Education as the “Center of Gravity” in the War of Ideas

I believe that education is a key battleground (if not the key battleground) on which the war of ideas over the west’s (and the world’s) long-term future will be won or lost. The bad guys (and their bad ideas) are currently winning this war, especially in the eyes of the west’s youth. The consequences of failure have never been higher in most of our lifetimes, and if we can’t turn things around then I don’t think we could say we ever deserved our freedom and prosperity to begin with.

In Clausewitz’s terms, education in it’s current state is a “Center of Gravity” for our enemy — one of their key sources of their strength on which we must coordinate our resources towards delivering a strategic and decisive blow…However this battle is also inevitable and will take place regardless of if/how we attack, because the current state of education is so obviously inefficient and antequated that it’s bound to collapse on itself (this part should be obvious but will not be the focus of this post).

I’d like to put forth the formula below which may be clunky but I think may help frame arguments about government policies — (government should seek to “minimize X”), where for individual citizens

• Natural Talent + Virtue + X = Prosperity
• X Represents the factors beyond an individual’s control which can impact their prosperity, such as socio-economic luck (whether someone comes from wealth or poverty), factors which cause one to experience discrimination (such as race/ethnicity/gender/religion)
• Minimize X in the formula of Natural Talent + Virtue + X = Prosperity
• Natural Talent is one’s natural abilities prior to practice/experience (for example, being 7 feet tall and good at basketball), and Virtue is work ethic, discipline, sacrifice, creativity, industriousness, positive attitude, etc

Think of “minimizing X” as a way of maximizing everyone’s real and perceived ability to improve their station in life by virtue of their talent and hard work. Adam Smith pointed out that if we allow people to apply their talents/virtues towards maximizing their own self interest, it works to the economic benefit of society overall. More important than than the economic benefits of freedom asserted by Smith are the moral arguments for freedom which underlie the founding of America — we’re endowed by our creator with unalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So when I say “minimize X”, I mean we should seek to maximize competition — maximize the amount of economic opportunity that is “up for grabs” among the largest number of citizens, and by extension minimize the instances where mediocre rich kids outcompete smarter/hardworking non-rich kids for economic opportunity and positions of high/pay status (where they underserve society)

Where should we focus our efforts towards minimizing X? I think both sides will agree that education is one of the top, if not the #1 factor, and on that topic I wish to put forward the following two observations for which there is much evidence (I provide some examples but invite you to DYOR); from these observations we can arrive at some very important conclusions, which I view to be independently verified as basic facts which one would struggle to repute.

• By nearly all legitimate measures, the US is at the top of the list for amount of money spent per student by country. Here’s a link to one of many sets of statistics on this, TLDR below is a graph from that site (OECD)

• By nearly all legitimate measures, the US is not even close to the top of the list for educational outcomes. We are average at best compared to the rest of the developed world. Again, here is a link to one of many sets of statistics on this, TLDR again below is a graph from that site (Pew)

If the above US educational apparatus is not underfunded (as the left argues in a coordinated and effective fashion), it is underperforming (as the right argues in an uncoordinated and ineffective fashion).. it should be obvious that the US needs to find ways to obtain higher ROI from it’s educational apparatus…changes need to be made, and these changes would likely not be pleasant for the people who work in this educational apparatus.

By and large, “the political right” argues for changes to the American educational apparatus, and demand a higher ROI. Meanwhile, the “the left” supports policies which entail more overall taxpayer money being allocated to the existing educational apparatus (ie unionized public schools, 4-year universities), in addition to their very aggressive public rhetoric about “free college” as a proposed solution to the absurd levels of student debt held by this country (notice how there is no attempt to hold anyone in the education establishment accountable for the phenomenon of higher ed costs increasing 3x faster than inflation over the past few decades)

My point is that we should be able to craft a messages that lay out how the educational establishment is a powerful interest group (made up of individually decent, well meaning people — as is the case with most if not all interest groups) which resists accountability at the expense of our national well-being. Further, this interest group primarily exerts their influence via the left — it is the Democrats who knowingly fight to resist changes/improvements to the educational establishment at the expense of all students and the country at large.

Our educational establishment does a good job of producing complacent Democrat voters who want bigger government, but as cited above it does not do a good job of producing industrious citizens. The consequences of failing to win this fight and get results from our educational system go beyond beating the democrats and “minimizing X” because it’s the right thing to do. American competitiveness is in tremendous danger as other countries dramatically outpace us in their ability to capitalize on technology and the age of information. The graph below paints quite a dramatic (albeit incomplete) picture (from Navitas Ventures— apologies the logo is cut off)

This is my first amateur attempt at making my case for how the war of ideas (and for the west’s future) should be fought. If I were famous or a naturally great writer, I’d write a book — many who do possess those qualities have written great books supporting these same causes, but our arguments still struggle to gain mainstream appeal… I figure if more average Joes like me share our 2 cents (literally and figuratively), maybe it will add up to something meaningful. Of course my intentions aren’t entirely unselfish, but I can’t bear the idea of standing by idly as the 21st century unfolds this way.