บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Episode 31 - Credentials Please - Meritocracy or Gatekeeping

you get credentialed from a university, that is The mechanism to becoming an elite. Kevin Shively: Right. And I mean it was almost like a s a class step, right? I mean it's like Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: you you go from one class to the other. Dean Bagley: Right. And if you're if you do actual work with your hands, if you do things, build things, operate things, you're you know, you're proletariat. You're you know. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Well, I mean there became a hierarchical element to it, right? I mean Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: they they they definitely there was definitely a one is above the other. I mean, and you know, that's that's the you know, part of what had developed in this idea of of elite when we were talking about elite last week, right? I mean this idea of people that have demonstrated and in you know, then then what they were really demonstrating is an ability, right? They were demonstrating an ability to be smarter or be able to figure things out better than others. I mean Dean Bagley: And the Kevin Shively: In a sense, it was it was definitely a qualitative measurement. Dean Bagley: In the terms of our model, and we don't use this in the positive. We haven't discussed this in the positive nearly enough, but it's it's consequence you're i it's main maintaining of consequence. You're the the the degree system used to be such that the consequence of getting the education was that you had the knowledge. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Dean Bagley: So it's it's not, you know, it's it's contin consequence maintenance, not consequence redistribution. And like I say, we normally talk about consequences being a bad thing, but it's just like we said last week, it's the result of the action. And Kevin Shively: Well, it's also not equal, right? I mean, it's not completely equal among all employment, right? I mean, like when we talk about surgeons or engineers, people that are building bridges and things like that, we want them to be really highly credentialed because we want them to be checked on their knowledge, right? We want them to be like we want them to actually know what they're doing when they cut us open. Right. I mean those are so it's not like we have to be very careful when we talk about this because it's not every profession across the board. There are some areas where we need like their peers, right? Because they're the peers are the only ones that actually know how to justify whether they know what they're talking about. And so because we don't understand all this stuff, none none of us are gonna be c be able to be engineers and sit on a board and the approving of who becomes an engineer, right? And who builds a bridge. Right. I mean we we just have to trust that the people that grant them that ability have n the enough knowledge to say this guy knows what he's doing or this woman knows what she's doing, right? When they build those Dean Bagley: And we Kevin Shively: bridges. Dean Bagley: we always have to keep an eye out for the result. Kevin Shively: Right, right, exactly. Right. Well the the results are are the check on the accreditation system, right? I mean that's exactly, Dean Bagley: Right. Yeah, if Kevin Shively: you know. Dean Bagley: those those are the fields where you cannot divorce the consequences from the actions. If you if you're a surgeon and you botch the surgery and your patient dies or has terrible consequences, you can't hide that. If you build a bridge and the bridge falls down, you can't hide that. Kevin Shively: Yeah, and and that's why in certain areas we need that that ability to as society have these structures in place. Of course we have to monitor those structures. We have to make sure that those those parts of our, you know, structural layer are solid, right? And and legitimate. but we need those in order to make sure that certain things are accredited and certain people are doing things that we all agree, okay, this person knows what they're doing. Dean Bagley: Yeah, for for all of the critique that's gone on over the last few years of the credentialed, the expert, scientist you know, scientists and that type of thing, I don't believe that there is anybody, or at least not very many people, no no sane, rational people that are arguing that none of that means anything or should mean anything, or we should do away with you know the necessity for credentials or Demonstrating competence to be able to perform certain tasks. Kevin Shively: Right, right. I mean, then we get to people like like Burnham, right, that where his stance is a little bit more mixed, right? I mean, we look at the fact that I mean, he's the one that actually talked about the really the professional managerial class first, right, in his managerial revolution, in nineteen forty one. I think you read that, right, James Burnham. Dean Bagley: Right. This is a book that I had read, and we haven't really discussed it, but it's a foundational element of the model. The the framework that we work Kevin Shively: Right. It is. Dean Bagley: in is is heavily built on Burnham. And and I read it and I I had told you before it was another one of those reading list recommendations that I'd gotten from following James Lindsay, Kevin Shively: Yep. Dean Bagley: along with the the Robert Lifton. material that also the Kevin Shively: Sure, sure. Dean Bagley: the model is heavily built on. And and the thing that really stood out in the the managerial revolution is the idea that what he's what he is describing is that the Soviet system, the Nazi system, and the New Deal American system all function the same way. Kevin Shively: Sure. And and as a natural consequence also, right? Dean Bagley: Yeah, which which really kind of led me more to that idea of okay, so it it's not ideology that's driving things because you can't in theory you can't find more widely disparate ideologies than the Nazis, the communists, and the US. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Nineteen forties

Democrats primarily. Dean Bagley: Yeah. So if you look at that, you know, at the and that's all at the time of you know, the height of the Second World War, you look at that and it's th they've all the society's gotten complex enough that they're all being administered at that point by a managerial class, you know, an administration class. Kevin Shively: Yeah. Right. Right. I mean that's what, you know, Aaron Rich and and Aaron Rich have basically said is that they that there was this managerial class that basically instilled itself, right, in between the capitalists and the labor class. Right. And so they're the ones that are basically directing everything. And you know, Aaron Rich and and and Burnham are not that far apart. I mean there's there's some dissimilar aspects, but they're not that far apart. In the sense that there is this layer in between. Dean Bagley: The only exception that I would take to the the phrasing in that is that I don't believe the managerial class installed itself. I think it it grew there. So they needed to bring people in to administer things for them. And then Kevin Shively: To run everything. