An excellent article in the Graun here by academic David Runciman has some interesting things to say about Brexit and the education divide.
Runciman points out that the University-educated were overwhelmingly likely to vote Remain, whilst the rest generally voted Leave. But it's what he says about the significance of this that I find interesting. Here are some bits:
"The Brexit campaign had its own Trumpian moment, courtesy of Michael Gove, who told [Sky News] that "the British people have had enough of experts". Gove was . . . widely mocked . . . But what he said struck a deep chord, because it contained a large element of truth. The experts . . . had been telling the British public that the risks of Brexit far outweighted any potential benefits. Gove insisted that the voters should decide this for themselves, on the basis of their own experiences, rather than listening to elite voices that had a vested interest in the outcome".
Hallelujah.
"There was consternation here [in Cambridge] following the result. It was accompanied by a barely suppressed feeling that ignorance had won the day. I lost count of the number of times I was told that one of the top trending searches on Google in the immediate aftermath of the vote was "What is the EU?".
"Hearing educated remainers mock those who asked that question the day after the vote was an uncomfortable experience - and not just because the story about Google searches was largely apocryphal . . . The split between the university towns and other parts of the country did not arise because one set of people understood what was truly at stake and the others were just taking a wild guess. Both sides were guessing. Even now, no one truly knows what is going to happen."
Hallelujah.
"The better-educated cleaved to one set of predictions because these chimed with what they already believed in. Polling . . . found that university graduates thought that [a Brexit vote] would produce an immediate financial crash, whereas those with fewer qualifications thought it much more likely that things would carry on as before. Prior political preferences shape what we think the evidence shows, not the other way round . . . we all have a tendency to favour the worldview that enhances our future prospects. The preference of university graduates for remaining in the EU echoes the benefits that EU membership gives them: the free movement of labour and easy access to European networks is better for those with the qualifications to take advantage of a knowledge economy. . . [But] Education does not simply divide us on the grounds of what is in our interests. It sorts us according to where we feel we belong.
Higher numbers of graduates, Runciman goes on to say, "have reinforced the education divide by enabling the better-educated to start congregating together: socially, geographically, romantically . . . If you went to university, ask yourself: how many of your friends didn't go . . . ? And among your friends, how many of those who did are married to people who didn't?"
It's fair to say that I don't personally have any friends who don't have a degree*. My only acquaintances who don't are the window cleaner, various people who work in shops in the village and some players in the orchestras I conduct.
"Social media now enhances these patterns. Friendship groups of like-minded individuals reinforce each other's worldviews. Facebook's news feed is designed to deliver information that users are more inclined to "like". Much of the shock that followed the Brexit result in educated circles came from the fact that few people had been exposed to arguments that did not match their preferences. Education does not provide any protection against these social media effects. It reinforces them."
For me that was the most striking thing post-Brexit. Time and again I found myself speaking to people who didn't seem to have met a Leave voter. Ever. Their reactions varied from curiosity ("I must say that had never occurred to me", said one well-educated Left-leaning friend when I pointed out that the jobless and low paid perhaps didn't benefit too much from unrestricted migration) to unfeigned horror and hostility.
"Many of the safeguards that have been put in place to bypass popular politics", writes Runciman, "have had the effect of empowering a new class of experts, for whom education is a prerequisite of entry into the elite . . . not just the bankers, but the lawyers, the doctors, the civil servants, the technicians, the pundits, the academics. Not all of the educated are winners in this world, but almost all of the winners are educated. It gives the impression that knowledge has become a proxy for influence.
When Gove suggested that the experts should not be trusted because they have a vested interest in what they are saying, that was his point: once knowledge becomes a prerequisite of power, then it no longer speaks for itself. It appears to speak for the worldview of the people who possess it. At that point it ceases to be knowledge and simply becomes another mark of privilege . . . Once knowledge is assumed to be just another one of the perks of power, then the basis to trust others to take decisions for us becomes eroded. Asserting the facts and asserting your privilege grow increasingly difficult to distinguish . . . These days the rich find it quite hard to get away with the presumption that their wealth is proof of their virtue. When they seek protection from the system, it is pretty clear what they are up to: they are looking after their interests. But when the educated look out for themselves they can dress it up as something ostensibly better than that: expertise . . . To those on the receiving end, it stinks. It stinks of hypocrisy, and it also stinks of self-interest.
I think this is all very perceptive, and I query only one aspect. I absolutely take the point that the educated tended to be in favour of Remain because they - we - benefit from the EU; and I also accept that the esteem in which knowledge and education are held is diminished thereby, although I very much doubt that anyone (with or without a degree) ever thinks of this in any other than the vaguest way. But because Runciman fails to distinguish between different forms of expertise he misses a narrower point that Michael Gove was making too: why should we believe economic experts when they are almost all almost always wrong?
The great unwashed may be ignorant, but they can detect bullshit a mile off. When economic experts say there'll be a crash if we leave the EU the proles say, "Nah. Don't think so. We'll just muddle through". When experts say, "Migration is good for the economy", those at the bottom end look around them at low-wage jobs, unemployment, queues for housing and the NHS and say, "Well it's not good for me mate".
No-one is expert on the future, and working class Leavers have just as much chance of being right as Mark Carney, George Osborne and David Cameron.
*I do however have a number of friends who only have one degree :)
