In Norway, the number of applicants in healthcare is rapidly shrinking, spelling big trouble for higher education, healthcare services, domestic politics, and economic development
To sum up, since Sweden has the exact same situation and problems in these sectors, and for much of the same reasons (only worse - yes, really):
Politicians, having helped create this situation which has its basis in the 1970s, will now try to fix it by doing the same things that's been tried since about 1985 or thereabouts.
Before the 70s, taxation was based on household income and assets (simplified), and the general tax level while still quite high was set so as a family of a man and woman and their 2-4 children could live comfortably on one full time wage, even in lower income jobs.
During the seventies this was changed to inividual taxation, due to reasons from feminism to market capitalists wanting to dump wages by flooding the labour market to unions wanting to increasemembership (union memembership was practically mandatory back then, and as an added bonus most of the unions made you a member of the socialist democrat party no matter your own opinion). However, the welfare system still bases amounts on household assets, meaning it immediately became common for perpetual wlefare clients to separate on paper, the woman getting to keep the apartment and the man to be given a new smaller one which he then could rent out under the table (to describe just one well-known problem which no-one has tried to fix since then).
As for education, in the early nineties we switched funding methods for higher education from a set sum which university and faculty used to make budget and thus set number of available slots for students - to funding based partially on material costs such as locales which were sold off to semi-private companies owned by retired politicians and heads of university chancellery and such, these companies then renting out the university's own buildings to them (there's much more to it including how these systems means that ear-marked grants and state subsidies can be laundered and then used for whatever instead of intended purpose - all legal, of course, it's only illegal when poor people do it). This was paired with funding for students being based on number of students completing courses/graduating, making perpetually lowered standards and increased access via lowered entry bars being in the interest of the universities. Add to that political pressure to keep numbers up, since a nation with a lot of graduates and people with teritary and quarternary education is intrinsically good (said no teacher ever, knowing full well that it's quality, not quantity that counts in [higher] education).
The bit about nurses is identical too, but with a twist: swedish nurses go to Norway to work, since the pay is much higher and the working conditions much better...
Edit: obligatory self-congratulatory remark (hey, must obey Jante loven, right?):
When I sent in my application to study political science intending to become a teacher, the bar for entry was 20/20 for everyone wanting in. So in the case of more applicants than seats, lots were cast by the faculty, and one could always hope for defectors (the swedish word 'avhoppare' translates to that, hilarious I think) making room, since the first two weeks of the first semester are set up to test resolve and make sure everyone understands the commitment necessary. (The rest of the semester too, but they only told you that if you made it to second semester...)
Last time I checked (5-6 years back) the bar for entry to the "teacher's training college", where prospective teachers go nowadays, was around 1.0 to 0.3 on the national test for entry. 1.0 is waht everyone with a secondary education no matter the subject, carpentry or hairdresser or law prep, is supposed to achieve without effort; 0.3 is virtually one step above getting points for spelling your name right on the test. And the test is passed on average score - i.e. worthless.
Another part of that is Sweden starting to use multiple choice exams writ large these past 20 years. Utterly stupid. You either know, or you don't. When I was at uni, a wrong answer earned 2 points deduction, a blank slot earned one point deduction and an answer earned one point was the principle. I.e. don't guess, and know your stuff, or you'll eliminate yourself.
Sorry for spewing this out just like that but as a former taecher, and a damn good one too I think, stuff like this really sets me off. Good thing I have an old rotted outhouse needs to come down.
Best grade I ever earned was when I quit my last job. A gaggle of students happened to overhear a colleague and me chatting in the lounge (which for reasons of democracy and integration was placed smack center in the students' rec area) when I mentioned I wouldn't return after summer and in unison they blurt out: "Noooo! You can't quit! You're the only one that knows antuhing!" so that half the staff hears it.
I was walking on clouds the entire week, I tell you that for free. :)
Also, one of the chief 'sales arguments' here is--it's not as bad as in Sweden or Denmark, even though the historical relationship with the latter is a bit more…fraught (something I can't understand: Danish rule ended around 1800, i.e., it's less recent than the Swedish overlordship (1814-1905), but Denmark is the bete noire here…
Re declining standards: one of my colleagues told me a few weeks ago that the entry-level qualification for History (I know…) in Norway is…a pulse, i.e., nothing but a, really any, diploma that shows proof of completion of upper secondary school (vidergående skole), i.e., the last three years of secondary education.
Nice penultimate paragraph: these are the moments that really count!
Denmark was feudal, and behaved like a feudal lord towards the norweigans. Sweden never was feudal, and by the time of the Union, while Sweden's elites certinly had a stepmotherly or Big Brother-attitude towards Norway, it was in no way even comparable to how the danes had behavd for centuries.
If you want to find that attitude in and towards Sweden, you should look to die-hard scanian nationalists (all 200 or so of them...) who still make issues out of Sweden's extremely harsh measures when Denmark had to hand Scania over to Sweden. It was best described as military rule of hostile territory for a long time, including widespread actions that today would be called war crimes. The same attitude, though with more pride in the rebels than in bile towards the central power is present in Småland, dating back to when Vasa quashed their uprising by a cobination of modern tactics (armoured cavalry) and political propaganda, agitprop and misinformation making other borderline rebelious parts of the country think that they were isolated and alone in their complaints.
Though I think the biggest bone in the throat for the norwegians still is when Christian III made Norway and Denmark into an absolute monarchy; it went against all prior history and tradition, that all power belonged to the King, rather than the Ting.
Re the 1660s turn to absolutism, well, it's my understanding that there were 3 such 'acts' by Christian III (one each for Denmark, Norway, and the 'overseas' areas), and that there were constant quabbles between the monarch vs. the (esp. Copenhagen-based) merchant elites.
