i agree. universities were once a place to meet, study and understand new ideas and peoples, and to gain a deeper understanding of ethics and ways of living. but not so anymore, it seems.
but (not to excuse or defend these universities), i think harvard, yale and princeton provide fertile ground for their major donors' sons -- and to a lesser extent, their daughters -- to find each other and to form cliques that support and strengthen their parents' and families' lack of ethics, their power-at-all-costs training received in private prep schools and at the family dinner table when these brats were youngsters. these elite universities -- and their fraternities -- simply perpetuate the same cruel and hateful ideals that these brats were raised with. increasing one's social circle is the only real service these universities provide, with the likely bonus of obtaining a "proper mate". university studies are an inconvenience, majors and grades are unimportant (they already have lucrative jobs awaiting them, thanks to daaaaaddy), and actually getting an education is a big fat joke to these up-and-coming elites.
How to reach out and motivate the many many people way too busy just trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head-- to get out and VOTE for Democrats?
Vote Republicans out of office: they earn this every single day.
I know it's more difficult than I can imagine to work full-time, maybe even multiple jobs, take care of children, and everything else life throws at us. But we are a participatory democracy and the very least we can do is to have a basic understanding of the major issues and then vote.
Having a basic understanding of the issues isn't what it used to be. Alex Jones, who dropped out of community college to pick up a soapbox, is only one of many examples of people who don't understand the realities of life being the ones explaining life to anybody foolish enough to listen. Far too many people now are powered by their hair trigger emotions. And there's a junkyard full of them to sort through on our way to search for enlightenment.
I believe that’s what voting by mail can do for these super busy young families & that’s mainly why Rethugs hate vote by mail! Instead of motivating People to vote they want to make it as difficult as possible so very few of them will take the time to Go out to vote!! Many jobs don’t allow for early departures from work to vote on the way home or even late arrivals to work by stopping on the way into work. The Democratic Party is the only one that has tried to make it easier to cast a vote & I hope they will be working on Voting Rights & laws making it easier to vote in the near term!
oh yeah. So much 'risk'. With a real majority of Dems in congress and the White House, real policy on global warming, education, women's rights, everyone's civil rights, etc. can be achieved including reduction in activity that accelerates global warming (e.g. giving women and girls around the world education and healthcare including control over their own reproduction)
We either really, effectively, address global warming now, or turn into Venus. There's no time left to talk about it.
The way everything is set up (rigged), it is no surprise that 'compromise' ends up taking something important away We are compromised again by the greedheads. The pharmacy thing, the fossil fuel drilling and the Tax on the wealthy were not great help, considering where we are headed very fast.
People are waking up... being that they have been living in a psychological Avalon. The Greek Vikingar from Crete colonized the entire planet circa 1200 BC. A xerox copy of that society was the American Vikingr, which the Indians were created from. Then, a xerox copy of that society returned to Europe in 791 AD to reclaim what was lost. The Voyage was too great... and they faded from history. Great Institutions don't teach this history... because it would show they are just xerox copies and their level of intelligence is fading. The proof being that most can not figure this out. The concession... that education can blind good people to the truth. For, they live in Avalon now.
I had the highest aptitude for computer programming than any other child in high school. Finished an entire semester of work in 3 days with no previous experience. The teacher wouldn't let me join the Computer Club. The other kids had lobbied him due to the fact that I was muscular. Educational institutions only accept the next layer down. Xerox copies who are being copied. People of education are the best fingers and thumb going forward. They aren't intelligent until they have been the hand. The rape of America.
It’s not really the schools’ fault to that extent. They are loaded and, having done so gravely inadequately for a long time, are undergoing a lot of changes to be more diverse and accessible to all. But it’s an institute of higher learning. With really smart and earnest professors and students. Probably not so different from Berkeley students. The credential-elitism of our society is a major problem with Ivies that and that’s an inheritance from capitalism and maybe some forms of Protestantism. You can get a great education most anywhere, but we’re all so focused on brand names. And we’re competitive. Our parents are competitive. Actually a lot of people resent you for going to these places. Fair enough. The real cause of our shitty leadership is poor K-12, due to inadequate funding, and how they’re funded, along with the way people who know nothing about how kids learn are administrators and policy people; inadequate structures of community support for poor or lower income families, along with racism; and, again, capitalism and an American identity absurdly steeped in a value of “rugged individualism.”
