On Making Education the Enemy

How a Post-Election Hyper-Fixation on the "Diploma Divide" Only Divides Us More

I started writing my post-election reflections several different times and in several different ways over the course of the last two weeks, always struggling to know where to begin. It’s hard to know where to start because it’s hard to completely wrap my head around all that I find confounding and maddening in this current sociopolitical era. In every direction I turn, it seems people are still screaming about who the real culprit is, who our enemies are, and their justifications for thinking that way, all with an impenetrable ideological self-righteousness that leaves little room for dialogue. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that in our culture, no one can say, “I was wrong” or “I’ve changed my mind”? Instead, we dig our heels in and continue fracturing ourselves into smaller and smaller factions while telling everyone if they don’t agree with every view we hold, they are free to leave our lives.