The End of Responsibility Part the Second

One of my favourite bloggers, Monique Stuart, also writes for Human Events.  She rather eloquently puts her finger on a clear-cut example of what I see as being the biggest problem with my generation.  Seriously, you need to read the particular article here.

Monique, if you see this, fire me and email.  This one's for you.

Before I take specific umbrage at one of her toss-away lines about a Politics degree, I'd like to expand and paradoxically reinforce Monique's main point:

An education does not entitle you to employment. It exists to prepare you for the struggle.

You see, I am a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada.  I am particularly proud of this, as it provided me a well rounded education.  And our rugby shirt is excellent.  The advantages were many; small class sizes, an exchange to other Academies, robust physical training and a devotion to excellence in all forms. I am a better man for it (thanks Dad).  The best part of the education, however, was the friendly but adversarial attitude in my courses.  It wasn't about memorization, it was about proof of concept.  I didn't have to agree with my profs: I had to prove to them that I could research and then argue my position.  I went into the college a sort of Protest Conservative.  I was centre-right because most of the people I knew were hard left and I wanted to rebel.  Despite attending a Catholic school, my teachers all had impeccable international liberal bona fides.  Social welfare was a given, universal single-payer healthcare gospel truth.  I came out of the College a newly minted Libertarian.  The more I learned about governance, the more I realized that we didn't have anything resembling the ideal.  To steal a good line, there was a dream that was the West, and this is not it.  One of my mentors at the College, and a man I had the great privilege of studying under was Dr. Alan Whitehorn.  He is a dyed in the wool socialist, and I enjoyed our many sparring sessions.  I learned more disagreeing with this man than I ever could merely memorizing the textbook.  I also got my worst grades with him, in the low 70s. I deserved it; he never once let my intellectual laziness slide.

That long segue to say that most people my age do not get a classical education like I did.  They enter an assembly-line of a university, sitting in classes with 400 other students while the prof drones on.  Their assignments are graded by indifferent TAs who would rather spend time on their own graduate studies than read the dross of the plebeian class (of whom they were but recently a part).  All the while, they are immersed in a university culture where they are presented a simple but flawed syllogism:

1. Successful people attended this institution.
2. You attend this institution.
3. Therefore, you are successful.

You will note that nowhere in this process are the words hard work or massive amounts of time and effort mentioned.  In fact, it's merely presented as a given that success follows this education.  Even with the pride I have in my alma mater, I recognize that should I not work like a devil, I will fade away into the background.  I have the good fortune that some small part of history, if only on the peninsula that houses my College, will remember me as a good man.  The annals of the College will remember my name, my cause of death, and with whom I served.  However, should I want more to my name than an engraved stone on our War Memorial, a place on the wall of graduates, and a line in the Book of Remembrance, I will have to work, and work hard.


I am not American, and thus can lay no claim to the American Dream.  However, any rational man who wants to be remembered as such must be willing to put some effort into his good name.  I can't really blame my peers.  From the first day, we are told that we are special. Gold stars for effort, smiles and rewards at failed attempts.  No matter how poorly one did, one's confidence had to be protected.  This is the worst possible learning paradigm for a difficult world.

I was fortunate; my parents are both highly educated, and while they never attacked who I am, they regularly pointed out that what was not good enough was what I had done.  In fact, my failures were always presented as failures to live up to my own potential.  Failure became a natural part of my leaning experience.  Sometimes, success had to be achieved by standing on the wreckage of many, many failures.

I am a successful young man.  I earn more than 40k a year (but not much more).  I am on the bottom rungs of a career. What Scott Nicholson doesn't seem to get is that it wasn't handed to me, and what's more those high-powered careers of which he dreams demand hard work, or you stagnate (if you're lucky) or get booted (much more likely).

40k a year is a lot of money for a single 24-year old.  I have people working for me who raise families on less than that.  Eventually, through hard work, they will earn more and be better people for it.  I too will climb the ladder- at a rate exactly congruous with the effort I expend.  My education did not entitle me to achieve what I already have, and hopefully will. It prepared me for the struggle by teaching me not what to think, but how to do it.


This is the great lie of Progressivism: that you deserve something merely by wanting it, or having an elite decide you deserve it.  Life may not be fair all the time, but your chances at the good life improve if you put your shoulder to that cart-wheel and push to the last breath.