LOL I hate the societies but some cool people I knew were in skull and bones. It’s kind of random. This football player who was a good guy tapped this guy who was an Asian computer science major, a cool guy who had a crush on me but I guess I wasn’t into him. I was kind of an idiot, and still am…definitely didn’t get into any of those groups. It’s a senior-year thing. Princeton has worse groups I think, “eating clubs.” I knew Barbara Bush back then. She was a cool person who was always hanging out with these two tall, flaming gay black guys. She has great taste in clothes and was a humanities major. My first boyfriend there had a crush on her first. I watched the debates once with them. He turned out to be gay, like most guys I knew there. She runs a health organization now. I was mostly in touch with her freshman year…we happened to be in the same outdoor get-to-know-you hiking trip before college started. Just to complicate some of the myths.
And you also explained almost the entirety of Bunkerboy's sad, failed life: daddy didn't want the liddle guy to fail, so he bought him a high school diploma, then a college one. [sic] Then he gave him a business to run into the ground. Then another. Then ANOTHER. Et cetera.
Wow, Science Girl, you have that right! There are so many legacy students in those institutions, there isn't much left for the rest of the population. The decent people I know about from those institutions were not legacies.
Legacies are unfair. I wasn’t one. You have a lot of money, you get in with far fewer credentials. But I didn’t know many legacies, very few. It’s not like every other student.
Yes, Robert Reich brings up a great point here about the inexplicable human capacity for evil. They should not be on the side they’re on. They lie all the time, and very much know better.
One question that I am too lazy to look up the answer for is: how many decent politicians (if that is not an oxymoron) also went to these places. I’m a big Booker fan. He went to Stanford…
Cruz is a strange case. We know he is Cuban and I believe he left Cuba because Castro wanted to take property from his family. He hates anything to do with socialist policies. It does not matter to him if capitalists are robber barons or not.
Josh Harley is an angry white guy who got into Stanford. He is smart obviously but lacks moral character that he easily hides.
Cruz was born in Canada. His father, an evangelical faith healer, passed himself off as a Cuban freedom fighter. Most of his version of family history is disputed.
I'm sure that both Cruz and Hawley were good students, but neither of them came from families that could donate multiples of tuition like real legacies.
But this whole time we’re talking about three people and attributing so much to their college education. So much else happens to people before and after college that I would argue probably impacted them more than their more-likely-than-not liberal professors. (Cruz and Justice Jackson were classmates at Harvard, were they not? He went to Princeton (which I always think of as more conservative—probably partly a stereotype) undergrad but they were classmates at Harvard Law…Actually I also think of Stanford as more conservative, so that makes sense with Hawley. Ish. I think that if you go to an elitist school you probably have some tendency to be a social/economic/political climber, even i do, not that I’m proud of it. But look at Justice Jackson! Totally different story! I think this whole discussion, my own comments included (I just don’t represent any mainstream but am susceptible to making errors in generalizing like anyone else) is still just not especially rigorous. My point has been that the education itself might not be at fault, and probably skewed liberal. I don’t understand how people become monsters! Unchecked capitalism and greed are always a good culprit though!)
Correction I read on Wikipedia that Hawley’s mother went to Stanford. Also he was valedictorian in Missouri. Very smart but he may have been tolerated at Stanford.
i also, was educated at a state university. it is ranked as the number one public research institution in the USA (or was. haven't checked recently). as a scientist, i got a very good science education and research experience there, but i did have to get my liberal arts education elsewhere. (despite being agnostic/atheist, i went to what turned out to be a very liberal 4yr religious college -- on someone else's dime -- for liberal arts education and it was very good! surprisingly so, in fact, especially when i tell you that my core liberal arts courses were taught by ordained ministers. although, maybe this quality education was simply cuz i found it so interesting that i was too enamoured to not keep up with all the mountains of reading and homework. and these ministers were extremely open to discussing, in depth, the "Big Questions" with me. how could i not LOVE LEARNING when exposed to THAT?)
Science Girl, I attended a small private southern teachers' college that was amazing! I received a good liberal arts education as well as excellent training for teaching. I taught 26 years and was able to help colleagues and students with ideas that were initiated in my undergraduate college. I am so glad you got to experience open-minded people who cared about who you are and wanted you to think and discuss for yourself. That experience must have been such a "blessing" throughout your life.
I went to "inferior" schools that have produced presidents and several members of SCOTUS, including one guy who was both president and chief justice of the Supreme Court. William Howard Taft. Not proud of some of my fellow alumni, like Mitch McConnell.
Brats are created and nurtured. I do agree about the culture around the prep school system in the U.S. and Canada. in developing the attitude and incestuousness of college and the young adult years and alliances, whether through marriage or the corporate world.
I don't disagree with your larger point, but it is illustrative of a variation on the maxim that "all models are wrong, but some are useful." In this case it is that "all generalizations are wrong, but some are useful." My prep school's motto is "Not to be served, but to serve." In spite of having all the privileges listed here in addition to being white hetero male cis-gendered, I have devoted my life to civil service in the federal government.