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Dean Bagley: It it Kevin Shively: I mean it's a bureaucra you know, it's a bureaucratic evolution, right? Dean Bagley: Yeah, it it implies, you know, what the framework has shown us that the framework grew out of that this Kevin Shively: Yes. Dean Bagley: is the natural progression as things complexify and grow that is going to need to happen or is going to automatically happen. It's nothing that anybody's necessarily doing with intent. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. No, and and that's important. We we have to keep we've said this so many times in our conversation, is that it's not about we're not we're not judging people here. We're not actually saying that these people are evil because this happened, right? I mean it's not it doesn't require any kind of intent or malice, right? I mean, this these are systemic evolutions. Dean Bagley: Yeah, and I've I've felt like it was very important, and like you said, we've said this many times, but felt like it was very important to have that in there because so often the the discussion is almost always, well, this is bad. We we need yeah, we need to find who to blame. And if you can just get Kevin Shively: Somebody's to blame. Right. Right. Dean Bagley: the right person, it's not gonna happen. There's I've I've had this quote in mind for weeks and I've never gotten an end to the podcast, but there's It it'll resonate with what we're trying to do, but there's a a fantasy book series that I read called the the Sword of Truth series. Kevin Shively: Mm. Dean Bagley: guy has a magic sword, it's its power is when you touch it that it makes you see the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. but there's yeah, it's like Wonder Woman's Laugh Show. Kevin Shively: Kinda like Wonder Woman's lasso, right? Dean Bagley: But the there's a quote that that he has, the the main character in the in the series, has in there that's always stuck with me because I felt like that this is it's really something that we should you know, we should have on monuments or something. One of the things that he said frequently Kevin Shively: Ha ha ha. Dean Bagley: is fix the problem, not the blame. Kevin Shively: Yeah, yeah. I mean well, I mean, that is about the most anti political statement that somebody could make these days, right? I mean that's that yeah, exactly. I mean the and and that's really what the whole purpose of our conversation has been, right, o along the way is not to try to find a finger pointing opportunity, but to try to s figure out, well, what's actually going on, right? What what is the actual truth behind these things? And I mean Dean Bagley: Yeah, 'cause if you're trying to find who to blame and you've got the wrong person, then the whole argument falls apart. Kevin Shively: Right, right. And even if you find the person to blame, you still don't even know the answer. Right? I mean, that's not it doesn't actually get you anywhere. Dean Bagley: Well, from that perspective, the solution is then to replace that person, which if it's if it's structural, if it's systemic, like what we've been demonstrating, then replacing the person isn't going to make any difference. Kevin Shively: Right, right. I mean, and then the interesting thing, when I was digging into this issue, right, and I'm I'm looking at at who is who are the people in history that are are actually digging into this. I mean, I came across this guy, Peter Turchen, right? It's T U R Ch H I N. Americans say Turchin, but it it's really like Turchen, like Bach, right? It's got that guttural thing in the back. But He comes he comes at this issue from a completely different disciplinary starting point. I mean, he's a mathematical ecologist, right, by training. So he turns this qualitative population dynamics modeling on human history, building what he calls cleo dynamics as a data-driven cross-civilization science of sociological breakdown. And his idea on this. I mean he's building on like Jack Gladstone and earlier work, but he's basically saying that that the same population identified, this overproduced stratum of credential expertise sparing aspirants, right? People that that have degrees have of g multiple degrees and things like that. And and then basically looks at it from the standpoint of We there is a well, let me look look look. Dean Bagley: Well that's while you're looking that that's that's how it manifests now. I think what he Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: identified is that historically it was this overproduced elite class. It was people that Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: you know were were titled or credentialed or in one means or another believed that they were going to have access to the sphere of elites. Right. But there's there's Kevin Shively: And create an elite over production, right? Yeah. Yeah. Dean Bagley: you know

There's a limited amount of space in the elite class. So you had, you Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Dean Bagley: know, the the overproduction. You have way too many people who believe that they should have access to the elite that aren't going to. And and this is what destabilizes destabilizes society. Kevin Shively: Right. And it substantiated what Aaron Reich and Aaron Reich and Burnham both identified, right? But from a completely different angle, a completely different discipline. And the fact that both of them came to the same conclusion from different perspectives and different disciplines actually adds a lot of significance to this being a real phenomenon, right? Something that is actually, you know. Substantiate. Dean Bagley: And the the findings in his analysis of this that I think are really important and and why we felt like it was important to try to do this at this point in time, is that an overproduction of elite leads to revolution. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Well, I mean, look, we we have the same situation. We have that situation going on right now with like my kids generation, right? The generation Z, right? Gen Z is like these people all they all went to college. They all got like, you know, massive amounts of help getting to college, right? Because their parents went to college. Their parents like took them around to visit all the campuses and everything and And help them structure their applications and all of that, right? I mean, all of this. And Dean Bagley: Mm-hmm. Kevin Shively: so we have this huge generation of people and also a huge industry, right? Of educational industry, right? Dean Bagley: And the and they've they've been presented with this narrative that we all kind of signed on to and didn't really think about much, that it's like Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: if you go to college, if you get the degree, you're gonna come out and it's a reasonable expectation that you can come out and get a six figure job. Kevin Shively: Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that was the total that was the promise, right? Because they were asking for six figures a year to go. Dean Bagley: Yeah, I mean you know, that makes sense. And it w which is Kevin Shively: Right. I mean it was just that was the argument. And and so many of the educational systems actually like presented it that way. You know, they said, this is an investment, right? Dean Bagley: And I I don't I don't know if if you noticed this, saw this this way, but I what really stood out to me in looking at at all of that is that this is the fundamental problem that we have created with the the idea that everyone would pretty much agree with the concept in general. This idea of everybody should have a college degree. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Dean Bagley: This is the result of if you try to get everybody a college degree. Kevin Shively: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and you know, this plays into a theme that is so deeply American and it's probably other countries too,

