Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Works for School Reformers Too

Vagabond Scholar:

Here's a more serious diagram of conservatism in America:


(Click, or go here or here for a larger view.)

This isn't drawn exactly to scale, and it's flawed of course, but I think it's roughly accurate. Most pundits are hacks, but if we broaden out to the general population, we find people of good faith in addition to the professional hacks, their amateur brethren, and the true zealots. The circles represent a kind of compassion-asshole continuum of character and worldview: Cloistered-Indifferent-Callous-Spiteful-Evil. The diamonds represent a continuum of knowledge and wisdom: Thoughtful-Mistaken-Ignorant-Zealous-Devious. This latter continuum loops somewhat, in that both the thoughtful and the devious understand to some degree how the world actually works, but the devious are bent on exploiting that, with little to no concern about who's hurt in the process.

Where your average TFA applicant is probably just cloistered and thoughtful/mistaken (with TFA trying to move them toward mistaken) and, say, Bill Fischer is evil/devious and spiteful.

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