Still, by comparison, nothing out of the ordinary, I'd argue. If anything, the Danes are to be commended (almost) for actually writing these things down. In virtually all other contexts, emergency measures, retroactively 'legalised' backroom deals, and the implementation of centralised orders by what can arguably be called non-state actors (such as seigneurial officials) were the way to go.
Writing it down is what makes it legal in our cultures. Our ancestors wrote on wood when it was temporary stuff, and in stone for the important bits such as who sailed where and such (runestones you know), and deals were generally announced at the Ting so that there would be witnesses.
This of course changed gradually once christianity set in, but the basic notion, "writing makes it legal" is still around in a cultural sense. Oral agreements while defintely important as a word of honour, have virtually no legal standing.
Excepting that the budding merhant class and the danish nobility (not to mention the clergy) probably leaned on him as much as they dared to, I'd argue that he himself was of the notion that writing it down made it legal (and real). "Thus it is written" is an idiom for stating "this is how it is, and it is the way it is, and that's how it should be" in all the Scandinavian nations I believe.
This, my friend, is about as true as anything: (some) people don't want to be fed BS, but a sizable share couldn't be bothered (and thanks a lot for the kind compliment: I'm trying.)
Re the neural aspect: like Rikard in his answer below, that could be. For all I know (which isn't much), our brains are exceptionally good at pattern-recognition. Somewhere (can't remember where, though) a couple of years ago, I read that our cerebral cortex is able to process up to 7 different pieces of information at the time, which is apparently enough to build up a complex civilisation. If it'll be enough to thrive in that environment, I don't know…
I used to say "I want to teach you to think, not what to think." That one always struck a chord with the more contrarian and individualistic students. Of course, everything I've used when teaching are things I've been taught bt good teachers myself, in and out of school.
And to quote my wife's late grandfather: "The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know about this". He was a professor (not in the american sense but the european) and researcher of cellular biology and bio-medicine, and was very good at explaining things since he fully understood the difference between being able to rattle off a list of facts about beta-blockers, the stuff one might read from a 'Popular Science'-style magazine and acually understanding how beta-blockers work.
I stole a trick of his: "Do you want the short answer or the long explanation?" when students asked stuff like "But why didn't the Scandinavian nations re-establish the Kalmar Union in the eighteenth century?" (Try answer that one in 200 letters or less...) 99/100 students just want the quick short answer they can memorise for the exam, and be done with class or lecture.
In all fairness, I can relate. It's not like my mind was focused on historical politics and the finesse or lack thereof when I was between 15-20. Beer, broads and a bit of the rough and tumble or even ultravi was more my melody.
And your hypothesis about the brain and energy makes sense I think. Definitely an idea worth pursuing!
Don't know in your nations, but in mine they have been cutting budget to Public Health since beginning of 90s. If you want to know why, first ask IMF, than ask the center right parties that started the bad job, and the fake center left Democratic party that don't care of anything is Public anymore. Then you add that the money took away from Public health has been given to Private Clinics and Hospitals that enjoyed a rapid grow and a huge flux of money in 30 years.
Same happened in Education, especially Universities are now managed by manager not by famous Professors, as Public Hospitals are. Private Academies and Universities instead exploded in the last 30 years for the same reason of Health Care: a huge flux of money from State to private sector at the expenses of the public one.
So, I'm not surprised at all, of the EuroReich policies of the neo nazi European Council and Commission. Game is over, dear friend.
If you look at and follow the money, you'll see that so many were able to enrich their patrimony without having any skill or talent as never in Italian history as in the last 30 years. The tax evasion in Italy is HUGE we talking of 110 to 140 bilions of euro a year.... So were all this new wealthy criminals send their children to? Private schools. Where they go for better health assistance? Private Clinics
It's the Americanization of the ridiculously boneless European community or if you like is what the nazi of IMF and Washington ruled to the province of the UCA Empire...
But I'd like to point out something different after replaying to your article:
- The situation of nurses is not isolated, is not something new. It has to do with, again, the fast enrichment of most of the families (many txs to tax evasion) whose children don't want to do dad's job, don't want to carry on the family business, but they WANT TO GO to the UNIVERSITY!! No matter if they are good at studying, they got some special skill for it or got some sort of talent. They just want to AVOID as LONG as POSSIBLE the time they will have to WORK!.. they start at high school with ERASMUS.. 1, 2, 3 times.. great vacation, dad and mum pay!
So my brother's daughters have 2 degrees, then they went in some "exotic" University, Barcellona? It's fun! Amsterdam? Yeah! Maybe a specialization in Sweden or in Paris? Sure, why not the University for politicians were Sarkozy and many went? I'll go there!
So now, one is in her 30s, the other almost 30, but no one have a job except part time. No one went to work seasonally as we did, during summer holidays (3 months here) as we're leaving in a touristic area on the cost.
Do we need immigration for nurses? sure, for artisans? sure, for carpenters? sure, for mechanics? sure...and on and on
But my generation rarely went to Universities, mainly the child of wealthiest one or the most talented. It was bad? NOT AT ALL, why? Did we missed some talent to be a Nobel Prize? maybe.
My dad after the final exam at High School where I had totally 42 out of 60 told me "you're not going to University I tell you! " but my older sister went because she had 54/60. I then went to study Electronic Music at the Conservatory Rossini because it costed only 2 euro a year of taxes... XD (the old great public school system). While doing that I was working as sound technician in live concerts then in a Studio.
During all of my High School I've worked all the summers as waiter or barman or in a huge fresh food store for Hotels and big institutions. With that money I bought keyboard, synthesizers, tape recorder and a mixer.
Then I've worked in a new Studio as Sound Engineer for almost 3 years mixing quite a few nice records. But then I was curious about the upcoming computer graphics and animation, and I moved to Milan main city for that.
After 30 years of work, all of whom I've choose to do from waitress to film directing, I'm an happy man, satisfied of my carrier and of the many wonderful, fun, interesting people I met, worked with, fight with, build with them, in many countries of the, use to be a, wonderful world!
