The Culture Wars Are Destroying Relevant Employment Options

Nurses | Teachers | Cops | Judges

Obviously we live in a very ideologically-driven time. That seems indisputable. Now, you can argue that in face-to-face interaction, most people are generally decent. I’d argue that. Online is a f’n cesspool minus a few “dog saves owner” or “toddler bonds with dog” or “infant rings cancer bell” videos. Otherwise it’s just fighting. I think the new topic is Musk, but I try to only go on to post memes and stuff. I’m devious.

But what seems concerning in the past 5–10 years, and especially since COVID, is that we took all these professions that were once viewed as:

• Good

• Aspirational

• Stable

• Quality profession

… and we turned them into ideological cesspools where the people in them routinely get abused by others, and thus we created a staffing crisis in most of them. Notably:

• Teachers

• Nurses

• Essential (“essential”) workers

• Hell, even judges.

I’ve already discussed the “essential” workers narrative, via this post. Let me turn to teachers for a second, then. I think it’s relatively easy to argue that education is broadly lip service these days. As we saw during COVID, for some people it’s child care + a place for their kids to eat, and for those in affluent neighborhoods, it was child care + if they didn’t like the ideology of something happening, they just opted for private school or another option. It was kinda sickening to watch. But then we’ve also been clapping and chirping about “teacher shortages” and “teacher crises” and “respect for teachers” for about two decades, and that’s actually getting worse in a lot of places. Cue Thomas Edsall: