Interesting THE review of a book by David Goodhart - Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century.
The book contends that over recent decades in many Western nations, particularly the UK and US, higher education expansion has produced a “graduate cognitive class” (“head” workers) and diminished the status of manual and care workers (“hand” and “heart” workers). And “a democratic society that wants to avoid a powerful undercurrent of resentment must…provide meaning and respect for people who cannot – or do not want to – achieve in the examination room and professional career market”, it says.
Plenty have argued that too many people go to university. But the depth and nature of Mr Goodhart’s argument makes thoughtful reading.
Higher education expansion was “rational” when professional and managerial classes were expanding, but has now become a “serious problem” in economic, political and cultural terms, said Mr Goodhart.
Food for thought indeed.
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