but I mean I know that it's deeply American. And that idea of merit and meritocracy, right? I mean, Dean Bagley: Mm-hmm. Kevin Shively: this is that area area where we just believe in our hearts as Americans that if we deserve it. and we work hard enough, we'll get it. Right? I mean, that is about as American a concept as I can invent, right? Dean Bagley: It's yeah, it's the American athos. Kevin Shively: Right. I mean, in a sense, it's the American dream, right? If Dean Bagley: Mm-hmm. Kevin Shively: you can dream it, you can do it, kind of thing. Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: You know, and and you know, then you you get people like Michael Young, who's a British sociologist, you know, and the Labor Party figure who he basically created that term meritocracy called the rise of the meritocracy in nineteen fifty eight. I mean it was it but i he actually created that term satirically. Right. I mean Dean Bagley: Mm-hmm. Kevin Shively: originally it was supposed to be satire. It was it was a dist dystopian kind of framed, you know, histori future historians report was the was the whole thing about the the book. And it was kinda like a modest proposal, you remember? was it Jonathan Swift, right? Exactly. You know, it's kind of that in that kind of vein. Dean Bagley: Swift. Jonathan Swift, yeah. Or or you or Utopia. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Same kind of vein, right? I mean, of course, then it got adopted as an ethos, right, for American culture. And and like right. Dean Bagley: Much like utopia. Kevin Shively: Exactly. And became kind of, you know, our goal, right? And it was funny because his formula was kind of interesting, is like merit equals IQ plus effort. Right. So you had to have something ordained in you like you, which you can't have any control over, right? but then you had to have effort too, right? So there's a piece of there's a piece of both. There's a piece of like what you're granted and a piece of what you have control over. Both in merit. So I mean then because it has that like element of not having control over it, then It becomes kind of a an idea of some people are just better than others, right? I mean Dean Bagley: Yeah, un unfortunately that will will play out on that is that you know the people if you assume that that's what it's if you assume that position then is a proxy for ability, then the people who have the position must have the ability. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Yeah. I mean th the the thing is that that is where we have to introduce Goodhart's law, right? 'Cause then that is the part that the framework of the asynchrony framework actually always points to is in terms of the with Goodhart's Law mainly is that any kind any time the metric becomes the goal then it ceases to be a worthwhile metric, right? I mean that's yeah. Dean Bagley: Right. And and we've talked about that in the past because it's it's again, it's a part of our model, but it it you know, it's the metric capture it's it's the mechanism that the metric capture utilizes that once you Yeah. Right. Kevin Shively: Right. Well that's what Goodhart's Law d definitely leads to, right? Yeah. Dean Bagley: Once the and we've seen that with you know standardized testing and I mean it it it applies in so many different areas. I mean that's that's what the the healthcare discuss discussion comes down to. I mean the metric that the the healthcare discussion has moved to is like universal coverage. We want to make sure that everyone has coverage. And then that gets said as access to care. And both of those are a proxy for the idea that what we're actually saying is that we want everyone to be taken care of to get the health care that they need when they need it for without an exorbitant a cost attached to it. Kevin Shively: Right, exactly. Yep. I mean, you know, when we're w but when we're it there is a level of deservedness that gets built into this, right, when we talk about meritocracy. Dean Bagley: Uh-huh. Kevin Shively: Right. And that's the part that I think starts to metabolize, right, in a in a society is this this idea of of deservedness. Dean Bagley: Right. So so you had something that you had had said was you while you were looking at this last night that you had messaged me. That was like a a Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: mirror comparison. Do you have that handy? The like the the left looks at and the right looks at Do you remember what that was? Kevin Shively: Yeah, let me look. yeah, well it was it's it's basically that on the let's see here I've got it. Well, you so you put me on a spot. I have to go back and try to find you talked about a lot of things. Dean Bagley: Yeah, I'm I'm trying to see if we can Okay, right wing anti expertise, left wing anti meritocracy. Kevin Shively: Yeah. Yes. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, exactly. I mean Dean Bagley: So so the thing Kevin Shively: that that really does crystallize a lot of the debate these days, right? Dean Bagley: So w what struck me reading that, and I don't know if you saw this or not, we'll we'll see if this the same thing came through to you. But I read that and I'm like, they're saying the same thing, they're just using different words. Kevin Shively: Yeah. Well yeah, Dean Bagley: It's Kevin Shively: I mean that's that's what we keep finding, right? Dean Bagley: Yeah, it's it's another one of those mirror image things. It's like populist and elite and you know that the stuff that we've talked about recently. It's what what both sides are identifying is that this proxy mechanism that we had, where you see one thing and you assume that that means something else, has broken down. And and Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Dean Bagley: this is what you know, so the the left is looking at that and you know, just because you occupy a position doesn't mean that you knew. what you needed to know to be able to have elevated yourself to that position naturally, you don't necessarily have the skills. And the right looking

