Who is College For?

Rick Santorum does not believe that college is for everyone. Apparently neither does Barack Obama. Both agree that some folks are better off with a technical education. But whom does that leave college for?
Let’s agree that it is not exclusively for “snobs.” We are nearing twenty-five thousand students at Kennesaw State University and very few of them fit this appellation. Let’s also agree that college has become too expensive. Certainly the upwards of fifty thousand dollars that some elite universities charge is too rich for most pocketbooks.
Let’s also agree that not everyone has the ability to pursue a higher education. Not only do some people hate academics, but a great many of them do not have the candlepower to deal with the subject matter in which traditional universities specialize.
That still leaves the question as to who can benefit from four or more years of college. Many nowadays think in terms of acquiring marketable skills. They (or their parents) decide that it is worth the effort because they will then qualify for jobs that enable them to earn an additional million dollars over the course of a lifetime.
First of all, let’s understand that not everyone benefits from this monetary bonus. The higher the percentage of the population obtaining a degree, the smaller is the financial differential between college and high school. After all, not everyone is going to become a high-power executive just because they take extra years of schooling.
Nor is every major going to have an equal payoff. If you want to be an accountant, college is pretty much the best place to acquire the requisite skills. But if you major in communications—as many nowadays do—the odds of becoming an on-screen television reporter are slim.
So let me switch gears. Let me share a personal experience. Far too many years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I took a course in anthropology. I’m not sure why I did—I was not an anthropology major—but it turned out to be an eye-opening experience.
One of the books we were required to read was about the Tiwi. Who, you may ask, are the Tiwi? They are an obscure aboriginal tribe living on Melville Island just off the north coast of Australia. Although not particularly important; they made a huge impression on me.
Consider that this is many decades later and I still remember them. I recollect how they went to war by symbolically trying to wound the enemy rather than kill him. I also recall how the older men married much younger women, who nonetheless cheated on them with the younger men by having liaisons in the bush.
Why does this matter? Well, on a certain level, it doesn’t. Ignorance of the Tiwi’s is not going to make or break many careers. Nevertheless, for me, my introduction to them was life changing. It shook me out of a complacency born of an absent-minded ethnocentrism.
Like most people I grew up believing that the world surrounding me was the norm. A majority of Georgians would not agree that the gritty streets of south Brooklyn exemplify the way ordinary people live, but they did for me. It took a college course in anthropology to make me realize that there were alternative ways of living.
Which brings me back to the question of what is college for? My answer is that for many it is preparation to become social leaders. It changes their frame of reference so that they can deal life’s complexities better than they would have had they remained parochial in their outlook.
Universities are not merely about honing technical skills. In some cases, that is their forte. But in many more the goal is to shake us out of the lethargy of youth. In these instances, it is much more about growing up to become a multi-faceted human being.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University

The Real One Per-Centers

Not long ago I gave a talk to some Tea Party folks. I was explaining why I think liberalism is destined for the ash heap of history. In making my case, among the things I asserted is that we humans are a hierarchical species. Always and everywhere, we rank ourselves in comparison with others.
Rick Santorum is not my choice in presidential material, but he was correct in also insisting that complete equality is not a good idea. Not only do people differ in their abilities, but also in their achievements.
The way I put it to the Tea Party is that while equality of opportunity is worth pursuing, an equality of results is unlikely. Furthermore, I do not want resources equally distributed. To the contrary, I believe people should get what they earn.
Given that I was addressing conservatives, there was wide agreement with this sentiment. My listeners also believed in personal responsibility and individual effort. Like many not blinded by liberal ideals, they understood that we owe a debt of gratitude to those who perform above the norm.
This insight has become more important with the demonization of the so-called “one per-centers.” Thanks to the Democratic decision to resort to class-warfare, the very rich have been portrayed as lazy parasites.
The image Barack Obama presents when bemoaning the refusal of the wealthy to “pay their fair share” is of smug self-entitlement. But is this the true picture? Are those at the top of the social pyramid self-satisfied plutocrats who are sucking the life-blood from the rest of us?
Well, let’s see. To this end, I consulted Forbes list of the 400 hundred richest Americans. Topping the list, with a net worth of over sixty billion dollars, is Bill Gates. What a surprise, the creative force behind Microsoft is still riding high. Just behind him is that habitual number two: Warren Buffet. The guru of Berkshire Hathaway has fallen to around forty billion, but the stock market has recently hit a few speed bumps.
After this comes Lawrence Ellison of Oracle and then several members of the Walton family. Sam’s kids are making out just fine from the proceeds of Wal-Mart. Nonetheless, the mayor of New York City is hard on their heels. Michael Bloomberg, the creator the Bloomberg news empire, is evidently unwilling to sit back and clip coupons.
Next come the Koch brothers. As Obama’s latest whipping boys, these manufacturing titans are certainly rich. Each approaches the twenty billion range. After this are the masterminds behind Google. Sergey Brin and Larry Paige are only worth about fifteen billion, but then Google is the new kid on the block
Steven Balmer and Paul Allen, who rode to the top on the Microsoft gravy train, are doing okay, if worth only slightly more than ten billion. But who is that sitting right up there in the same neighborhood? Why it is that liberal billionaire investor: George Soros. I guess he should be ashamed of the company he is keeping.
Oh yes, Michael Dell of Dell Computers is right there too with his fifteen billion. One more of these wealthy college dropouts, he did better than Steve Jobs who made the mistake of selling his Apple stock before the company rocketed to a net worth of half a trillion dollars.
What do these folks have in common? Except for the Walton’s, they all made their own fortunes. Even in their case, however, the company providing their wealth is of recent origin.
So where are the Rockefeller’s, Vanderbilt’s, Astor’s, and Kennedy’s? The only conclusion one can reach is that the one per-center’s are not what they once were. Almost all of today’s billionaires have earned their own fortunes.
Does this make them parasites? Have they hurt us in the process of getting wealthy? Or have we too benefited from their efforts?
You be the judge.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University