And I was able to save money for my recent family, for the future of my kid, for a better living but with always the exact same attitude and philosophy to save, to learn, to share.
BTW my older sister instead is keeping asking money to our old parents, she doesn't pay taxes, but she pretend to have the same as the honest ones. She's not happy of her profession, a psychologist, but she need money to send his child to Sarkozy Universty as she think he deserve it, hoping to count on him when she'll be old and retired.
Sorry to be so straight: but our spoiled children deserve all of this. ;)
Thanks for this incredibly exhausting piece, Paolo.
You sum up, in quite some detail, how the racket 'works' (that is, until it doesn't): all 'western' governments were 'doing' austerity since the end of Cold War I in the 1990s, with the above-described consequences, even though they came in local/national varieties.
I recall, from my teenage days, some 'discussions' of the benefits of EU accession: they honestly made the case that it would bring 100 € per person and year in savings (really, it's been 1,000 units of the former currency, which would be something like 70 € 'only', but never mind the difference due to inflation). This quickly proved to have been a lie, but there were no consequences whatsoever: noone was disgraced, ostracised, or even questioned by media people.
You're spot-on concerning the Americanisation of everything here. The one thing that sets 'Europe' apart are our older cities, but if places such as the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, Italy, are any guide to the shape of things to come (it's been bought by the Benetton Foundation, which turns it into a 'flagship store', on which one may learn 'more' here: https://www.yatzer.com/fondaco-dei-tedeschi-venice-benetton-oma), the direction is obvious, if not ominous.
Re your comment on the nurses (also relates to Rikard's above comment): it's nothing new, you're right about this, and it chimes with the austerity since the 1990s. You know very well, much as I do, that one could 'fix' this, not overnight, but by working to reverse the tide you described so well. Alas, it's not going to happen, and there's nothing that will change this.
The lights are going out all over Europe, alright, but perhaps what we're perceiving isn't much more than shadowplay in a gigantic version of Plato's Cave, mainly due to apathy coupled with desperate consumerism, the loss of faith in self-government (if it ever existed), and, crucially, a dereliction of duty on part of most 'citizens'.
What else to add if just that word "austerity" that I forgot. As the last 30 yrs of policies were mainly delivering public money to privates, to those fking criminals of the so theorized "free market".
BTW: I think you know how Benetton ended up in those years, from cloth shops to highways they never restore, so they killed so many in that Genova bridge fall.
No one talks anymore about them and how guilty they were.
Covid it's like 9/11, same system to wipe out the past and transform criminals in innocents or even saints! Take care!
Also, it would be 'nice' to note that Benetton is the only such company. They aren't, and I don't mean to pick on them--it's just one of the examples that's all the more telling. *sigh*
A quick Google search tells me that youth unemployment in Italy was 29.8%, as of September 2021. If you reduced the number of people going to university, that number would go even further up. And jobs for which a high school diploma was perfectly sufficient 50 years ago now require a bachelor's or even master's degree. Whose fault is that?
I'm sorry, I'm not graduate, Phd or whatever. For the jobs I've done in the last 30 yrs you do not need any University at all. Even now.
If to be a nurse they require a master, I'm sure you'll never find more than few even between immigrants...
If those 30% of italians instead of warming the seats of Universities for 10 years would have learn a real job, not an intellectual (so trendy... so easy), they could have set up a family, buy a house, or instead travel wherever they like 30/40 days a year, eat twice a week in restaurant, drive a nice car.
My wife that is in her 40 has all her girlfriends (+-10) without a child, mostly not even married and they can't blame society, but how selfish they've been.
Young italians (few) and the immigrants (the most) that are doing those job I mentioned in my comment have a very wealthy life, btw the Albanians that live in front of me, own the house and dad drive a mercedes... sory ;)
I don't know what kinds of jobs you've done. For older workers, experience will often offset a lack of higher education. Not so for the young, looking to find their first job.
Here's just one example: my grandmother worked as an elementary school teacher for many years. She only had a high school education (which she was extremely proud of: it was quite an accomplishment for a women of her age). Nowadays, you definitely need a bachelor's degree, and in some countries, a master's degree, too. How come?
Actually, I don't think my grandmother's situation was ideal. I do think some post-secondary should be required for teachers, including elementary. But not the kind (or amount) that they generally require...
Let's not even talk about flight attendants, secretaries... Lots of those jobs require a degree (at least de facto, i.e. the job ad won't say so, but good luck getting hired without it).
And actually, here's my very favorite example. There's this online store that sells writing equipment, mostly fountain pens and ink. They're based in the States, and they have a popular YouTube channel, mostly discussing their products. I used to watch a lot of their videos (I don't buy from them, but I like pens). Anyway, a few years ago, they decided to hire more people, because their business had grown. Job requirements? Not knowing anything about fountain pens (because they like to train their employees from scratch, just the way they like it), plus facility with social networks. So, they hired a number of people (something like five people, maybe more), and then they made a video introducing them (no, I can't dig up the video now: the channel has a huge number of videos, and this was years ago). And guess what: every single one of those employees had a college degree. Every single one. 'Coz that's totally what you need in order to not-know-anything-about-fountain-pens, and in order to be a proficient user of social media. Totally. You think the situation is somehow unusual?
This is a good example of the insanity of, say, requiring a BA to work part-time as a barista (because, you know, sometimes people need to write the names of customers on receipts).
I doubt that this situation is 'unusual', it's just so normalised that no-one understands how these issues relate to each other and the bigger picture. This, however, is also a function of the ever-greater atomisation and over-specialisation in academia: if no-one who does, say, English literature, knows anything about, e.g., law, economics, mathematics, or history, of course English literature graduates won't have anything to say…(other than claims of victimhood, I suppose).