at the credential side, you know, they're like, just because you're in that position and you have that degree doesn't necessarily mean that you've got the skill. So it's it's a s Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: it's a perceived skills deficiency on both sides in parallel Kevin Shively: Right, right. Dean Bagley: language. Kevin Shively: Yeah, well, you know, there it goes further than that, actually. I mean, because I mean, when you look at something like like Frank's listen liberal, right? I mean they they talk about the Democratic I mean, what's going on right now in the Democratic Party, right? I mean this this whole backlash against the D Democratic Party from within the Democratic Party structure, right? I mean, you've got this h whole idea and this is related to this. This is directly related related. I mean, you've got you know, they're basically what Frank said in his his 2016 Listen Liberal is that the 1970s Democratic Party basically pivoted away from working class the base as because they were perceived as socially conservative. And so they went towards this managerial class. I mean, if you look at it, you can almost see it, right? You can see the whole move towards the the more professional, like academic class that the Democratic Party's shifted to. And that's what produced people like Clinton, even produced Obama to to some extent, right? And they weren't because when I was a kid, I mean the Democratic Party represented like the the UAW workers, right? I mean they were like, you know, they were the labor. party, right? and so you see this in terms of the how this whole dynamic actually affects the political landscape, right? It actually does shift things, right? Because that's and this is directly related to this issue of elites and an idea of, you know, what does it mean to be elite? Because they basically categorize the whole new elite. Right. This academically Dean Bagley: Right. If yeah, I mean if you look at it, the Democratic Party post Clinton is really the official party of the managerial class. Kevin Shively: Right, right. An academic class. Yeah. Because the Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: academic class is what fed what feeds the managero class. I mean, you know, I'm I'm reading a book called Don't Be Evil right now with Claire Stapleton from Google and she talks about how, you know, they had this whole policy of hips, they said. You know, Harvard, Yale, Penn and Stanford. That's what they wanted to you know, I mean that's it's it's fed fed directly by the you know, academic, elite. Dean Bagley: Yeah. Because for a long Kevin Shively: And that that fed an entire p side of the industry of of the e economy. Dean Bagley: Because for a long time, having a credential from those institutions meant that you had you had a acquired the knowledge that you get from the best available education out there. Kevin Shively: Right, right. You know, I I think it's it's important to remind everybody that is still listening to this that

all of this is coming from our analysis, right? All of this is coming from our framework. And everything that we're seeing as being the way things we we see them as is coming from our analysis through that that process. And one of the things that I think is surprising to somebody like me on the left is the fact that we can see very obviously that there is this whole institution, right, of of academia and and credentialing and areas that has not necessarily been aligned perfectly with what it's proposed outcome. is supposed to be. and Dean Bagley: I'll do it There's there's an example, and I I hesitate to even bring this up because it'll derail the conversation, not for you and I, but for for people listening. It'll derail the conversation into directions that we're not necessarily meaning to go right now. But there's there's Kevin Shively: Right, right. Dean Bagley: prime example illustrating this going on right now that people are trying to describe in other terms, which relates to another example a few years ago. that what's going on now is the case of Jason Arde, who was a Cambridge professor. Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: And and Cambridge, you know, for for all of the institutions that you just listed that Google was looking at as the height of American education, Oxford and Cambridge are kind of the, you know, the king and queen of the world or whatever. Those those are your Kevin Shively: Right. I D. Dean Bagley: your primary going back much further, highly respected and And they had someone in place who it was demonstrated had plagiarized quite a bit of their work, made up a lot of their biography, and Kevin Shively: Yeah. Dean Bagley: didn't have the bona fides for the position that they were given. Now, I don't Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: want to get into the the reasons that that may have come about, but it it's a highlight for that fact that you've got some. Someone who is a a principal position at the primary higher institution of learning that is shown to, you know, unfortunately basically be a fraud, which calls the entire Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: credentialing thing into question. And then, you know, you also had the the Harvard professor or the Harvard president, Claudine Gay, who was demonstrated to be in her position under similar Kevin Shively: Well, you know, that's that's what really like highlights the importance of objectivity, right, and and the ability to have systems at the structural layer, right, that actually will identify and address these types of issues and and unfortunately, you know, academia is no better than any other in in, you know, industry in terms of because they're all very often what what happens with credentialing, this is the danger, right? Is that okay, who who gets to credential, right? Well, the obvious question, the obvious answer is okay, we'll get people who know who's good and bad at what they do, right? who understand the actual issues. And that's that's the part that can be corrupted very easily, right? And that's the that's the part that we have to be able to to have some kind of structural protections to prevent from happening. Dean Bagley: Yeah, it goes back to what we brought up before with the the fields that competency is required and therefore that competency competency needs to be evaluated by people who are competent. You need you need a surgeon to be able to evaluate to make sure that the techniques that the student surgeon is using are correct to be able to utilize those in a real world scenario. Kevin Shively: Right, right. But we also have to be very mindful of situations where credentialing is used only as a gatekeeper, right? To prevent you know, to prevent competition or prevent, you know, too many people from being able to to come into a certain profession. I mean, there are there are lawsuits regarding things like, you know, African hair braiders, right? And you know I mean nail nail cosmetologists and stuff where you know, where the harm that they could possibly do is not nearly commensurate with the level of creditation that they need in order to be able to actually perform their their duties, right? Dean Bagley: Yeah, they the examples that you found in your research on that, and I know one was in Louisiana and Kevin Shively: Yeah. Dean Bagley: there there were a couple of different things, but these these were people who, like you said, are are braiding hair or doing Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: cosmetology that are required to have more course hours to get that accreditation than EMTs. Kevin Shively: Right, right. I know, I know. And my daughter's an EMT, so I know I know what accreditation she has to go through. Yeah, and i it's it's just that is where the system becomes just basically silly. Right. I mean, yeah, and and we Dean Bagley: Right. Well and this this is a Kevin Shively: need to be able to be able to look at that and and see that for what it is. Dean Bagley: This is a good point to highlight something that that occurs to me frequently in these discussions, especially as we've had these discussions, that we really Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: need to get away from this. It's one way or the other, it's all or nothing. It's you know, that Kevin Shively: Right. Yep. Dean Bagley: all of these subjects, they're both right. You know, that you you need the surgeons to be that credentialed. That doesn't mean that other areas of credentialing aren't completely bogus and and gatekeeping. Kevin Shively: Yes, yes. I mean we have the Flexer with Flexner report, right? I mean, where it's it's all about reform of quacks doing, you know, medical treatments and things that were killing people, right? I mean that that goes Dean Bagley: Right. Kevin Shively: back to nineteen ten, right? So I mean those are real care harm, you know, stories that that need to be addressed. but we have to be able to apply our framework honestly, right? And and understand that that some of these are

going to be situations where they are not for I mean, the the entire purpose of the framework is to find things that are not for the purpose or intent, right? Of what it was originally intended. Dean Bagley: Yeah, diff different areas that have deviated from their their original intended purpose. Yeah. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. I mean, like, you know, for example, I mean, there are there are laws, I mean last weekend we went and spread my mom's ashes and we were forbidden from in Indiana, based on Indiana law, state law, for from like publishing the obituary in the newspaper or having anybody but just the immediate family. Because if we did that, then we would have to have a funeral director stand there for eight hundred dollars, right? You know. And then, you know, three hundred dollars extra because it's a Saturday, right? You know? Or whatever. And I mean, those are the things that like these are the rules that we set in place that are not they're not designed. I mean, there's no reason that actually aligns with the purpose of what actually is trying to be accomplished, right? Dean Bagley: Well I can Kevin Shively: And that's that's where we have this this kind of totalization. Dean Bagley: I can, you know, I can tell you from my experience, you know, I am I am a licensed real estate agent in Florida. I have I have taken my course to get a license to be a real estate broker. I have not taken the the state exam for that yet. The experience in both of those licensing processes has been the same in the fact that after having completed the coursework and taken the exam. I have learned nothing about how to do the actual job. Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm hoping that that's not the the case with my daughter and her EMT exam. Dean Bagley: again, I gotta believe that that's that's more it's more hands on, but yeah. Kevin Shively: But this is the point, right? I mean, this is exactly the point, right? We're we're talking about. So like we we can get to a point, yeah. We can get to a point Dean Bagley: Well i it's gotten to the point now that because of Kevin Shively: where the accreditation is is so extreme, right? And that's where it really doesn't pass the tri it it fails the triad test, right? Dean Bagley: It it because of this, you it casts doubt. I mean, we can we can laugh about that. We we don't because these other things are so bad, we don't know automatically that your daughter getting her certification as an EMT is going to mean that she actually knows life-saving techniques. We we Kevin Shively: Right, right, right. Dean Bagley: still kind of believe that that's that you know that has to be the Kevin Shively: We hope. Dean Bagley: God please let that be the case. But Kevin Shively: Ha ha Dean Bagley: But but we don't know. Kevin Shively: No, we don't. Yeah, and that's and that's the problem because when you know, I think one of the issues that we haven't really talked about is the fact that when everything has to be accredited, doesn't does that or does that not weaken the validity of accreditation in general? Right? I mean You know, we we we get to a point where we have to look at every single thing that somebody does needing to be accredited. Does somebody need to be accredited to cut my toenails? Right? I mean Dean Bagley: It's it's a dilution. you know, I don't we talked about last week the cantalon effect. Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: that's something that keeps coming up, you know, because it's part of the model, it's cut keeps coming up in my analyses and research. I I don't know how well you've you've incorporated that into your thinking yet. But but this is an example of the mechanism of the cantalon effect where when Degrees and credentialing were rare when that initially Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: entered into the market, it held full value. As you inflate the the number of degrees and accreditations, that dilutes the value to where the people who are getting that later on are getting much less of the value from what the the initial when it initially entered the system was. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. And and I I do get that. I mean I think that that it becomes a a cycle, right? I mean a kind of a spiral in a sense of that everything has to be validated, right? As far as ev everyone that that is gonna do anything. I mean, I remember when I first started tuning pianos, right? you know, people would be like, Well, how do you how do you know how to tune the piano? Right? I mean, how why why should I hire you? Right? so I went and got like a certification from the you know, the guild, right? an apprentice, Dean Bagley: Mm-hmm. Kevin Shively: you know, certification. So, you know, that gave me the ability to go get a job tuning a piano, right? but you know, and there is something to that. in a sense, but there's also something where you ha I mean the framework is here to define where that is legitimate and where that is not, right? Or where there's it's questionable at best. Right. I mean that's that's really what we're we're talking about. And you know, and the you know the test for any license restriction, you know, asks who makes the decision. Right. I mean, who is actually making that decision of who gets credited and who's not. Because if it if we find I mean this is what we have to look at, if we find that those that those people who are making the d decision have vested interests in limiting the number of people that are credited to be able to do something, then without actually You know, if they they have a b vested interest to do that not because they're not able or capable, but because they're competitive, right, then that's where the framework that's the part of the framework that says, Wait, you know, we're gonna flag that, right? Dean Bagley: Well Kevin Shively: And Dean Bagley: your your piano tuning story makes me think of something because you bring up guild, which makes me think of the Kevin Shively: Mm. Dean