Shades of John F. Kennedy

Many commentators have noted the affinity evangelicals have for Rick Santorum. They have voted for him in large numbers because they apparently feel comfortable with his sincere piety. Although he is a Catholic, his biblical principles resonate with them on a gut level.
What the analysts have also noticed is that Santorum supporters are concentrated in agricultural areas. Although Rick regularly alludes to his coal miner roots, it is rural evangelicals who form the core of his support. Meanwhile, these same folks have been averse to Mitt Romney.
My first reaction was that this did not make much sense. Romney, after all, is a transparently moral person whose value system parallels that of evangelicals. Why wouldn’t they recognize this connection and reward it?
My wife provided what I think is the key. She was raised as an evangelical in rural Ohio. In fact, Santorum carried the county in which her parents have their farm.
According to Linda, she met no Jews in growing up. The few she knew about were doctors and lawyers. Nonetheless, they were not the ordinary folks with whom one regularly rubbed shoulders. As such, they were exotic. In other words, it was difficult for her neighbors to identify with them
This put me in mind of the fact that there are few Mormons in rural evangelical areas. As a consequence, they too would seem exotic. While the doctrines of the Mormon Church may strike many Christians as strange, it is probably more important that they have little contact with real live Mormons.
Then I made the connection with John F. Kennedy. When he ran for president, he too had difficulty with rural evangelicals. As Santorum himself reminded us, JFK had to go out of his way to assure these folks that he was an American before he was a Catholic. He essentially told them he could be trusted because he was one of them.
Even so, Kennedy had to select Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. Kennedy did not like Johnson, but he knew that without LBJ’s southern constituents, he was unlikely to be elected. Indeed, this strategy worked. In what turned out to be a very close election, these people made the difference.
To return to Romney, he too makes rural evangelicals feel uncomfortable. Its not just that he is rich and urban. Because his background is so different from their own, they wonder how he will govern. What, they ask themselves, does he really believe? Yet no matter how fervent his assurances, they cannot help but feel uneasy.
Here in Georgia the rural/urban split was once again on display. As was the case in South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio, urbanites heavily favored Romney. Actually, they did so in Cobb County. Despite the fact that there are many evangelicals in the Atlanta suburbs, as city dwellers they are comfortable with cultural disparities.
What explains the electoral discrepancy is thus rural isolation, not religion. But times change. As people gain exposure to outsiders, these aliens are transformed into normal human beings.
This is what happened to Catholics. Were once they were foreign to the rural South, today they are a familiar part of the landscape. As a result, rural evangelicals are not frightened by their differences. This is why so many have been able to embrace Santorum with nary a qualm. He is now one of them.
The same transformation is apt to occur with respect to Romney—assuming he is elected president. When people see him day-to-day behaving in ways they find beneficial, he too will be viewed as ordinary and safe. Once this happens, we as a nation will have taken another stride forward.
In the meantime, we are embarked on a learning curve. And make no mistake about it; if Romney gets the Republican nomination, rural evangelicals will vote for him in overwhelming numbers.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University

Delaware Writ Large?