As a former academic, let me say from experience that no-one should be admitted to higher studies before age 35 or so, after first having had a job for at least five years (and I do mean a job, not a career). Street sweeper, nurse, bus driver, store clerk, whatever - a real job where you either do it right or gets fired.
Because most academics come from middle class bourgeoisie (humanities, social sciences) or upper middle class (engineers, economists, anything with law), they lack the very real experience only real jobs and real life outside the institutions of education can give you, and thus thy are (however nice or well-inentioned) naive in oth senses of the word, optimistic, progressive, and lacks that fundamental understanding that poverty, violence and chaos is just three missed meals away.
They have never experienced what it is like to have to instruct your child to eat as much as they can at school (school food in Sweden is tax funded, so free for the children/students) because your pay doesn't quite cover it, or to choose between not paying rent, water, electricity or other bills.
For the same reason I'd argue the age of the vote and to be elected be raised to at least 35.
Ha, that limit around age 35 certainly varies from discipline to discipline (see Irena's comment below), but I'd agree on the above work requirements: most students do 'internships' at prestigious places, such as courts, public administration, corporations, etc., consequently they don't know anything (OT: I spent my high school summers working at a manufacturing plane; sure, it's been cookies and such, but I was on the shop floor with all the other mostly immigrant labourers).
I remember reading somewhere that, historically, mathematicians have done their best work before the age of 30, whereas historians have often done it near the end of their careers. It makes sense. For mathematics (and physics, and all sorts of technical stuff), you need a sharp, agile brain. For history (and political science, sociology, etc.), you need lots of experience and maturity. The only kind of maturity you need for mathematics is "mathematical experience," which has little overlap with life experience and personal maturity.
Oh, and may I mention foreign languages? (I'm sure it applies to music, as well.) If you hope to learn a language well, it really helps to start young. (Sure, you can do it later. But expect to put in a lot more time.) From personal experience: I started learning Russian at 25, and Czech at 35, and lemme tell ya, the difference is palpable. Despite the fact that, in other respects, I have better conditions for learning Czech. There are things for which a younger brain is simply better.
As for the voting age: don't you think gerontocracy has gotten us into enough trouble as it is?
Here's a thought about voting: many corporate sell-outs are arguing for 'shareholder democracy', i.e., that the rich should have a bigger vote because they pay more in taxes. I've yet to find anyone who advocates for *that* (return to the 19th century in terms of property qualifications for voting) to explain how, logically, any immigrant who also pays taxes may be denied voting rights.
I have my own opinions about this, but I strongly suspect that 'shareholder democracy' isn't really pushed because of still-existing equal protection under the law clauses, i.e., courts might find my above argument quite convincing, and since there's more of 'us' than there are of 'them', I suppose we'll not see 'shareholder democracy' anytime sime.
Re the language-learning: my then 3.5yo learned Norwegian in about 2-3 months (I',m still struggling after almost 2 years…)
Voting is excerting power over others, as such it is dependenton maturity and morality more than anything. And the younger we are, the more ignorant and immature we are.
I would much prefer a system where voting/eligibility required voluntary and open to all civil service for two years. Everybody gets one try, if they want to, and they can quit whenever they want without any ill effect save not ever being given the vote nor being eligible for office f any level.
Two years working cleaning railroads tracks from garbage and weeds, manually, 8-10 hours a day for only bed and board would immediately weed out anyone not wanting to serve the community rather than rule it. A Trudeau would never sacrifice two years of his life for something as intangible as sufferage.
As for learning, while the plasticity of the brain and the speed with which on learns certainly is higher at younger age, that does not equal maturity or experience, and it is also sadly a popular excuse. There is one over-riding factor which trumps all other when it comes to study:
Doing the work. The more work you put into it, the more you learn.
That is a truth too hard to swallow for todays westerners, so they all go looking for excuses as to explain away dropping standards everywhere.
Lazy student = poor knowledge and lack of skill, end of argument.
I'd rather give the vote to people who have a stake in the future. Too many "mature" people have an "after us the flood" attitude. For evidence, see the corona debacle.
As for learning, essentially, it's like this:
(1) If you need to memorize lots of things, or learn to rapidly manipulate abstract symbols, then then there's a premium on brain plasticity and therefore youth.
(2) If you need to understand human beings, there's a premium on experience and personal maturity.
Most things require a combination of (1) and (2). However, something like mathematics is almost all (1). You can keep doing good math into middle and old age, but you want to start young and keep mathematical breaks to a minimum. For something like clinical psychology, (2) matters a lot, and there isn't all that much (1).
In Australia professional or practical degrees - like accountancy, dentistry, law, nurse, medicine, etc - are needed to work in the those professions. The three top or most competitive degrees to get in are medicine, dentistry and law. I think with medicine in addition to having the academic score to get in, applicants must also attend interviews.
You can imagine my shock that some of the smartest people in any place or nation could be so
to some Australian Medical Association addresses. I got this, literally, from a comms adviser "UNSUBSCRIBE".
USA has made an art form of dumbing education and making it expensive at the same time! It was/is a deliberate policy to polarise and divide society between the educated elites and the rest.
As we can see, "they" are controlling and destroying institutions and governances from within - the most effective and cheapest form of destruction or warfare. They are implementing their plans with one simple trick: corruption in various forms and manifestations. Not selecting or appointing people on merits is an obvious form of corruption. No society can develop is there is too much corruption in any form. Look at the third-world countries, And the developed countries have obviously regressed by it.
From my perspective, as an uneducated small business owner who has to negotiate through all the dictates of the haughty educated, I can advise without any reservation the entire structure will fail for lack of healthy trained level-headed personnel to run the vastly over bloated machine. I just don't know when!
To sum up, since Sweden has the exact same situation and problems in these sectors, and for much of the same reasons (only worse - yes, really):
Politicians, having helped create this situation which has its basis in the 1970s, will now try to fix it by doing the same things that's been tried since about 1985 or thereabouts.