That’s the traditional function of the USA’s universities: finishing schools for rich kids. Years ago, I walked through the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Passing by a men’s dormitory called Old West, I noticed that the top floor of this 3 or 4 floor dorm has windows smaller than the floors below. I asked about this apparent anomaly; the answer: the small top-floor windows housed the slaves who served their student masters. They didn’t need tall windows.
Exactly, this is nothing new.. I don't know who told Pro Reich that elite schools graduated good people but the rest of us have known they don't for our entire lives.
The fact that many congress persons are despicable immoral cretins who happened to graduate from elite schools does not in any way imply the same holds for the rest of the graduates. Such a conclusion is biased and illogical.
That is not the conclusion anyone is saying... You are missing the point.
The point is that those educations do not produce good people. Does not mean everyone who graduates from them is not good, just proves that their goal and objective is clearly not to turn out good people.
Who was only exposed to Keynes? The law makers that cut taxes while the economy was running massive deficits. Are those the law makers that were only exposed to Keynes?
IF so, then they failed their lesson because that is the opposite of Keynes. But it is right in line with Hayak and Mises and Friedman.
Ok, no. Not exactly. Other schools do turn out people prone to blame the products of elitist institutions for all the ills of society. In actuality, you can learn a lot anywhere, or teach yourself for that matter, and you can be good or evil anywhere—though if you’re more motivated and smarter and more connected to others of an elite status, you’re more likely to do more harm, perhaps, on a white-collar-crime level.
Ouch. I agree with what you say about THOSE. Meantime their WHOLE cohort are not so awful. There are some extremely fine minds at even those (but also other) schools that do the real work of stewardship in society (etc.), it’s just—the non-screwed-up educated people can be true-hearted Americans. The problem is power-and-money and that politicians end up in the pockets of money, beholden to financial supporters and not unhappy about it. That HAS to be the real issue. Marjorie Taylor Greene bankrolled her own local campaign with $900,000 of her own money, her image on signs appeared everywhere, she easily defeated several suitable Republican hopefuls. Money gets them elected. Ivy League gets them to money. Education counts for too little.
Money in politics especially since Citizens United but since the beginning of time or whatever is definitely a problem. But on the other hand, why is the electorate so unable to discern lies and bad character? How we raise Americans BEFORE college and also economic equity seem pretty key to me.
I would call them shameless materialistic yuppies of Gen X who believe in taking the easy road to success by joining up with a power seeking cult minority that wants to rule like royalty while abandoning all vestiges of Democracy!! It would be fitting if the Universities could revoke their degrees as failures to learn what was taught! Are they really wannabe elites of tomorrow? I certainly hope not! But the trumpster has taught them well how to be criminals & try to get away with it! That info they took in readily & easily!
I actually think you’re completely wrong. Colleges are getting more liberal and open to minorities and those whose parents earn less. What you just described is a caricature that is probably way closer to how it USED to be. And it’s not like you can get through Yale, which I did, without doing a shitload of difficult academic work where you’re held to a higher standard because all your classmates were also valedictorians. It’s stressful is what it is. But many students there care deeply about learning and are intellectuals, and are very good people. The “real world” comes along and money makes some people really suck, but they still had to make a considerable effort, and be smart enough, to get through the school. Getting an “MRS” is a completely antiquated idea. We didn’t even really know how to get laid most of the time, much less even find a significant other.
I like to think i earned everything i have because i did truly work hard. So i am not saying you, nor your friends there, did not have to work hard to get through Yale.
But your anecdotal evidence of who attends these schools is less persuasive than the empirical evidence. And the empirical evidence (see link below) is that kids from rich families (which students have no control over) or from families with hyper attentive parents (which students again have no control over) tend to be the majority of kids that attend these high status Universities.
And kids from those families, as evidenced by graduates or attendee's like Musk, Josh Howly, Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Cruz to name a few are anti social selfish creatures that vastly over value their contribution to society and who screw people every step of the way and who do not give on hoot about improving society.
Not sure how you can defend the people these schools produce based on nothing more than your view of your self and your friends. Did they teach you about Confirmation Bias at Yale?