Christine O’Donnell!
There is a name to be reckoned with. There is a lesson to be learned!
With the primary season upon us, many conservative Republicans are intent on ensuring that their party nominates a sufficiently conservative candidate for president. They want to make certain that the person who gets elected will govern as a conservative—not merely sound like one on the hustings.
Many conservatives also seem to believe that no matter whom they nominate he or she can beat Obama. They are certain that Barack is so badly wounded by his legislative mistakes that a majority of Americans are eager to see him gone.
These same voters seem to have forgotten Ms. O’Donnell. As you may recall, she was the one the Tea Party managed to get nominated to fill Joe Biden’s senate seat. It was initially assumed that the Republican representative from Delaware would coast to an easy victory. But No! With O’Donnell as his opponent, it was the Democrat who romped.
This happened because conservative activists would not settle for moderation. Instead, they got a liberal Obama clone. Their victory in nominating O’Donnell quickly went sour when ordinary Delawareans refused to elect someone who had flirted with witchcraft.
The moral of the story is that American voters have limits. If they perceive someone as extremist, they shy away. No doubt they have been fooled—most recently by Obama—nevertheless they do not want leaders who are out of the mainstream.
The problem conservatives currently face is that the Republican alternatives to Mitt Romney are all regarded as too radical by a large proportion of moderates. Rick Santorum, New Gingrich, and Ron Paul all seem extreme to the swing voters who will determine our next president.
No, let me reformulate the problem. Our real predicament is that a large proportion of Republican voters refuse to believe this cold, hard fact. To use a phrase that got Mitt’s father in trouble, they have brainwashed themselves into thinking that because they love someone, moderates will too.
Sorry! Most Americans believe that Santorum is a religious zealot. They hear that he is against birth control or that he got sick when John Kennedy defended the separation of church and state, and they get weak in the knees. They may be misinterpreting Rick’s convictions, but this is what they think.
As for Newt, people are fascinated by his debating skills, but worry about his propensity to shoot from the hip. There is a reason, other than negative advertising, why Gingrich’s numbers fell like a rock after South Carolina. Many primary voters feared that there would not be enough votes coming from the moon to overcome Obama’ advantage in the regular election.
With Regard to Paul, most voters are not teenagers. They may admire Paul’s sincerity and tenacity, but they do not want his finger on the nuclear trigger.
As an adopted Georgian, I am particularly distressed that another adopted Georgia, namely Gingrich, is leading in the state polls. Having learned at close hand how unstable and vindictive he can be, I cannot imagine that the good people of my home state would vote for him if they were privy to his real character.
The bottom line—what wakes me up in the middle of the night—is that my fellow conservatives might have a “death wish.” Despite protests about seeking an electable candidate, they refuse to recognize that this person is Romney.
Back in the day when we were fighting the Soviet Union, some people would chant, “Better Dead than Red.” Many people seem to have reached a similar conclusion with respect to conservatism. They apparently prefer death to voting for a perceived moderate.
Sadly, if they vote that way on Tuesday, thereby ensuring Obama’s reelection, they will leave our nation, if not dead, then on life support.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University

Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball

Crunch time is upon us. With Super Tuesday just around the corner, Republican voters will have to get serious about whom they nominate for president. Conservatives who care about the fate of their country can no longer play games when they go to the polls. They must make the proper choice!
The question is therefore: what qualities do we need in the person we send to the White House? Surely debating skills and/or a winning personality must not top this list. Our nation is in too much jeopardy for us to disregard our opportunity to send a problem-solver to Washington.
So what problems need to be solved? Abortion is not one of them, not because it is unimportant, but because no one elected president will be able to do anything about it. Nor need ObamaCare or offshore oil drilling be the deciding factors. In these cases, we can rest assured that all of the potential candidates will repeal Obama’s folly, as well as lift prohibitions against off shore drilling.
No, our central concerns must be the economy and the deficit. What we need is a person with the skills and the temperament to fix these problems. And here the answer is obvious. That person is Mitt Romney. He is the only candidate who has demonstrated an ability in this area. Moreover, he has done so repeatedly; i.e., at Bain, the Olympics and in Massachusetts.
Some say Romney is relying too much on his biography to sell himself to the American people. But what better indicator of a person’s abilities do we have than his or her accomplishments. After all, wasn’t this the reason we elected Dwight Eisenhower president?
Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul all have congressional—not practical, experience. They can boast all they want about saving money, but none has really done it. So, for instance, when Santorum says he will increase manufacturing jobs, the very language he chooses demonstrates that he understands little about how jobs are created.
Santorum, of course, is a great improvement over Gingrich. He, at least, seems to have a moral compass. Paul too appears to be a moral man. But is this enough? While it is a minimum requirement, Romney easily fills this bill as well.
As for Santorum’s primary focus, it is estimable, but off the mark. Rick has been the social candidate. Time and again he returns to abortion and family issues. As it happens, I too believe it is critical that we strengthen the family. Where I disagree is with his assumption that we must do this before we save ourselves from bankruptcy. What good are strong families if we are all in the poor house?
With respect to Gingrich, he is all over the place. Yes, we must protect religion from the government, but what else will Newt do? It is hard to say. Paul, on the other hand, is predictable, but so rigid that he is unlikely to adjust appropriately to unexpected crises.
Then there are foreign policy considerations. While this is the single most important presidential responsibility, none of the Republican candidates has significant experience in this area. As a consequence, we must here rely on their personal dispositions.
Newt, sadly, is a loose cannon who could go off at inopportune moments. Santorum is lacking in gravitas, and therefore unlikely to impress foreign leaders. Paul is an isolationist who may precipitate the very disasters of which he warns. Only Romney has the stability to protect us from international troubles.
If we add things up and prioritize what we need, the answer comes out only one way: Mitt. He may not be the perfect conservative, but his record—when not distorted for political purposes—demonstrates that he is conservative enough.
And besides, Romney is the only one who is electable. Remember moderates have to vote for him/her for a Republican to win.
And make not mistake, this time it is absolutely essential that a Republican come out on top.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University