Arnold Kling is worried..................

 

The intellectual mediocrity of today’s educated class is made worse by a lack of self-awareness. If they recognized that they are lightweights, they would exhibit less class snobbery. But it is the opposite. They feel that their college credentials entitle them to lord it over everyone else. They see their luxury beliefs as setting them apart and above everyone else in America, either in the present or in the past.

-as cut-and-pasted from here

intractable contingencies...............

Managing frustration by sidestepping the intractable contingencies of life is a growth industry; the demand for manufactured experiences is met by a growing economy of "affective capitalism . . . 

-Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming An Individual In Age Of Distraction