I agree that the selection of people is unfair, and that some people end up being shitty, power- and money-obsessed people and perhaps are more likely to do so since they bought in (literally) to this system. The girl in my class who also got into Yale was clearly way less qualified than you’d have to be to get in there on “merit,” though, yes, it was a private school where we were already almost all given a boost by our parents’ incomes. Mine were both government workers (non-political ones), but whatever. But anyway, like many people from my high school, she became a doctor. I know this is anecdotal but this whole discussion is not based on actual experience of the people at Yale, and many statements just not as precisely accurate as they could be, like any generalization from basically numerical data. I mean obviously the old-boy network is one of the ways power is gained unfairly, and if people gain power unfairly they are probably way more likely to lie and cheat and be a bad person in society. Things are changing, and most people are not really different from anyone you’d meet on the street on a moral level. And the campus was soooo liberal. I’m sorry, it just was. And idealistic. People change etc. Did Elon Musk go to an Ivy? These few people just don’t represent most people, including legacies. I could be wrong. I think I would know a little bit about the reality though, having been there four years of my life.
You are spot on. The people at an Ivy league school (or Stanford in the case of Musk) are not more likely to be moral or immoral than the people you run into on the street.
They are, however, far more likely to have the power to make lives good or shitty for others. And given that power, the % of them that are shitty matters on society.
Most nations don't have "elite" universities. People just go to the local university and then set out in the world. Those nations tend to have laws and rules that favor the common people more than the US...
GrrlScientist Aug 8 touches another point, which is probably true for all who attend institutions of higher learning, and that is:
increasing one's social circle is the only real service these universities provide...
Perhaps exclusive institutions of higher learning-- Yale, Harvard, Princeton amplify influence of socioeconomic circles from which most of the attendees attend? We might ask, what about that student who attends who came from poverty? How are they affected by the obvious wealth they newly encounter on campus?
What can universities do to impart ethics to their students, so many of whom will take on important roles in society? (Shirley there must be a lot of research on this!)
<<increasing one's social circle is the only real service these universities provide...>>
So true. And to think i had to invest $600K in after tax savings to get my 3 sons in to the social network needed to make a living these days. What a waste of money. Not saying it has not paid off, it has. They are doing great. But still.
Economics professors Luigi Zengalis from the University of Chicago advocates that business schools students should be required to take and pass Ethics classes.. Today he says some classes simply touch on the subject. he things students should be instructed in business ethics. I agree.
One just has to wonder about people like JD Vance-- who escaped a life of poverty, moved to Ohio after Yale saying he wanted to help those in the opiate epidemic there, and now, clearly, in it for himself.
Actually though, on a side note, I’ve worked super, super hard for much of my life and have earned literally zero dollars for it. I have survived while being deeply clinically depressed. I would never say that anything that happened to me was egalitarian. I was lucky, then unlucky, but I could be even more unlucky. I think we overrate hard work and the kind of work we do, and underrate our ability to care about others or understand them and to apprehend truth in this crazy world.
There i agree with you entirely. Hard work has its place and should not be over looked. But it is the key to a good society and happiness for people. Hell no.
Best of luck on your depression.. it is common and just means you are like the rest of us special and to be loved.
Oh Juliette, yes, overrate dumb luck and achievement and underrate human warmth and the zero dollars for so much hard work. Right ON. PS the MH work one has to do and god bless them that have got to do it and them that invest (deep relations) in them that have got to put one foot ahead of other in doing the hard things. Damn personal “success” is overrated. But I consider it a blind spot to those, they don’t see in technicolor that helping need can be like.
I may have not made clear that I have actually been unable to work because of depression, for a great percentage of the last twenty years, and through part of it on disability. What’s been difficult has been literally living every day, often taking a shower being the hugest accomplishment, often not being able to even do that, and carrying so much shame and frustration. The terror and pain of the worst times is extreme, our system of hospitalization doesn’t help much, meds didn’t work, other treatments did harm and no good. I’m a bit hopeful that I might be recovering right now. But I’ve been in many deeply low places, in underfunded community programs where the misery and poverty is lifelong and beyond heartbreaking. These lives deserve so much credit. Hard work is usually motivated by a desire for something like money or status, and you’re lucky if you don’t work at a meat-packing place or picking fruit in million degree weather, but a lot of human lives are wasted simply “working hard.” Most office jobs seem to suck also. If you’re doing good work, even overworking, that stuff that is actually fulfilling has its benefits for the being, too, and some people are simply addicted to work or inclined. I think laziness is a symptom of a failure of the system to structure your life adequately and to offer people worthwhile outlets for their efforts—a lot of the time. I’ve also just worked long and hard on my art and writing and haven’t been able to get very far yet in putting it out into the world. As long as my depression is manageable, which I can never count on, I can say…just wait and see…
I am sorry for your situation. My mother suffered from Depression and it is a devastating disease. But she grew up poor and had to work. She had to push through it until my father reached financial security. Then things got really bad. Ironic..
EU countries have better health care and still high rates of depression. I don't know the solution. But i do with you the best. Staying engaged in board like this can keep your mind stimulated.
Even Warren Buffet acknowledges the amount of luck that the super rich had to have to acheive their success..
It is not to say they did not work hard. Most did. But lost of people work really, really really hard and are smart as shit. They don't become billionaires.
Not every one with an elite education thinks the way the anti social elites that we all know think.
But enough of these anti social cretans's have come to power that we can say with accuracy that producing them is a feature and not a bug in the system.
Hence efforts to do away with the social capital of these institutions is good for all of us.
I agree. Sounds like you are talking about "supreme" court justice bret kavanaugh. Utterly disgusting as I witness our country DEVOLVING into a "winner take all" society. No consequences for those who do bad acts even though those acts ARE REPORTED to higher authorities. Just read how this information was NOT investigated by the DOJ, but simply sent to trump to do what he wanted to do with it. And what he did was NOTHING because .....? Trump's Department of Labor pick, Acosta, and his sweetheart deal to the CONVICTED PEDOPHILE EPSTEIN; How can Acosta even still be in government after that??? Something is VERY WRONG in "our" government. BTW - Epstein did NOT commit suicide. Way too many coincidences in that one.
I could not have said it better. I got my undergrad education at Northwestern University, in the top 10 in the 80’s and 90’s, and one of my fields of concentration was philosophy/ethics. At the time I attended, I was a single mother of three, in my 30’s and taking full-time undergrad classes with students a decade younger than I. The stuff that came out of their mouths during discussion was frightening. It obviously came from their parents and their upbringing, and I knew then that if these were our future leaders, we were in big trouble.
We are living in a nation of leaders who serve themselves and not the citizens. Perhaps that is th result of those snotty brats you encountered as an adult attending under graduate school. (BTW - Congrats on getting a degree with 3 kids an home and being single, i could not have pulled that off)
Today Leaders from both sides of the isle are guilty of this and the voters that put them there really are not bothered by it.
I say vote against the incumbent in every single primary. The less security they have holding office the less value the donor class will find with them and less harm they can do.
fixed it: Vote against the Republican in every single election.
Why? It's a focused way to get a strong Democrats majority-- one that will pass rules and legislation to encode certain customs for federal candidates so they are required, e.g. post 10 years or more of your tax returns; one who will get the money out of politics (Overturn Citizens United, etc.), ETC.
On the other hand, voting out every incumbent will result in an unpredictable mash-up, perhaps as ineffective and combative as it is now.
The notion of voting for your party every time is what we have now. The dems are not winning GOP vote and the GOP are not convincing Dem voters. So that system has been tried and it is what we have today, gridlock.
I am suggesting something new for voters in BOTH parties. Voters in both parties should stop voting for incumbents in their party primary. Long time GOP like McConnell and DEMS like Schumer and Pelosi are the problem. They are corrupt and serve corporate interests over citizens. That will not stop until law makers start being accountable to voters more than donors. That will only happen if voters in both parties keep getting rid of incumbents.
Your way is what we have today and it does not work in my view.
These people have bought into the idea that the purpose of an elite education is a well paying job, usually one of their choice. They didn't attend schools to learn or even to think about learning. They attended to get credentials on their way to "success." Expecting them to have any firm ethical beliefs is like expecting a color blind person to distinguish between red and green. To most people the differences are obvious but to this group of "high-acheivers" all ethics are shades of grey and the only choice is which one benefits them most.
John, yes, "elite" education for so many is that "passport to wealth." Because there are so many legacies, they make sure those passports remain mostly within their group, occasionally letting in someone else because it looks good and lets people think they have expanded their thinking and acceptance of others. They haven't really.
Those given the "passport" aren't, really. They are given the illusion of fabulous wealth - perhaps a few dozen or hundred million dollars - and invitations with addresses to party with their fellow B-list elite. They never touch a lever of power - they are content to sit in their fabulous yacht or drive one of their stable of fancy cars in one of their stable of houses they call mansions. The lower-middle-class to the elite's elite. A grudging, business-class ticket to their progeny as legacy children. ho-hum.
But you describe the University for the lower classes to rise to their high places-fashioned for them by the Elite. Lick the hand, and riches will be yours unimaginable!
Ah yes . . . Let the indoctrination begin !! Disguise the aggenda in a cloak of egalitrainism. Mislead, distract, decieve, Market the whole thing and watch the outcome.
At what point in our American history did education stop preparing young people to be good citizens to make society better. and become job training? That’s what it seems to be now and it’s made a crappy society - Lord of the Flies.
How does education and all the goodness of it factor in when these nitwits(actually very criminal and cowardly) allowed their brains to be infected by a maniac? A) do they care about the planet,B) do they care about the folks,C) do they love the country that gave them opportunities D) are they at all about making life better for everyone?