Bagley: you know, the trade guilds that we used to have and Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: the way things were done at that time. And and what I think that we've done is that we've taken we we've substituted an accreditation an educational credential for a A credential that was conveyed by demonstrated experience competence. Because it what what Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: I'm what I'm thinking of is that the way that would have been been done historically was through an apprenticeship. And you did Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: not get signed off on as a whatever you were going through your apprenticeship for until you demonstrated to your guild master that you were competent in doing. Kevin Shively: Yeah, I I was sponsored by my by my guild member, who was a full guild member, who is the head of you know, head piano technician for Ball State University. Dean Bagley: huh. Kevin Shively: And, you know, and he and I was in high school and I for the last two years of high school, I was his apprentice. I went there like, you know, two or three days a week and worked in his his shop, you know and learned from him. Dean Bagley: So that's that's a that's a credential that that we can trust because you could not obtain that you know that that credential without having having done the work and demonstrated your competence. But if you can go on you know if you can go online and take a a fifteen hour online course and then pass the exam, which you can You know, which you can put into Chat GPT and get all the answers on. and get an accreditation. What does that mean? Does that Kevin Shively: Yeah. Yeah, I know. They're not equal, right? they're Dean Bagley: Right. Kevin Shively: equal on paper. They're not equal in reality. Yeah, I mean that's that's really what it comes down to. And and The but the basic idea is that we've got a whole bunch of people who are credentialed that for various things, that there are not any positions in society to actually fulfill. Right? and that's that's the part I think that is exacerbating a lot of the the political issues that we have today. I mean if we look at at my son's, you know, Gen Z generation, I mean they were promised. I mean, this is goes back to Turkin we talked about, right? They were promised that all you have to do is get a degree, you know. And and the funny thing is that my my wife and I both have masters degrees and neither one of neither one of us are working in the fields that we studied. You know. So what is that? What was that worth, actually? Right? certainly Fed something, Fed Certain Dean Bagley: And that's Kevin Shively: economic interests. Dean Bagley: that's another important thing to throw into the the the conversation too is that we've we've also adopted this idea that we're it used to be that, you know, and it's still true in in you know the ones that we brought brought up earlier in medicine and engineering and and that type of Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: thing, that

you needed to be trained, have the education in that field. in order to be endorsed and certified to be able to practice in that field. We've we've expanded that out now to where if if you have someone who has a credential in something Anything at all, then they're assumed to be at the if you have a PhD, you're a PhD, you're you're a doctoral level person, you know, you're you're an expert in everything. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. I mean, and that's where, you know, when we we one of the central parts of our framework is Heights Moral Foundations theory, right? And you know, when we put it through that, you know, we can also look at these things. And sometimes it is legitimately care harm, right? I mean, if we want to credit, I mean we want to make sure that the person that is doing open heart surgery on us has the right training, right? I mean, that is one aspect. But it's also when we look at our our two level analysis, there are times when it's just borrowing the aesthetic layer, right? And dressing it up as a restriction, right? And that's the part that where our framework can actually find and cut through because it did. It did. I mean it it basically identified things like, you know, people that are building our buildings and our bridges, we want them to know what they're doing. You know, people that are cutting us open, we want them to know what they're doing, you know. Those are areas where we have to. We have no choice but to trust the the credentialing mechanism. the thing that that we've examined with when we put this into our analytical tool and the asynchrony framework is that, you know, everything that we've covered isn't they aren't two separate phenomena right running in parallel. They're it's one system driven by two distinct engines. And the the episode you know, what we're trying to figure out is what that single mechanism is right and and I think that the mass higher education credentialing the universal city system the oversupplying degree you know aspirants all that stuff you know is basically creating this idea of credentialism that is not being directly applied to what we see in reality these days right Dean Bagley: Like we said, it the credential doesn't automatically mean anymore that you possess the knowledge that the credential implies. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Yep. I mean it's it's almost be you know, like like I said earlier, that my wife and I both have masters degrees and we don't even work in the the areas where you know, we studied. It's it's just it almost acts like, you went to college, you must be smart. Right. Right. It'll be Dean Bagley: That's because back in the day only smart people went to college. Yeah. Kevin Shively: Right, right. And now we've got like, you know, thirty five percent of people go to c get college degrees, but there's only, you know, jobs for half of right? That that Dean Bagley: Right. Kevin Shively: based on the college degrees that they're you know, that they went for. So, I mean, that's Dean Bagley: And I Kevin Shively: the the the part I think that is is most broken. Dean Bagley: I I don't want to take this in an ideological direction, but I I think part of that has resulted from the idea, which again was was a solid idea, but it's a you know everybody everybody should be able to get an education. So that everybody should Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: be able to get should be able to go to college. What what we're failing to take into account there is that not everybody should go to college. It it was a higher level of education, higher education. It was something that not everybody needed and not everybody should try to do. And what we've seen, the the dilution process on that is to be able to get everybody into college, we've had to lower standards. And you know, Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Dean Bagley: they dropped the SAT requirements for a lot of things. And so if that's what you're doing, if you're lowering standards, then to be able to get people through the system, you're you're producing I y you go back to Mao's great leap forward and that you know, we're gonna produce the steel and they they ended up with a bunch of slag that they couldn't use. Kevin Shively: Well, I mean this is where it goes back to Goodhardt's law, right? Because when the measure becomes a target, then it ceases to be a good measure. I mean think about that for a minute, right? You know. Dean Bagley: Right. And the and the metric on this is