Cash Values

Education in the age of human obsolescence

“Hi. My name is Jim. I’m a profiling major. My goal is to create a consulting business in online identity formation.”

Or:

“Hi. My name is Jim. I’m going to med school to be an attention psychologist. I’m interested in doing clinical research in Media Adjustment Disorder (MAD).”

So what do you think, kids? Is this the kind of thing you should be thinking about for your educational futures?

We’re in my “Money and Morals” elective, where we’ve been reading Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning 2022 novel Trust, a fun-house mirror of postmodernism told from multiple perspectives that range from Ayn-Randian libertarianism to Italian anarchism. The book is set amid the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, and I’ve been contextualizing it by describing the transition between industrial capitalism (think: Andrew Carnegie) and finance capitalism (think: J.P. Morgan). I’ve just finished a quick summary of the New Deal, and I’m losing them in a groggy first-thing-in-the-morning haze. Time to raise the stakes.

Franklin Roosevelt set the terms of the economic debate for almost a century, I tell the class. But we live in a new economy now: an attention economy (think: Elon Musk). Attention is the currency of our time, one which, if deployed effectively, can be converted into cash. Finance is now downstream from attention, just as manufacturing became downstream from finance. Cutting edges grow dull. I know you all care deeply about your careers. So should we start thinking about what will really be the most practical way to prepare for them? Profiling major, anyone?

I’m surprised by the reaction. It’s muted and quickly curdles into distaste: you can see it on their faces. The prevailing mood is no, I don’t think so. Sounds sketchy to me. Investment banking still seems like the way to go.

I push them: C’mon, kids. You’re taking this class to get a good grade, to get into a good college, to get a good job, to make a lot of money. That’s the chain of logic here, right? You wouldn’t be stupid enough to major in English like I did. You’ve got to look ahead—the really successful people are the ones who see around corners. Who show some imagination. Like a profiling major, no? I mean, coding is so five minutes ago. You have a better idea?

Blank stares.

Maybe I’m moving too fast. But class is almost over. Look, I tell them. You’re expecting to join the ruling class. No one is going to pay you to do things that can be done as easily as having AI write your essays for you. How are you going to acquire skills that may actually be valuable? That will make someone actually want to hire you. Can you?

Still nothing. But they’re listening.

Maybe what we really need is a place where you learn to think about thinking. Where you absorb skills, social and otherwise, with high degrees of transferability and that can help you anticipate where things are headed. But where the hell can you do that? Think about thinking? Is there such a place?

They don’t know.

Well, I say, there are: liberal arts colleges. They’re where the ruling class has always learned how to rule—especially in changing times. The parties aren’t as good as Clemson; there’s not as much rah-rah as FSU, which the college office is telling me are the kinds of places so many of you want to go. But you don’t need to go to a high-priced school like this to go to a place like that. Don’t waste your parents’ money. Cash in on the product I’m selling. It pays good dividends.

Hard stop.

OK, class dismissed.

I’m dismissed too. But under the circumstances, it’s the best I can do.