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You know, Dan, I'm at a near-total loss; but not so much that I can't respond with some snark of my own: maybe if you'd taken a few more courses that focused on reading and writing, you'd be better practiced in how to respond to arguments that are actually made, rather than simply to knock down strawmen and issuing baseless ad hominems. There's nothing in BITS's posts or mine that even implies that we look down our noses at those who perform very important jobs that don't happen to require higher education.
BITS's arguments were about test-focused education, and how much that can short-change students, whether they be students of officiating, food preparation services, or the applied sciences.
Yours is a relatively new (10 years or so) and extremely noxious strain of elitism, brought into vogue, ironically, by a cadre of philistines who have had every educational opportunity availability in this country. What is ironic about these arguments is that they're so often made by people who have advanced, but not terminal degrees. The argument made by these people is one that looks down on those who think there is more to life than figuring out exactly what you have to do to make money in this world, and scoffing at those who think that there might be more to a well-lived life than simply figuring out how to pass the Series 7 exams. What's interesting is that when you invoke those who occupy lesser-skilled positions in the economy to justify your outlook, you do so not do defend such people (whom you secretly look down on), but to attack those whose world view plays on your own intellectual insecurities.
I work with at-risk students, many-if-not-most of whom will be very fortunate if they can spend productive lives working in restaurants or on garbage routes rather than in prison. They don't have any of the advantages that I, and I suspect you had growing up. So don't you dare think for a minute that I'm unaware of those circumstances or that I would ignore them and think less of those who didn't have them.
You and your ilk are, as a general rule, bright and highly educated (which, on one level, makes your position quite silly). But it makes you feel better about yourselves to look down on those with more formal education than you have or who value a different kind of education from the one you got or value. Your strawman is found in your implicit claim that those who support liberal-arts education and those with PhD's look down on those who don't have them. My experience is that there are jerks in every walk of life, occupying every job possible. There are no more ahole PhDs per capita than ahole engineers; so park that argument in the landfill post haste.
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