Cat Out of The Bag

We all know that reading and education are bad for you and unnecessary for the least amongst us. And we know that

[w]hile government and laws take care of the security and the well being of men in groups, the sciences, letters, and the arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains which weigh men down, snuffing out in them the feeling of that original liberty for which they appear to have been born, and make them love their slavery by turning them into what are called civilized people.  Need has raised thrones; the sciences and the arts have strengthened them. You earthly powers, cherish talents and protect those who nurture them (1).  Civilized people, cultivate them.  Happy slaves, to them you owe that refined and delicate taste you take pride in, that softness of character and that urbanity of habits which make dealings among you so sociable and easy, in a word, the appearance of all the virtues without the possession of any.

Matthew Yglesias has the solution for the next generation of cooks and gardeners:

[t]his is where I think education does get back into the picture. Most of these are jobs that require some skills. Personal services generally exist on a spectrum between “things a person might hire someone else to do because it’s a pain in the ass” and “things a person might hire someone else to do because it’s difficult to do it well.” You hire a maid because you don’t want to clean the toilet. You go to Komi because you can’t cook as well as Johnny Monis. There’s more money and prestige to be had as you move up the maid-Monis spectrum and there’s a need for some kind of mechanism to help people move up it. That sounds like “education” to me, though not necessarily the kind of education we’re handing out.

If we would just stop teaching people to read and write they could accept that they need to train themselves to take ever better care of the rich and the hive would be without grumbling.