Theodore Dalrymple is always interesting. Here is his take on the student riots in France. Essentially he sees a collision between the vast expansion of educational institutions and the relative lack of prestige employment positions for graduates of those institutions, exacerbated by a welfare system that discourages work. The result is too many people with too much self-esteem and too much time on their hands captured by a "ferocious utopianism" that fuels youth protest.
He notes that it is not only France that has this problem of an over-educated and underemployed generation of idealistic youth.
One might object that ferocious utopianism has been a characteristic of French culture for more than two centuries; Robespierre lived and died long before the present glut of educational institutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment