The Rise of the Credentialed Goons: Why the Boomers of the Black-Society Era Built Our Modern Bureaucratic Wasteland

 

The Rise of the Credentialed Goons: Why the Boomers of the Black-Society Era Built Our Modern Bureaucratic Wasteland

There is a touching, profoundly naive belief that the expansion of higher education and professional credentials automatically produces a wiser, more civilized society. We love to imagine that handing out university degrees like confetti creates an enlightened meritocracy where competent leaders steer the ship of state with grace and moral clarity. Then, reality pulls back the office door to reveal a much funnier and darker truth: sometimes, expanding access to diplomas just gives a generation of well-dressed hoodlums expensive stationery to legitimize their incompetence.

Look closely at who currently occupies the commanding heights of corporate boardrooms, civil service directorates, and institutional hierarchies. The generation pulling the levers today—born in the 1950s and 1960s—came of age during the turbulent pre-1980s era, growing up amidst the raw, unpolished chaos of rampant gang influence and street-level survivalism. When they were young, their rough edges were confined to schoolyard bullying and household tyranny. But as the calendar flipped past 2000, this massive demographic wave crossed into their thirties and forties, flooding into society’s primary leadership roles. They brought their old neighborhood survival tactics into the boardroom: superficial politeness at the door, superficial hand-shaking, sharp-suited posturing, and an absolute vacuum of genuine competence or moral courage. Combine this domestic crop of credentialed bullies with an influx of similarly bankrupt overseas arrivals, and you get the ultimate administrative cocktail: a society sliding backward into institutional quicksand, run by literate illiterates who know how to wear a tie but couldn't organize a two-car funeral.

Human history is fundamentally a museum of shifting tribal aesthetics masking the same old primitive thuggery. Our species is biologically wired to respect status symbols; deep in our evolutionary instincts, we confuse polished presentation—crisp uniforms, fancy degrees, polite greetings at the threshold—with moral and intellectual superiority. We are creatures of profound self-deception, allowing ruthless, low-empathy climbers to seize institutional power simply because they learned how to weaponize bureaucratic vocabulary while remaining spiritually hollow.

The supreme irony of modern professional life is that we built vast universities to eliminate barbarism, only to manufacture an army of refined thugs who treat public office like a turf war. Civilization isn't preserved by fancy pieces of parchment; it survives despite the mediocrity of those who managed to game the system. The next time you watch a smooth-talking executive or a tone-deaf bureaucrat botch a basic public service while offering a dazzling smile at the entrance, remember the playground roots of our current elite: in the grand theater of human governance, a high-value degree on a hollow human being is just a license to ruin the city in style.

Society, History, Politics, Education, Human Nature, Bureaucracy, Culture, Evolution, Cynicism, Generation, Leadership, Ethics

穿西裝的流氓：為什麼受過高等教育的平庸世代把社會帶向墮落

人類社會總有一種無可救藥的天真，以為廣設大學和發放專業文憑，就能自動生產出更聰明、更文明的現代社會。我們總愛幻想把大學學位發得像傳單一樣多，就能打造出一座講求實力與道德的精英殿堂。直到現實冷酷地拉開辦公室的大門，露出那讓人笑不出來的底牌：有時候，普及教育只是給了一群穿著西裝的流氓一張昂貴的文憑，好讓他們名正言順地把無能包裝成專業。

看看今天真正掌握社會主導權的是誰。那些在一九五○和一九六○年代出生的人，正好在香港黑社會橫行、價值觀扭曲的動盪年代度過童年與少年。他們年輕時在街頭耳濡目染，把弱肉強食的求生本能刻進了骨子裡。當千禧年過後，這批龐大的人口洪流跨過三十歲的門檻，大舉湧入社會各個重要職位時，他們帶進職場的不是遠見與道德，而是舊時代的江湖習氣：進門鞠躬叫聲好、表面功夫做到足，背地裡卻把整個體制當成地盤來搜刮。再加上與海外同類投機者的合流，造就了今天的局面——識字文盲當道，全城一起向下沈淪，唯一學會的本事就是把外表裝扮得光鮮亮麗，嘴巴甜得像抹了蜜，至於實事求是、道德風骨？那是甚麼東西，能當飯吃嗎？

人類歷史本質上就是一部「外表文明的野蠻人如何借用體制作威作福」的黑色喜劇。我們的基因裡殘存著對權威符號的盲目服從；深植在演化深處的心理機制告訴我們，只要一個人穿得體面、手拿名校文憑、見面懂得堆起職業假笑，大腦就會本能地卸下戒備，誤以為對方高尚可靠。我們這群擅長自我安慰的動物，總愛把這群厚顏無恥的攀附者奉為精英，卻忘了他們不過是一群換了高級西裝的街頭混混。

我們這個時代最深刻的諷刺，莫過於我們辛辛苦苦建立高等教育體系，本意是為了擺脫無知，結果卻大量製造出滿嘴仁義道德、實則毫無擔當的精緻利己主義者。文明往往不是靠著這些佔着茅坑不拉屎的偽精英在維持，而是由這群在夾縫中苦苦支撐的市井小民所撐起。下次當你又看到某個衣冠楚楚的官僚或主管一邊滿臉堆笑地跟你打招呼、一邊把事情搞得一團糟時，想想他們成長的年代與底色：在人性的大戲裡，一張大學文憑永遠洗不掉流氓的骨氣，它只是給了壞人一把合法作賤社會的尚方寶劍。

社會, 歷史, 政治, 教育, 人性, 官僚, 文化, 進化, 諷刺, 世代, 領導, 倫理