Before the 70s, taxation was based on household income and assets (simplified), and the general tax level while still quite high was set so as a family of a man and woman and their 2-4 children could live comfortably on one full time wage, even in lower income jobs.
During the seventies this was changed to inividual taxation, due to reasons from feminism to market capitalists wanting to dump wages by flooding the labour market to unions wanting to increasemembership (union memembership was practically mandatory back then, and as an added bonus most of the unions made you a member of the socialist democrat party no matter your own opinion). However, the welfare system still bases amounts on household assets, meaning it immediately became common for perpetual wlefare clients to separate on paper, the woman getting to keep the apartment and the man to be given a new smaller one which he then could rent out under the table (to describe just one well-known problem which no-one has tried to fix since then).
As for education, in the early nineties we switched funding methods for higher education from a set sum which university and faculty used to make budget and thus set number of available slots for students - to funding based partially on material costs such as locales which were sold off to semi-private companies owned by retired politicians and heads of university chancellery and such, these companies then renting out the university's own buildings to them (there's much more to it including how these systems means that ear-marked grants and state subsidies can be laundered and then used for whatever instead of intended purpose - all legal, of course, it's only illegal when poor people do it). This was paired with funding for students being based on number of students completing courses/graduating, making perpetually lowered standards and increased access via lowered entry bars being in the interest of the universities. Add to that political pressure to keep numbers up, since a nation with a lot of graduates and people with teritary and quarternary education is intrinsically good (said no teacher ever, knowing full well that it's quality, not quantity that counts in [higher] education).
The bit about nurses is identical too, but with a twist: swedish nurses go to Norway to work, since the pay is much higher and the working conditions much better...
Edit: obligatory self-congratulatory remark (hey, must obey Jante loven, right?):
When I sent in my application to study political science intending to become a teacher, the bar for entry was 20/20 for everyone wanting in. So in the case of more applicants than seats, lots were cast by the faculty, and one could always hope for defectors (the swedish word 'avhoppare' translates to that, hilarious I think) making room, since the first two weeks of the first semester are set up to test resolve and make sure everyone understands the commitment necessary. (The rest of the semester too, but they only told you that if you made it to second semester...)
Last time I checked (5-6 years back) the bar for entry to the "teacher's training college", where prospective teachers go nowadays, was around 1.0 to 0.3 on the national test for entry. 1.0 is waht everyone with a secondary education no matter the subject, carpentry or hairdresser or law prep, is supposed to achieve without effort; 0.3 is virtually one step above getting points for spelling your name right on the test. And the test is passed on average score - i.e. worthless.
Another part of that is Sweden starting to use multiple choice exams writ large these past 20 years. Utterly stupid. You either know, or you don't. When I was at uni, a wrong answer earned 2 points deduction, a blank slot earned one point deduction and an answer earned one point was the principle. I.e. don't guess, and know your stuff, or you'll eliminate yourself.
Sorry for spewing this out just like that but as a former taecher, and a damn good one too I think, stuff like this really sets me off. Good thing I have an old rotted outhouse needs to come down.
Best grade I ever earned was when I quit my last job. A gaggle of students happened to overhear a colleague and me chatting in the lounge (which for reasons of democracy and integration was placed smack center in the students' rec area) when I mentioned I wouldn't return after summer and in unison they blurt out: "Noooo! You can't quit! You're the only one that knows antuhing!" so that half the staff hears it.
I was walking on clouds the entire week, I tell you that for free. :)
Same shit, different smell, as the saying goes.
Also, one of the chief 'sales arguments' here is--it's not as bad as in Sweden or Denmark, even though the historical relationship with the latter is a bit more…fraught (something I can't understand: Danish rule ended around 1800, i.e., it's less recent than the Swedish overlordship (1814-1905), but Denmark is the bete noire here…
Re declining standards: one of my colleagues told me a few weeks ago that the entry-level qualification for History (I know…) in Norway is…a pulse, i.e., nothing but a, really any, diploma that shows proof of completion of upper secondary school (vidergående skole), i.e., the last three years of secondary education.
Nice penultimate paragraph: these are the moments that really count!
Denmark was feudal, and behaved like a feudal lord towards the norweigans. Sweden never was feudal, and by the time of the Union, while Sweden's elites certinly had a stepmotherly or Big Brother-attitude towards Norway, it was in no way even comparable to how the danes had behavd for centuries.
If you want to find that attitude in and towards Sweden, you should look to die-hard scanian nationalists (all 200 or so of them...) who still make issues out of Sweden's extremely harsh measures when Denmark had to hand Scania over to Sweden. It was best described as military rule of hostile territory for a long time, including widespread actions that today would be called war crimes. The same attitude, though with more pride in the rebels than in bile towards the central power is present in Småland, dating back to when Vasa quashed their uprising by a cobination of modern tactics (armoured cavalry) and political propaganda, agitprop and misinformation making other borderline rebelious parts of the country think that they were isolated and alone in their complaints.
Though I think the biggest bone in the throat for the norwegians still is when Christian III made Norway and Denmark into an absolute monarchy; it went against all prior history and tradition, that all power belonged to the King, rather than the Ting.
Ha, that's a lot to digest.
Re the 1660s turn to absolutism, well, it's my understanding that there were 3 such 'acts' by Christian III (one each for Denmark, Norway, and the 'overseas' areas), and that there were constant quabbles between the monarch vs. the (esp. Copenhagen-based) merchant elites.
Still, by comparison, nothing out of the ordinary, I'd argue. If anything, the Danes are to be commended (almost) for actually writing these things down. In virtually all other contexts, emergency measures, retroactively 'legalised' backroom deals, and the implementation of centralised orders by what can arguably be called non-state actors (such as seigneurial officials) were the way to go.
Writing it down is what makes it legal in our cultures. Our ancestors wrote on wood when it was temporary stuff, and in stone for the important bits such as who sailed where and such (runestones you know), and deals were generally announced at the Ting so that there would be witnesses.
This of course changed gradually once christianity set in, but the basic notion, "writing makes it legal" is still around in a cultural sense. Oral agreements while defintely important as a word of honour, have virtually no legal standing.
Excepting that the budding merhant class and the danish nobility (not to mention the clergy) probably leaned on him as much as they dared to, I'd argue that he himself was of the notion that writing it down made it legal (and real). "Thus it is written" is an idiom for stating "this is how it is, and it is the way it is, and that's how it should be" in all the Scandinavian nations I believe.
This, my friend, is about as true as anything: (some) people don't want to be fed BS, but a sizable share couldn't be bothered (and thanks a lot for the kind compliment: I'm trying.)
Re the neural aspect: like Rikard in his answer below, that could be. For all I know (which isn't much), our brains are exceptionally good at pattern-recognition. Somewhere (can't remember where, though) a couple of years ago, I read that our cerebral cortex is able to process up to 7 different pieces of information at the time, which is apparently enough to build up a complex civilisation. If it'll be enough to thrive in that environment, I don't know…
I used to say "I want to teach you to think, not what to think." That one always struck a chord with the more contrarian and individualistic students. Of course, everything I've used when teaching are things I've been taught bt good teachers myself, in and out of school.
And to quote my wife's late grandfather: "The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know about this". He was a professor (not in the american sense but the european) and researcher of cellular biology and bio-medicine, and was very good at explaining things since he fully understood the difference between being able to rattle off a list of facts about beta-blockers, the stuff one might read from a 'Popular Science'-style magazine and acually understanding how beta-blockers work.
I stole a trick of his: "Do you want the short answer or the long explanation?" when students asked stuff like "But why didn't the Scandinavian nations re-establish the Kalmar Union in the eighteenth century?" (Try answer that one in 200 letters or less...) 99/100 students just want the quick short answer they can memorise for the exam, and be done with class or lecture.
In all fairness, I can relate. It's not like my mind was focused on historical politics and the finesse or lack thereof when I was between 15-20. Beer, broads and a bit of the rough and tumble or even ultravi was more my melody.
And your hypothesis about the brain and energy makes sense I think. Definitely an idea worth pursuing!
Don't know in your nations, but in mine they have been cutting budget to Public Health since beginning of 90s. If you want to know why, first ask IMF, than ask the center right parties that started the bad job, and the fake center left Democratic party that don't care of anything is Public anymore. Then you add that the money took away from Public health has been given to Private Clinics and Hospitals that enjoyed a rapid grow and a huge flux of money in 30 years.
Same happened in Education, especially Universities are now managed by manager not by famous Professors, as Public Hospitals are. Private Academies and Universities instead exploded in the last 30 years for the same reason of Health Care: a huge flux of money from State to private sector at the expenses of the public one.
So, I'm not surprised at all, of the EuroReich policies of the neo nazi European Council and Commission. Game is over, dear friend.
If you look at and follow the money, you'll see that so many were able to enrich their patrimony without having any skill or talent as never in Italian history as in the last 30 years. The tax evasion in Italy is HUGE we talking of 110 to 140 bilions of euro a year.... So were all this new wealthy criminals send their children to? Private schools. Where they go for better health assistance? Private Clinics
It's the Americanization of the ridiculously boneless European community or if you like is what the nazi of IMF and Washington ruled to the province of the UCA Empire...
But I'd like to point out something different after replaying to your article:
- The situation of nurses is not isolated, is not something new. It has to do with, again, the fast enrichment of most of the families (many txs to tax evasion) whose children don't want to do dad's job, don't want to carry on the family business, but they WANT TO GO to the UNIVERSITY!! No matter if they are good at studying, they got some special skill for it or got some sort of talent. They just want to AVOID as LONG as POSSIBLE the time they will have to WORK!.. they start at high school with ERASMUS.. 1, 2, 3 times.. great vacation, dad and mum pay!
So my brother's daughters have 2 degrees, then they went in some "exotic" University, Barcellona? It's fun! Amsterdam? Yeah! Maybe a specialization in Sweden or in Paris? Sure, why not the University for politicians were Sarkozy and many went? I'll go there!
So now, one is in her 30s, the other almost 30, but no one have a job except part time. No one went to work seasonally as we did, during summer holidays (3 months here) as we're leaving in a touristic area on the cost.
Do we need immigration for nurses? sure, for artisans? sure, for carpenters? sure, for mechanics? sure...and on and on
But my generation rarely went to Universities, mainly the child of wealthiest one or the most talented. It was bad? NOT AT ALL, why? Did we missed some talent to be a Nobel Prize? maybe.
My dad after the final exam at High School where I had totally 42 out of 60 told me "you're not going to University I tell you! " but my older sister went because she had 54/60. I then went to study Electronic Music at the Conservatory Rossini because it costed only 2 euro a year of taxes... XD (the old great public school system). While doing that I was working as sound technician in live concerts then in a Studio.
During all of my High School I've worked all the summers as waiter or barman or in a huge fresh food store for Hotels and big institutions. With that money I bought keyboard, synthesizers, tape recorder and a mixer.
Then I've worked in a new Studio as Sound Engineer for almost 3 years mixing quite a few nice records. But then I was curious about the upcoming computer graphics and animation, and I moved to Milan main city for that.
After 30 years of work, all of whom I've choose to do from waitress to film directing, I'm an happy man, satisfied of my carrier and of the many wonderful, fun, interesting people I met, worked with, fight with, build with them, in many countries of the, use to be a, wonderful world!
And I was able to save money for my recent family, for the future of my kid, for a better living but with always the exact same attitude and philosophy to save, to learn, to share.
