Thanks RightGeek:
Posted on 06/08/2019 8:31:46 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Here is an interesting news item, right out of progressive ideology. I wanted to highlight this because the role of expertise has been, in my experience, one of the most misunderstood aspects of progressivism.
Millennial dads have pathetic DIY skills compared to baby boomers
In this story, the "shocking" statistics are reported:
Many millennial dads reported not owning a cordless drill (46%), a stepladder (49%), a set of screwdrivers (38%) or even a hammer (32 percent) — an item owned by 93% of boomer dads.Why the decline in DIY?
Now this article tries to chalk it up to increases in technology. Perhaps there's a percentage to which that is true, but lets get real. Tires and tire changing technology have not gone through significant technological changes at the "I gotta get out on the side of this highway and change it" level. You jack the vehicle up, you take the lugs and then the tire off. Hanging pictures hasn't changed. You drill a hole, you secure the anchor, and you hang the picture. Oil changes are still remove a bolt, let the oil drain out. Replacing a ceiling fan is nothing more than a few screws and turning off one circuit breaker. The real stand out item is this from the article:
more than half of millennials prefer to call a professional.
I understand progressive ideology, as I routinely read their works. This story wasn't a shock to me. If anything, these numbers look extraordinary low to me. I would've figured over 50% of millennial dads didn't have a hammer. It's only 32%? Give it time, the numbers will go higher as indoctrination continues. As I talked somewhat about here and even more directly here, this is all about what their professors are teaching them and specifically how it blooms into full blown progressivism.
First, it is important to establish the fact about progressives themselves. Are they collectivists? Or do they believe in individuals? They believe in collectivism. So the structure of progressivism is you have the queen bee, and everybody else are drones. The point about the drone, however, is that they have a deep training and are an expert in their one specific area.
Now, have you heard about millennials and their "gig economy"? These are not lazy people. The facts dictate that we have to look elsewhere. An easy way to understand it is this:
Your job is in the compliance department. You have no business painting a room in your house. The collective didn't teach you how to paint. So why would you need these tools: a paint brush or a stepladder?
Your job is as a recruiter or HR. You have no business with cordless drills or hammers. The collective didn't teach you about the jobs that these tools would be used for in college.
Your job is to be a dentist. Now a dentist at least would have been trained how to use drills. But that wasn't intended by the course syllabus to extend into the kind of work that cordless drills are used for as referenced in the news article. The article intended cordless drills in the context of more saving, more doing - that's the power of home depot.
There's a reason why progressives do this, above and beyond their natural state as collectivists. In the book The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly wrote the following:
The pioneer Democrat believed that he was as competent to do the work as any member of an office-holding clique, so that when he came into power, he corrected what seemed to him to be a genuine abuse in the traditional way of distributing the American political patrimony. He could not understand that training, special ability, or long experience constituted any special claim upon a public office, or upon any other particular opportunity or salary. One democrat was as good as another, and deserved his share of the rewards of public service.
While Croly is talking specifically about the viewpoint of an expert politician, this ideology is the same across the board. The thing about the pioneers, if I were to bounce off of this article about DIY millennial dads, is that a large majority of the pioneers had stepladders. They had hammers. They had axes, and whatever else technology was in existence in those days.(obviously not cordless drills) They did everything instead of being walled off into expertise. Since the pioneer was qualified to be a farmer, he was also qualified to be a repairman, he was also qualified to be a politician. And Croly cannot stand that. No progressive can stand this, so they have to wipe it out. It's a threat. Everybody must be drones incapable of doing anything but the one thing. Yes, if the progressives had their way it would be against the rules to change a lightbulb and only expert electricians would be allowed. This reminds me of something else that must be stated and stated loudly:
This is not about "professionalism". This is about "expertise". This is key.
While it is true that anybody can be a professional and have a lot of expertise, and also that most experts probably strive to have professionalism in what they do. That is not the point. Here, "expert" isn't entirely about experience and qualifications, it's literally a designation. You are an expert. In the progressive collective, drones are "experts". You're a robot. You have one job. Do it well. You were only trained for one thing. Why are you complaining about congress? You weren't trained for that. You're not an expert! What do you mean the journalist did not tell the whole story? Where did you hear that? Who are you to question us? What do you know about cap and trade? Show us your credentials! Oh you don't have any? So then shut up! You won't shut up? We'll shut you up with Facebook or Net Neutrality or the Fairness Doctrine or we'll just simply call you a racist and we'll dox you. Then we'll have our experts at the SPLC write up a peer reviewed paper just to prove how racist you are. Oh and did you know that SPLC is a non profit? See...... they have absolutely no agenda because everybody knows that money is the ONLY thing that can motivate people.
That's how this machine works. There are a thousand ways that progressives have at their disposal to enforce compliance. And college degrees are the new royalty and fiefdoms and lords and vassals in the progressive collective. They purposefully leave you ignorant of pretty much everything. Well why would you know in-depth about the separation of powers?
That's why you need expert politicians. Croly writes at length about the "pioneer democrats" and the "pioneer democracy", its a very telling tale about the role of expertise(and NOT professionalism) in progressive ideology. If you know how to do 8 things as the pioneers did, you'll have 5 jobs through early and mid-life and then go to congress; then you'll come home and go back to the same or another job and perhaps one more before you get too old to work and expire. But progressives want domination and lifetime careers lording over your life. This is why the Founders didn't give us term limits. They culturally abhorred tyranny. The progressives are the embodiment of tyranny. What do you need term limits for when you have a populace in 1787 that only wants to do 2 or 4 terms and then desires to go home? They self-term-limited 200 years ago. That's not what the progressives desire though.