I went to university in the sixties and seventies and I don’t think even then the purpose was to make students into good citizens. Many people who went did so in order to prepare for a career, especially those in science and engineering. I was an English major and had no idea what I was going to do; I basically went just because I didn’t know what else to do. In fact, I didn’t figure that out until I decided to go to library school five years after graduating. School was wonderful, and of course at that time there was a lot of political activity that I just absorbed by being there. I would say the main benefits were deepening my ability to think critically and developing an enthusiasm for the liberal arts. If those make people better citizens, great, but we didn’t take civics classes or anything like that. BTW, I went to UCLA for both undergraduate and graduate school if anyone cares. Great school!
Obama, when he was president, made a big deal about job training and the value of a college education. He proposed to grade the colleges. I trust that idea died young.
Many of the Harvard and Yale graduates of my small town childhood practiced "hobby law" and some never passed the Pennsylvania bar.
We had "local admission" for a couple of gentlemen who couldn't take appeals from their cases. One Yalie the other Harvard. We had nobody like that from the local schools.
My dad said that at that at his time, 1930, Harvard Law would take almost anyone (Jews were on quota and females were excluded) but they flunked out about half of the first year class.
I have a close friend who got into Harvard Law probably because he was Phi Bet and had a high LSAT, clerked at the 3rd Circuit, spent two years in a "big law" practice, but came home to his family's small business. Never read a book after that.
Actually when it became mandatory, and a means to control the lower classes, in the 1830’s on. Adult literacy in Massachusetts declined a little then, and has not exceeded the days before compulsory education.
I think the opportunities knock for these people and there are deep grooves worn over time for them. But it’s a value of the larger society, somehow, “achievement.” I think we should as a society strive for less productivity and more wellbeing—like siestas and fiestas and shit. I learned a great deal at Yale about ethics, actually, though the competitive goody-goody-ness of many people—as is true nowadays for me as well, but I guess the people are less successful at it or otherwise too oppressed by poverty to deal—totally annoyed me. I guess people who are educated anywhere can be total assholes and avoid thinking too hard about it. And they can make up clever excuses for doing any number of things and get used to getting away with it. Overachievers get connected to overachievers at these places, some for good, some for evil. Either way, people in America are too focused on their image and the rewards for a well-fashioned one, and not focused enough on searching for the truth that our values very often obscure.
Call me naive (my wife does), but as a college student in the late 70s I pursued a curriculum of interest (Political Science, Philosophy, History, Arts & Language) FIRST, before EVER considering HOW that education might translate into the "real" world. A LOVE of knowledge led eventually to a career in teaching that for me, ALWAYS meant PUBLIC SERVICE!
What ever happened to conducting oneself (in some sense, anyway) to what is in the BEST INTEREST OF SOCIETY!!! We have become a collection of individuals who feel as if the "lifeboats" are for the privileged: Anyone remember "Women and Children FIRST???"
David, alas, the myth of the generous Americans is fading. It seems many of our politicians, particularly the conservative ones are working to be sure they will do well while the rest, those horrible liberals can fend for themselves. They think "I work hard and deserve what I got and if you worked as hard as I do, you'd do well too." They have no idea what they are talking about, but it sounds good to a lot of hard-working people who are desperate to believe that people are poor by choice due to laziness, ignorance, and lack of education they could have gotten if they had wanted it. The elite schools can foster this belief because the whole time at those schools, it is possible to meet no one who is not of one's own privileged class. We elect those "blind" folks to office and permit them to become obscenely rich while promoting their BS and they need to show no evidence they are right. After all, they graduated from Harvard, Yale . . . .
I agree. There’s also the blue collar workers and civil service employees such as police officers. Not usually having a prestigious education, having obtained a financially secured future, yet enwrapped in the “I worked for all I have, not my fault you didn’t.” There might be a correlation, as 45’s supporter’s seem to be made up with people like these.
It’s funny that trump is not blue collar, yet has grabbed hold of the blue collar narrative and made it a battle cry.
I am also very much an example of this. And graduated in ‘04. You can do good things for the public good in so many spheres, not just the political. Maybe cultural studies which has become increasingly dominant colors this attitude more now. But I’m actually more old-school in believing that the arts can have fundamental systemic impacts by radical movements not just in representation but in form.
People are doing just what you did David - and in the same proportions by which your generation pursued politics - but those young people are studying computer science, data science, and engineering; unfortunately, our government either hasn't caught up to such a future or cannot get around the oodles of tickets sold to that baby boomer generation that came earlier (i.e. the life rafts are spoken for!)...