BTW my older sister instead is keeping asking money to our old parents, she doesn't pay taxes, but she pretend to have the same as the honest ones. She's not happy of her profession, a psychologist, but she need money to send his child to Sarkozy Universty as she think he deserve it, hoping to count on him when she'll be old and retired.
Sorry to be so straight: but our spoiled children deserve all of this. ;)
Immigrants will take over sooner or later.
Thanks for this incredibly exhausting piece, Paolo.
You sum up, in quite some detail, how the racket 'works' (that is, until it doesn't): all 'western' governments were 'doing' austerity since the end of Cold War I in the 1990s, with the above-described consequences, even though they came in local/national varieties.
I recall, from my teenage days, some 'discussions' of the benefits of EU accession: they honestly made the case that it would bring 100 € per person and year in savings (really, it's been 1,000 units of the former currency, which would be something like 70 € 'only', but never mind the difference due to inflation). This quickly proved to have been a lie, but there were no consequences whatsoever: noone was disgraced, ostracised, or even questioned by media people.
You're spot-on concerning the Americanisation of everything here. The one thing that sets 'Europe' apart are our older cities, but if places such as the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, Italy, are any guide to the shape of things to come (it's been bought by the Benetton Foundation, which turns it into a 'flagship store', on which one may learn 'more' here: https://www.yatzer.com/fondaco-dei-tedeschi-venice-benetton-oma), the direction is obvious, if not ominous.
Re your comment on the nurses (also relates to Rikard's above comment): it's nothing new, you're right about this, and it chimes with the austerity since the 1990s. You know very well, much as I do, that one could 'fix' this, not overnight, but by working to reverse the tide you described so well. Alas, it's not going to happen, and there's nothing that will change this.
The lights are going out all over Europe, alright, but perhaps what we're perceiving isn't much more than shadowplay in a gigantic version of Plato's Cave, mainly due to apathy coupled with desperate consumerism, the loss of faith in self-government (if it ever existed), and, crucially, a dereliction of duty on part of most 'citizens'.
Thank dear Epimetheus, you pictured !
What else to add if just that word "austerity" that I forgot. As the last 30 yrs of policies were mainly delivering public money to privates, to those fking criminals of the so theorized "free market".
BTW: I think you know how Benetton ended up in those years, from cloth shops to highways they never restore, so they killed so many in that Genova bridge fall.
No one talks anymore about them and how guilty they were.
Covid it's like 9/11, same system to wipe out the past and transform criminals in innocents or even saints! Take care!
It's two flip sides of the same coin, really.
Also, it would be 'nice' to note that Benetton is the only such company. They aren't, and I don't mean to pick on them--it's just one of the examples that's all the more telling. *sigh*
A quick Google search tells me that youth unemployment in Italy was 29.8%, as of September 2021. If you reduced the number of people going to university, that number would go even further up. And jobs for which a high school diploma was perfectly sufficient 50 years ago now require a bachelor's or even master's degree. Whose fault is that?
I'm sorry, I'm not graduate, Phd or whatever. For the jobs I've done in the last 30 yrs you do not need any University at all. Even now.
If to be a nurse they require a master, I'm sure you'll never find more than few even between immigrants...
If those 30% of italians instead of warming the seats of Universities for 10 years would have learn a real job, not an intellectual (so trendy... so easy), they could have set up a family, buy a house, or instead travel wherever they like 30/40 days a year, eat twice a week in restaurant, drive a nice car.
My wife that is in her 40 has all her girlfriends (+-10) without a child, mostly not even married and they can't blame society, but how selfish they've been.
Young italians (few) and the immigrants (the most) that are doing those job I mentioned in my comment have a very wealthy life, btw the Albanians that live in front of me, own the house and dad drive a mercedes... sory ;)
I don't know what kinds of jobs you've done. For older workers, experience will often offset a lack of higher education. Not so for the young, looking to find their first job.
Here's just one example: my grandmother worked as an elementary school teacher for many years. She only had a high school education (which she was extremely proud of: it was quite an accomplishment for a women of her age). Nowadays, you definitely need a bachelor's degree, and in some countries, a master's degree, too. How come?
Actually, I don't think my grandmother's situation was ideal. I do think some post-secondary should be required for teachers, including elementary. But not the kind (or amount) that they generally require...
Let's not even talk about flight attendants, secretaries... Lots of those jobs require a degree (at least de facto, i.e. the job ad won't say so, but good luck getting hired without it).
And actually, here's my very favorite example. There's this online store that sells writing equipment, mostly fountain pens and ink. They're based in the States, and they have a popular YouTube channel, mostly discussing their products. I used to watch a lot of their videos (I don't buy from them, but I like pens). Anyway, a few years ago, they decided to hire more people, because their business had grown. Job requirements? Not knowing anything about fountain pens (because they like to train their employees from scratch, just the way they like it), plus facility with social networks. So, they hired a number of people (something like five people, maybe more), and then they made a video introducing them (no, I can't dig up the video now: the channel has a huge number of videos, and this was years ago). And guess what: every single one of those employees had a college degree. Every single one. 'Coz that's totally what you need in order to not-know-anything-about-fountain-pens, and in order to be a proficient user of social media. Totally. You think the situation is somehow unusual?
This is a good example of the insanity of, say, requiring a BA to work part-time as a barista (because, you know, sometimes people need to write the names of customers on receipts).
I doubt that this situation is 'unusual', it's just so normalised that no-one understands how these issues relate to each other and the bigger picture. This, however, is also a function of the ever-greater atomisation and over-specialisation in academia: if no-one who does, say, English literature, knows anything about, e.g., law, economics, mathematics, or history, of course English literature graduates won't have anything to say…(other than claims of victimhood, I suppose).
As a former academic, let me say from experience that no-one should be admitted to higher studies before age 35 or so, after first having had a job for at least five years (and I do mean a job, not a career). Street sweeper, nurse, bus driver, store clerk, whatever - a real job where you either do it right or gets fired.