This is the thing about colleges and universities and yes, also trade schools. They will indeed teach you what you were intent on learning, such as if you went in for a medical degree, or welding, or software developer. But there is no stone left unturned with these progressives. They will saddle you down with the baggage of social justice no matter what point you enter the institutions formerly known as "higher learning". And there are ramifications to this indoctrination. One of the ramifications is the drone mentality and the deep emphasis on being an expert. "I'm a mid level regional manager, x is not my job." "I'm a traveling auditor. x is not my job." "I'm an electrical engineer. That is not my job." "I'm a y, but x is not my job."
Whatever x is, the progressives are doing this on purpose at the indoctrination level. If you have only been taught how to be a creative designer with a dash of social justice, you are incapable of being a citizen. You are a drone. Despotism has drones. Republics require citizens. However, they aren't teaching the republic to these kids(now dads). They aren't teaching the Declaration of Independence, young students haven't been taught the point of our divorce from Britain. They don't get taught the Federalist Papers. They aren't required to read Madison's notes. None of these things: Madison's notes, the republic, the Declaration; has any impact on your career choice of a speech language or communications role. So why are these musty old documents needed? Throw them out.
They have been thrown out.
The further away we get from America's founding principles, the worse everything gets.
Every job I've listed at any point above, BTW are great jobs. But just remember, I'm trying to emphasize progressivism here through the eyes of progressives. Read Croly's book. Don't take my word for it. You'll see.
I don't want to stand where I am standing here and try to understand progressivism. I want to go stand over there, where the progressives are standing, and understand progressives from the progressive point of view. And besides, progressives have acted this way for over a century so the facts are everywhere to be seen. But you should still read Croly's book. Knowledge is power and the progressives have purposefully hid their own history in the shadows because that empowers THEM. These books are so valuable for what they contain and for how it can be used against them. Use their own words against them. What could be more powerful?
Education institutions as only "job centers" is the death of the republic, and millennial dads not knowing how to do anything for themselves is only a small surface level indicator of this much larger problem of progressive indoctrination and poisoning of the processes of learning.
Remember. Millennials don't know how to be citizens either. They were explicitly not taught that by scheming professors. Citizens are a threat to the collective.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
-Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
But hey...let's keep telling Millenials they're stupid - it's a great way to get them on the Trump Train / sarc.
Using a a cordless drill, a stepladder, a set of screwdrivers or even a hammer requires putting the phone down.
Nice. I just bought one of these at an estate sale to show my kids. They were impressed.
I don’t own any tool that is cordless. My drills have cords because I like drills with some horsepower. The cordless are also ridiculously expensive.
I also use drills as grinders, not what the were designed to do.
Hubby would rather have his own set of tools than borrow from someone else. Now on the other hand, my boss who could do it himself, is mega well to do and mega cheap is always hinting around to borrow our tools.
Millennials don’t want to buy houses or cars or anything that requires fixing. If the phone breaks just buy a new one.
Pre OSHA and the power of the EPA, makes all the difference. The Hoover Damn probably could not be built today
True. I used to change my own oil in my younger days. But frankly I'd rather spend my Saturday afternoons doing something else. So I'll pull into an oil change place during the week and have somebody else do it for about $30 while I catch up on office email in the waiting area. To me the $30 is well worth getting my Saturday afternoon back.
I also have a handyman come by periodically to do odds and ends around the house like touch up paint, put in the screens, hang a wall-mounted TV, etc. All stuff I'm capable of doing myself but I prefer to pay somebody else in exchange for having more time to do other things.
So it's not about being lazy or incapable for many people.
Millenials often CAN’T buy houses or cars (they may buy the latter, and “ride-share” to make the payments); usually they rent both.
Replacing a phone instead of fixing it often costs little more, and brings guarantees a repaired one won’t.
The cost of oil changes by a third party really cheaper than doing it youself.
Baby boomer dad’s fault....not home. 50% divorce.
I think the main reason young people no longer know these skills is because none of them work with them - nobody will hire them when so many foreign scabs are available. Peers in the trades all complain about it, and have seen incomes fall.
And you would have had a heart attack if you watched how they did it.
In the 1980s when in the Marine Corps, we found an old training film made during WWII. It was called something like field expedient methods for setting up communications. We found an old projector with the film and proceeded to watch it. It showed how to jump from tree to tree, so you could put an antenna up the highest tree. How to lay communication cable off a moving jeep (basically you had a guy sitting on the hood un-spooling the cable, while two guys on the back jumping on and off the back of the jeep to get the cable exactly where it was needed). EVERY technique would be considered dangerous today. We found the film funny and very informative. My platoon sergeant said very perceptively, if setting up antennas fast saved lives and helped win battles, who cares if a few guys get run over by a jeep or fall out of a tree.
So true; I’d recommend checking out YouTube for anything (especially car or home repairs) before paying a professional.
One of our cars had an airbag light turn on, and it can’t be ignored; it won’t deploy in an accident. Looked it up on YouTube, and some guy described how moving the seat had loosened the connection underneath; he recommended pushing all the connections together, and it worked like a charm.
Do you know how much we’d pay to have that addressed by a mechanic/dealer?
The high school near me still has an auto shop, but it might be an adjunct to the auto shop at the community college, which has a good reputation.
Go to any automotive forum and you can read plenty of horror stories about dealers, jiffy lubes and independents screwing up a simple oil change. I have car that came with free lifetime oil changes and I still refuse to let the dealer touch it. My pickup came with two free oil changes. I still refused to let the dealer touch it. I just changed the oil in my wife's car last night. It's a very simple procedure. Drive up on the ramps, open up the Fumoto oil drain valve and let drain completely, not 30 to 60 seconds, change the filter, put in new oil. It's a very simple process and I did it right in my garage.
Thanks RightGeek:
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