(Incidentally, the people Professor Reich singled out for being poor representatives of their respective alma maters didn't study EE/CS; if they had, they'd probably have more humility than to behave as they do in public!)
When I was rescuing people from the 3rd floor of a burning building, someone shouted "women and children first. So, I threw them out of the window. We later found out that their was a faulty smoke detector and us guys climbed down the ladder to safety.
A man shouts up to his wife on the 3rd floor and says "Honey, I forgot my watch, glasses, and handkerchief". She throws down the watch - it falls & breaks; she throws down the glasses - they break; she is about to throw the handkerchief and he says "please, enough - the handkerchief will break too!"...
Sorry, but this article misses the point, the elephant in the living room. These universities may spout lofty ideals but in fact are simply the training grounds for those elites who are designated the future power brokers. In fact, more nefariously, they are the fertile grounds for those 'secret' societies such as the Skull and Cross bones that plan how to take control of the world. When Bush was in office this particular society was exposed to the public but today that knowledge is not addressed including by Reich in this article. Instead he promotes the mythological belief that university education is based on promoting lofty ideals of service and democratic ideals. I think that belief system needs to be blown apart as it is not based on reality. Those ideals are good and need to be discussed publicly but they also need to be presented as goals not taught by these universities as the ruling elite never believed in them and send their offspring to universities that teach the values of power and greed and elitism.
This is another uninformed and vast generalization, as I see it. I do agree though that lofty ideals of service are not necessarily the undergirding principles of colleges. Honestly, I don’t think they should be. I think truth should be the object of an education, and I think that should start much earlier than college, of course. You’re learning how to think, and ways of thinking, including how to open your mind.
Surely the Ivy League schools can play to their strengths - but we don't live in a world in which the most a student could hope to know about a school is information arriving by telegram or 'U.S. News & World Report'; surely the fact of inequality eroding their hard-won reputations is self-evident by now (the resources cited by Professor Reich in his introductory class are articles published in journals read by Harvard & Yale faculty, regardless of how ignorant their students declare themselves to be).
What we should do - if what those schools do is of any concern to the public - is hold them to account for the federal dollars they receive & demand that they effect equality in admissions and scholarships (as they will not enable income mobility as long as their culture doesn't change - and their culture won't change until the people who constitute their community changes!)...
As a side note, it’s not about “ignorance” on the part of students. Students aren’t that old. And I haven’t made it my job to investigate that stuff. Still, during the NPR discussion I listened to on the US News rankings, the people who had qualifications to know stuff insisted that for many non-Ivy schools, but really even the less-known of them, many public school students or their parents won’t hear of their institution at all or apply according to strictly the US News yearly info.
I think a lot of private higher ed schools or programs can’t actually afford to have THAT many of their students get a free ride, and the whole thing is super expensive. I was listening to the formed head of Penn’s law school (I think) and current president or whatever of Bard say stuff like that. I mean, they really don’t pay most of their staff enough, especially adjuncts or TAs. In the same NPR snippet I heard recently about the impact of US News & World report’s rankings, I think they said Yale has been touting their first class with over 50% of students of color. There are so many considerations but it’s not, unsurprisingly, as easy as it looks to work out the finances. 🤷🏻
I know some of these institutions’ endowments are enormous. I don’t know who is in charge and where that money goes, but they are probably beholden to big donors in certain ways, not a great thing. I doubt Reed is in this category. The guy on NPR I heard knew what he was talking about and I was skeptical. I think there are people who are trying to get the US News people to change their criteria in good ways, so income and secondary school diversity gets more credit.
Well, assuming it’s truly possible to just shift the funds and in the context of US News’s rankings not to lose out somehow—yes they should absolutely prioritize low-income students if they can. I think, alongside John McWhorter of the NYT, it’s time for income affirmative action rather than strictly race-based affirmative action. Geographic diversity became a statistic for US News and that did affect admissions. I think they said that during the discussion I’m remembering,
Those ideals once were in the universities. Somewhere along the way they were removed. Those ideals produced idealistic people who did not see eye to eye with power. These people created problems for those who wanted to make war. etc . Now it’s job prep. No more.
It has been so for many years. MIT graduates, who learn to design and build stuff, were emphatically NOT invited to the Manhattan Project. They were not considered intellectually nimble enough to build novel designs. The PHYSICISTS were the engineers. MIT restructured its curriculum.
Clearly America’s elite class isn’t what it used to be. Elites have always used their positions of wealth and power to enhance themselves, but earlier generations had a much greater sense of public responsibility and public service. Not to mention ethics and proprietary.
The few members of those earlier generations that I’ve known credited their Ivy League education with instilling the sense they were certainly privileged and deserving of success. But they also had a great responsibility to serve society and make the world a better place. As one member of the Yale class of 1940 told me a number of times “you can always do well by doing good.”