percentage of the population that has graduated college. You know, they're we're we're shooting for Kevin Shively: Right. Exactly. Dean Bagley: shooting for a hundred percent of people have a college education. Kevin Shively: Right, exactly. And and what are they gonna use I mean how how does society be able to integrate a hundred percent of its population as college graduates towards some whatever esoteric major they happen to to follow? Right, right, right, right. Dean Bagley: And who's who's gonna do the actual work? Who's gonna grow the food? Who's gonna fix our cars? Who's gonna do the plumbing and the electrical work and build the houses? And you know, we look down on all that stuff, but it's really important it's it's arguably the most important stuff. Kevin Shively: Yeah, I mean there are certain areas where we still, like I said, we still need to measure. If you you hire somebody at NASA to build rockets, you want to make sure that they understand rocketry, right? You know, you know, those are there are some basic but it doesn't even matter. I mean, the the problem is the measure, right? I mean, because you c even in that field, you can't just say, okay, you have to have a X master's degree from XYZ university. Right. You know, even then it's it's it's about that's the part that that shifts. Is that when you become that's the whole point of Goodhart's law, is that if you make the measurement, right? I mean, if you say, Okay, you have to have X, then X has to mean something, right? It

has to mean that you know what you're talking about. And it doesn't always. Dean Bagley: Yeah, the reason that worked, the reason the Google executive had that formula that they were talking about in the book that you're reading, is because that worked for a period of time. It was a proxy that you Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Right. It did. Yeah. Especially because before that nobody went to Harvard, Yale, Penn or Stanford, right? Dean Bagley: Right. So and it's still a fairly decent proxy. If you get somebody who's got, you know, graduate level work from MIT, you you can pretty much trust them to to know, you know, science and engineering or whatever they're Kevin Shively: Yeah, it's not about the credentialing doesn't matter at all. That's not what we're saying. Dean Bagley: Right, but but it's become so diluted that it's it's not that it doesn't matter, it's not that people who get credentials necessarily they don't automatically not have the knowledge. It's just that the credential no longer tells us whether they have the knowledge or not. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. But what we have to do is we have to always evaluate in all of these situations. We have to evaluate what they call the pincer synthesis, right? It's it's the the you've got the the mass degree credentialing over supplying asp aspirants on one side, right? But then the restriction Dean Bagley: Uh-huh. Kevin Shively: in in engine of occupational licensing on the other side. So it basically is squeezing people from both sides. It's like a pin like they call it a pincer movement, right? You know, it's a basically like squeezing on both ends. And so Dean Bagley: Yeah, you're you have to spend the money to get the credential because you can't go anywhere without it, but then the credential doesn't mean anything. Kevin Shively: Right. Right. Right. Right. And then you have the occupational licensing limiting you in the first place or you don't get the right credential, right? For something. And Dean Bagley: Right. Kevin Shively: and you know, it's one thing if you're a surgeon, it's another thing if you're an African hair braider, right? You know I mean we have to Dean Bagley: Well and there's Kevin Shively: we have to be able to di differentiate. Dean Bagley: There was there was something that stood out to me in this too that that traces back to something else that we when we started doing the the framework analysis, the first thing that we did Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Dean Bagley: was 1984. And this this really highlights the mechanism because we identified three different categories of people in 1984. You had the inner party, the outer party, Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Right. Dean Bagley: and the proles. And And this is what was identified in nineteen eighty-four, is that the proles were not going to be a revolutionary force. So what really struck me here is that you Orwell didn't identify a mechanism to get out of the the societal arrangement that was there. But what what is going to happen at that at some point, unless that system is specifically controlled to avoid overproduction of elites? The the overproduced elites are the outer party. Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: So at some point, if there is enough concentration of a high high enough number of outer party in comparison to inner party, that would prompt a revolution which would topple that society. And and Kevin Shively: Right. That's probably the most important point you've made. Yeah, I think. Yeah. Dean Bagley: well thank you. well and and you see that you see that in Winston. He's an outer party member who catches Kevin Shively: Yeah. Right. Dean Bagley: it, and and because of the the system that they have in place, he's able to be re-educated and brought back into the fold. But if you get enough of Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: those people at the same time, that that's what would happen. And and that's why we're worried about society now, because when Kevin Shively: Yeah. Dean Bagley: that happens. You get a revolution and I don't know about you, but I don't want a revolution. Kevin Shively: Well that's yeah. Well that's why we're asking these questions, isn't it? I mean that's why we're talking about this, right? Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: Is because those are our concerns and and we have it regardless of of what perspective we come from. We we share that concern, right? I think that's that's the part that that is probably the most relevant in all of this discussion, right? I mean, you know, we we want to protect competence right and we want to reward competence right we all agree that people who deserve it should be fairly compensated for their efforts and for their knowledge. I mean I think I think in general we all respect you know smart people right and and Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: their ability to actually benefit society Right, especially if they choose to. Dean Bagley: Yeah. Well I I I feel like this is this is the heart of that nobody really talks about and the whole like follow the science argument is that Kevin Shively: Right. Yep. Dean Bagley: you know the you get the one side which is like, well it's it's science, so we have to trust it. And these are ignorant rubes that are are refusing to to endorse the validity of the science, and then you've got the other side is like Your credential doesn't mean what it used to mean and you're telling me stuff that isn't science. And people talking past each other, so Kevin Shively: Well that's that's the part yeah. Yeah, and that's that's the part that we have to that's why we have to have these conversations. And we have to understand what it is when we talk about credentialing and when when we talk about people that are assumed to know what they're talking about, we need to make sure that we're not just talking aesthetically and we're actually addressing real structural capabilities to ensure that when we talk about somebody being credentialed, we're talking about the same thing. Right? I

