There’s Truth in Science Fiction

I’ve enjoyed science fiction ever since I found an Isaac Asimov novel while walking to my junior high school.  I have always enjoyed science, and with science fiction, I could enjoy the “what-might-be” fantasy.

One of the many topics in science fiction involves time-travel.  A recent example of the topic would be the Back to the Future movie franchise, but I’m a bit older than that.  My first time-travel favorite was H.G. Wells’, The Time Machine.  The novella was written in 1895 and is set in 1917 Victorian England outside London.  The 1960 movie was based on the original novella and it starred Rod Taylor in the lead.  The movie co-starred Yvette Mimieux who played every boy’s dream fantasy.

Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux

The Time Machine used a sled-like device for time-travel and not the BTTF’s stainless steel DeLorean.  In the H.G. Wells classic, George (Rod Taylor’s character) uses his invention to travel to various periods in the future.  He witnesses Armageddon and the destruction of London and eventually travels thousands of years into the future.  He ends up in a world of young adults called Eloi who live a carefree existence in a lush garden with no interest in science and who lack all manner of curiosity or discipline.  He meets the beautiful Eloi, Weena, when he saves her from drowning.  Neither she nor any of her friends seem to have any interest in the event.

Movie poster from 1960 film

As in any good science fiction story, we have to have a villain and in this story, we have the Morlocks who live underground and only come out at night.  Warning, spoiler alert here, the Morlocks turn out to be ranchers and the Eloi are their cattle.  While there are many takeaway lessons in this tale, the Eloi’s lack of intellectual curiosity has relegated them to their fate as being nothing more than a food source for the Morlocks.

Now, back to reality, perhaps a movie title for our current situation.  We find that one of the keys to the problems associated with our divided nation, the destruction of the middle class, and the widening disparity between the very wealthy and the rest of our society, is education.

The failure of our society to provide for the proper education of the less affluent is a major hindrance to all upward mobility.  We used to discuss the cycle of poverty that caused generation after generation to remain poor but now this cycle of stagnation is affecting the former middle class and threatens its extinction.  Our public education system does not provide current generations with the tools they need to get ahead.  Our schools are overcrowded and lack funding, teachers are underpaid, and the system is guided by cost-cutting bureaucrats.

Education officials seem to want to divert education dollars to for-profit businesses that are interested in the bottom line and not in providing a good education.  Only athletes and others with some innate entertainment skill-set seem to be able to move up from their born status in American life.  All of this points to a cycle of generational poverty.

The wealthy can afford to send their progeny to the best of private schools and universities.  If the less affluent are fortunate enough to get into a good school, they are then normally burdened with a financial debt that will cripple their opportunities for much of their adult lives.  This lack of quality education venues for all but the wealthy creates a large cadre of people without the skills to advance their station in life.  The less affluent become the Eloi whose only purpose is to support and provide services and entertainment for the very wealthy.

I don’t think this is an organized “deep state” plot to keep the riff-raff in their place, but it is more a subconscious effort of the wealthy to maintain the divide.  We recently saw evidence of this in the scandal where wealthy individuals were falsifying information and buying influence to get their children into schools for which they may not have been otherwise qualified for entrance.

A 2017 study found that 51% of students in U.S. public schools were poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.  It has been long identified that poorly educated parents with low incomes will traditionally have children disadvantaged by a lack of parental guidance of their educations and will often suffer a nutritional disadvantage that affects cognitive development.  These people often live in areas where the local public schools are below even the low standards available elsewhere in the same public school system.

“I love the poorly educated.”  Donald Trump, February 24, 2016, in Nevada.

The wealthy need people to clean their houses, cut their lawns, grow their food, and manufacture their toys.  To this end, they will try to support a government that does not use their tax dollars to pay for good public education.  Since the wealthy pay out-of-pocket for their own children’s education, paying for someone else’s children is seen as a socialistic endeavor.  They will support Secretary Betsy DeVos’ efforts to divert taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into the pockets of for-profit charter school owners.  She sees no need for after-school care, literacy instruction for K-12 students, and advancing teacher salaries making recruitment and retention a priority.

“In contrast to European and Asian nations that fund schools centrally and equally, the wealthiest 10% of school districts in the United States spend nearly 10 times more than the poorest 10%, and spending ratios of 3 to 1 are common within states.  Poor and minority students are concentrated in the least well-funded schools, most of which are located in central cities or rural areas and funded at levels substantially below those of neighboring suburban districts.”  Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University

Beyond the K-12 education issues, a college education is getting more difficult to obtain and afford.  While a college education is almost a requirement in most endeavors for advancement, the competition for that education has increased dramatically over the years.  In 1988 acceptance at Columbia University was 65%; as of 2014, it dropped to 7%.  College undergraduate tuition for public colleges has risen over 200% in the last 30+ years.  The average annual tuition at public colleges is around $10,000 while a private college would cost around $35,000.

"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."  MalcomX

The median income for a middle-class family is around $78,000.  Adjusted for inflation, middle-income families haven’t seen raises since the year 2000.  Putting two children through four years of college would cost them $80,000 just for tuition.  Add in textbooks, transportation, housing, and beer, and now you are looking at some serious debt.  Upward mobility for the middle-class is an ever more unachievable goal, and for the less affluent, it’s almost impossible.

If the U.S. is to compete in the 21^st century and in a global economy, we need to make some serious investments in all levels of education.  We need to better educate at the K-12 level, and we need to make undergraduate and graduate educations more accessible and affordable.  We need more and better schools, better-paying teaching jobs to attract a high caliber generation of teachers, better avenues for trade-schools that address actual community needs, and more affordable avenues for the non-wealthy to obtain a meaningful education.  On this playing field alone, it is easy to see why the rich get richer and the rest of us are looking more like an entre on a Morlock dinner menu.

Who's for dinner?