Because most academics come from middle class bourgeoisie (humanities, social sciences) or upper middle class (engineers, economists, anything with law), they lack the very real experience only real jobs and real life outside the institutions of education can give you, and thus thy are (however nice or well-inentioned) naive in oth senses of the word, optimistic, progressive, and lacks that fundamental understanding that poverty, violence and chaos is just three missed meals away.
They have never experienced what it is like to have to instruct your child to eat as much as they can at school (school food in Sweden is tax funded, so free for the children/students) because your pay doesn't quite cover it, or to choose between not paying rent, water, electricity or other bills.
For the same reason I'd argue the age of the vote and to be elected be raised to at least 35.
Ha, that limit around age 35 certainly varies from discipline to discipline (see Irena's comment below), but I'd agree on the above work requirements: most students do 'internships' at prestigious places, such as courts, public administration, corporations, etc., consequently they don't know anything (OT: I spent my high school summers working at a manufacturing plane; sure, it's been cookies and such, but I was on the shop floor with all the other mostly immigrant labourers).
Re: university entry age
I remember reading somewhere that, historically, mathematicians have done their best work before the age of 30, whereas historians have often done it near the end of their careers. It makes sense. For mathematics (and physics, and all sorts of technical stuff), you need a sharp, agile brain. For history (and political science, sociology, etc.), you need lots of experience and maturity. The only kind of maturity you need for mathematics is "mathematical experience," which has little overlap with life experience and personal maturity.
Oh, and may I mention foreign languages? (I'm sure it applies to music, as well.) If you hope to learn a language well, it really helps to start young. (Sure, you can do it later. But expect to put in a lot more time.) From personal experience: I started learning Russian at 25, and Czech at 35, and lemme tell ya, the difference is palpable. Despite the fact that, in other respects, I have better conditions for learning Czech. There are things for which a younger brain is simply better.
As for the voting age: don't you think gerontocracy has gotten us into enough trouble as it is?
Here's a thought about voting: many corporate sell-outs are arguing for 'shareholder democracy', i.e., that the rich should have a bigger vote because they pay more in taxes. I've yet to find anyone who advocates for *that* (return to the 19th century in terms of property qualifications for voting) to explain how, logically, any immigrant who also pays taxes may be denied voting rights.
I have my own opinions about this, but I strongly suspect that 'shareholder democracy' isn't really pushed because of still-existing equal protection under the law clauses, i.e., courts might find my above argument quite convincing, and since there's more of 'us' than there are of 'them', I suppose we'll not see 'shareholder democracy' anytime sime.
Re the language-learning: my then 3.5yo learned Norwegian in about 2-3 months (I',m still struggling after almost 2 years…)
Voting is excerting power over others, as such it is dependenton maturity and morality more than anything. And the younger we are, the more ignorant and immature we are.
I would much prefer a system where voting/eligibility required voluntary and open to all civil service for two years. Everybody gets one try, if they want to, and they can quit whenever they want without any ill effect save not ever being given the vote nor being eligible for office f any level.
Two years working cleaning railroads tracks from garbage and weeds, manually, 8-10 hours a day for only bed and board would immediately weed out anyone not wanting to serve the community rather than rule it. A Trudeau would never sacrifice two years of his life for something as intangible as sufferage.
As for learning, while the plasticity of the brain and the speed with which on learns certainly is higher at younger age, that does not equal maturity or experience, and it is also sadly a popular excuse. There is one over-riding factor which trumps all other when it comes to study:
Doing the work. The more work you put into it, the more you learn.
That is a truth too hard to swallow for todays westerners, so they all go looking for excuses as to explain away dropping standards everywhere.
Lazy student = poor knowledge and lack of skill, end of argument.
I'd rather give the vote to people who have a stake in the future. Too many "mature" people have an "after us the flood" attitude. For evidence, see the corona debacle.
As for learning, essentially, it's like this:
(1) If you need to memorize lots of things, or learn to rapidly manipulate abstract symbols, then then there's a premium on brain plasticity and therefore youth.
(2) If you need to understand human beings, there's a premium on experience and personal maturity.
Most things require a combination of (1) and (2). However, something like mathematics is almost all (1). You can keep doing good math into middle and old age, but you want to start young and keep mathematical breaks to a minimum. For something like clinical psychology, (2) matters a lot, and there isn't all that much (1).
Spot-on. It's the same shit-show everywhere: the responsible people are 'our' politicians. All of them.
In Australia professional or practical degrees - like accountancy, dentistry, law, nurse, medicine, etc - are needed to work in the those professions. The three top or most competitive degrees to get in are medicine, dentistry and law. I think with medicine in addition to having the academic score to get in, applicants must also attend interviews.
You can imagine my shock that some of the smartest people in any place or nation could be so
indoctrinated and stubborn.
I chain-sent an early treatment protocol from
https://globalcovidsummit.org/treatment/a-life-saving-protocol-for-covid-recovery
to some Australian Medical Association addresses. I got this, literally, from a comms adviser "UNSUBSCRIBE".
USA has made an art form of dumbing education and making it expensive at the same time! It was/is a deliberate policy to polarise and divide society between the educated elites and the rest.
As we can see, "they" are controlling and destroying institutions and governances from within - the most effective and cheapest form of destruction or warfare. They are implementing their plans with one simple trick: corruption in various forms and manifestations. Not selecting or appointing people on merits is an obvious form of corruption. No society can develop is there is too much corruption in any form. Look at the third-world countries, And the developed countries have obviously regressed by it.
From my perspective, as an uneducated small business owner who has to negotiate through all the dictates of the haughty educated, I can advise without any reservation the entire structure will fail for lack of healthy trained level-headed personnel to run the vastly over bloated machine. I just don't know when!
The reference to Rome Italy works for me. An ongoing fascist experiment. I can't wait for the heredity thing to come back too. Ha!