mean, that's really what it Dean Bagley: Right. And it Kevin Shively: comes down to. Dean Bagley: it goes back to something else that we've been saying repeatedly recently too, is that you have to strip off the partisanship Kevin Shively: Yes. Dean Bagley: to be able to understand the valid points of the arguments on both sides. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Yeah. I mean and you can you can disagree and prove arguments wrong, but you don't have to just assume based on the source, right, and where it's coming from. And that's really the the essence of what we're trying to get at. Dean Bagley: Yeah, and that's you know, that's the legitimacy capture of self-sealing mechanism that the the model identifies is that once you start once you start using the source as your argument, you've lost the argument. Kevin Shively: Yes. Yeah. Dean Bagley: Whether you accept the information or dismiss the information based on the source of the information, you're no longer eng engaging with the information. You're just there there's too many proxies that are involved in all of this. Kevin Shively: Yeah. I mean, well that's that's certainly true. Definitely. I mean the you know it's funny because in the end what it really comes down to is, you know, the soil creates the casts, but the machine manufactures the glasses. Right. So it's like we we have the basis of, you know what things are and then all the machinery and all the the credentialing and all the things that we manufacture over the top, that's what creates the the classes between us. And so we wanna make sure that if we're if that's the case, we want to make sure we understand that mechanism and understand that it is actually truly rising those people to the p positions that they need to be in. accordingly. Right. Dean Bagley: Well it's it it just struck me and and none of the analysis that we looked at for this week pointed this out directly, but if you go back to the model, what we're really identifying here is is constitutional inversion. Kevin Shively: Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up. Dean Bagley: Because you had the credentialing s Kevin Shively: Yep. Dean Bagley: yeah, you had the credentialing system, which was initially a check and balance to Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: to verify knowledge and competence that's been inverted to self perpetuate the system and has has dec Yeah. And has decoupled from saying anything about knowledge or competence. Kevin Shively: Right. And to protect the the class that is already instilled. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not and it's not that everywhere and all the time, but it is real enough that we that it needs to be called out. Right. Exactly. Dean Bagley: It it's it's it's there enough that it's a valid argument that it can't just be dismissed because it's like, that doesn't happen. Kevin Shively: Right, exactly. Yeah. Well on that note Dean Bagley: Like surgeons obviously are are certified, so so you know, it none of that happens because we've got this one example that it works. Kevin Shively: Right, exactly. Yeah. Well on that note, I mean, I think this is going to open up a range of topics for us, right? Because I think we're gonna we're gonna need to delve into some of these things even more specifically, I think, and and and understand exactly what it means to you know, to be able to grant authority, right? of subjects. And to be able to trust that people's intentions are what they report them to be. I mean, I think all of these things are things that that we have to to constantly be aware of and and evaluate. Dean Bagley: Right. I've there was there was a thought that I hit on last night that was another level to this that I think that we'll need to get into more. 'Cause we've looked at credentialing and that's Kevin Shively: Mm-hmm. Right. Dean Bagley: you know, that's the institutions that, you know determine the the ability of the individual that's doing that. There's there's another level that backs that out, which is is accreditation is to Who makes the determination as to who has the ability to grant the credential or not? Kevin Shively: Right, right. Well, I mean, and that brings up a whole question of another, you know, kind of self sealing loop, right? Of of does it become a class unto itself that becomes self perpetuating, right? Dean Bagley: Right. And then one of the things that that that indicated that we didn't really get into here is that you then get creep of other things into that where your the the credentialing body that grants the credential is not only checking for knowledge of that particular subject, but you can also get the incorporation of of ideological purity into being able to have access to that credential as well. And there were three different examples that it brought up of of things where that can begin to creep in. And it it's not Kevin Shively: Right. Dean Bagley: about what the ideology is, it's about an ideological component to a competency credential. Kevin Shively: Right, right. Well, and you you have the bigger question of whether or not this is the you know, it has it has become kind of the archetypal you know, structure of of authority of all things necessarily. And is it still a one thing or are can you break it out into multiple disciplines, right? mean, Dean Bagley: Mm-hmm. Kevin Shively: you know, is academia you know, a a conglomerate or is it a bunch of subsidiaries, right? That's a that's a whole nother question. Dean Bagley: Let me let me give you and our audience some homework to to bring into next week. there's a poem that I've read. It's a it's a favorite of Glenn Beck, but read it anyway. Kevin Shively: huh. Dean Bagley: that really kind of details this. I think it's Kipling, Rudyard Kipling, but it's called the Gods of the Copybook Heading. It's you know, it's an interesting thing and it's it's about the idea of the people who set the standards that the people who are getting educated need to to meet and and the influence that they have on society. So I think that'll be a a good incorporation as we continue to to take this forward. Kevin Shively: Sounds like a great final thought to me. you have your assignment, asynchrony viewers. Dean Bagley: Yeah. Kevin Shively: I'll I'll add to that assignment. And that assignment is to hit that like button and subscribe button on the YouTube channel. Thank you for everybody that has subscribed. We've got, you know, a couple thousand or so that that join us every week and we appreciate that. please share it around if you have ideas or think thoughts that you want to contribute. to this conversation. We are all ears. We're constantly asking for that. So please do join the conversation and and share what you think and and your impressions of everything that we're talking about. Dean, any last thoughts before we sign off? Dean Bagley: lots more to come, but you know, we'll leave it there for now. Kevin Shively: Let's keep the conversation going. Dean Bagley: Thanks everybody. We'll see you next week.