbytla, all of that is very true. But Americans still pay twice as much for health care as Canadians do.

I just do NOT see how it can be worth it. That cost does not include pharmaceutical or other research, either. It's just the cost of actual health care delivered to the patient.

I have always found it utterly bizarre that American employers are expected to pay for employee health insurance: but since that is so, it is obviously part of an employee's compensation package. It's worth $1,200 a month to you. Surely your employer would not allow any employee to "opt out"?

Insurance only works by spreading the risk. Take out the people least likely to use it while they're young and the whole thing falls apart.

There are some things that you have to pay for whether you need them right now or not. Insurance is one of them.

[Dave_LF]

A lot of it is just diminishing returns. Tinkers with no formal education made a lot of discoveries last century because there were many such discoveries waiting to be made. Most of that easy, low hanging stuff has been figured out by now, and it takes more brains (and education) to climb up to the rest. If some breakthrough is made that exposes entire new fields to exploration (similar to the mechanical and electrical breakthroughs made in the last two centuries), then we'll return to the previous arrangement for a while (and there are indications that something like that may be happening with computer technology).

[River]

Also, getting to what Ax and Dave are hinting at, there've been a lot of huge advances that most people just don't notice on a day-to-day basis. This is especially true in biology.

[Primula Baggins]

Yes. The Human Genome Project cost $2.7 billion. I see full-genome sequencing advertised on the Internet for less than $5,000. The medical applications of this kind of data will be staggering.

The "chemo crapshoot" being discussed in our Coping thread will eventually be a thing of the past. Oncologists will often be able to make a very specific, individual treatment prescription for a patient's specific tumor. There will be a cost for the sequencing involved, and for the studies needed to determine the vulnerability of different tumor genotypes to different drugs, but the upshot will be longer and more productive lives for cancer patients, with far less time, money, and suffering wasted on "standard" treatments that might well not help.

And that's just one disease type. But these kinds of advances tend to be invisible unless you or your friends/family are affected by them.

[Holbytla]

I think we are probably over the line with regards to the topic and where this discussion is going. However what is at the core of my statements has less to do with health care and more probably with ideology and economics.
Double health care costs means nothing if the end means is double revenue infused into the system. I believe in affordable health care for all, and the US can certainly afford more than most people in the world, but the key question is coverage and not cost. .

[vison]

"double revenue infused into the system"

What system? Does the revenue go to build more hospitals and hire more on-the-ground health care workers? Or does it go into the pockets of highly paid executives who hire illegal aliens to cut their lawns and change their babies' diapers?

Private health insurance is devoted to profit, and not to the patient.

Our public plan, while certainly not perfect, is not dedicated to profit but to health care.

No one could argue against the American system if you got better health care or even equivalent. But you get less and it costs you twice as much.