Our modern elites seem to lack that sense of responsibility. Their primary interest is in self dealing and closing off opportunities to the less privileged. They are insulated from the greater society and it’s pain in ways that earlier generations like my friend were not.
Privilege has become a way not to do good, but to become ever more privileged at the expense of society.
Even charity becomes a way of enhancing wealth and influence rather than serving a cause.
That’s bad news for America. Elites have most of the wealth and power and the fate of the nation is to a large extent in their hands.
This is precisely why "everyday Americans" must stay actively involved in choosing and monitoring the politicians who serve them. SERVE THEM. This was the premise for starting this "great American experiment" to begin with. There have always been greedy, power hungry people who have made it to positions of power, but failure to hold them responsible for misuse of that power is detrimental to a healthy democracy. Those in power must be held to higher standards BECAUSE they are in power, and not afforded more privilege at the expense of society.
Celeste, very well-said. Where is the sense of service that was so much a part of the wealthy class in the past? They gave very little compared to their actual wealth, but they gave some. These guys give little or nothing (Trump's foundation for example) but try to make it look like they are magnanimous long enough to get elected. Once in office, it doesn't even matter anymore. People vote for the "R" rather than for the person.
Those people need to be informed that their "R" now stands for reckless. radical, rude, ruthless, repulsive, rank, rabid, and racist. They must be removed and retired! Argh!!
Yes, "everyday Americans" must stay actively involved in choosing and monitoring the politicians who serve them." Ordinary people also need to adopt a more realistic attitude toward the rich and powerful. One of the things that stand in the way is this bizarre idea that rich elites like Trump are "just like them." I have to say that I'm dumbfounded when I hear so many of his working class supporters say things like "he's somebody I could have a beer/Big Mac/fill in the blank with." This is despite his often voiced contempt for anyone less affluent than him and his habit of cheating vendors and contractors (people like them). Elites are not going to have a beer with you and they don't have your best interests at heart.
It IS amazing how many people in the country say he is "just like them". I wonder how many of their parents gave them millions of dollars, how many of them avoided the draft on bogus health claims, how many of them drastically cheated on their taxes, and how many of them would bury their childrens' mother on a golf course for a tax break? He is beyond disgusting. But I preach to the choir...rest assured I tell everyone who comes close to listening to beware before it's too late. And I'll continue to do so, with the hope some folks will actually take a second look at this maniac, and the others supporting him, before he does more damage than he already has.
I don’t think they’d really enjoy having a beer with him if it actually happened. All he’d do is brag about how great he is. Who wants to listen to that?
Trusting that you lovingly use the term “ordinary people” as it gets complicated to be actively involved in choosing, monitoring, and being more realistic about politicians when you’re struggling to put food on the table and get shoes on your kids feet in time for school. Reality is relative and often very scary so if someone familiar says they will sincerely throw you a lifeline you jump at it with hope in your heart. The promise turns into a con, a grift, a lie, but some cling to the fact that a POTUS wouldn’t lie to the people. If the truth is accepted you have nowhere to turn, you become more scared, and angry at the naysayers. We can each only do our best and try to gently bring the lost on board. Wish I knew how for sure, but will try. We sure do have a mess on our hands.
We somehow need to help people with their discernment of source credibility. Many Republicans think they ARE holding people accountable somehow. They want to take away government power in a broad sense. Public libraries could offer media Ed (or studies) classes perhaps.
Let's not forget that many of the great philanthropists also were very brutal and caused many blue collar deaths making their fortunes and were rabidly anti-union. But I do agree that in the end, they attempted to make improvements in society. And then there were a few, like Teddy Roosevelt's father, who was quite the rich man helping the poor.
I agree completely. I do think that as a class past generations of rich elites had more of a sense of "we're all in this together." Yes, some were dishonest and brutal, but there was a sense (in general) of the need to improve society as a whole that is lacking in this contemporary generation.
I don’t know that it was so great back in the forties. For one thing, women weren’t even allowed, say, in Yale, till 1969. People of my generation and younger are highly socially conscious. Maybe it’s unclear who exactly you mean by “elites.”
The elite were the same then. Wealthy people from the burgeoning industrialization, the military/industrial complex with oodles of influence/power and the war fever that had permeated the country. Remember the '40's were bookended by WWII and the Korean War. Lots of war effort stuff and pressure to conform and support. Women leaving the military after WWII discovered how second class they really were not receiving benefits/jobs and those who worked in the munitions plants and discovered their own empowerment were told to get back to being housewives. Daycare and jobs became closed to them and their work experience with tools and equipment were literally denied. Some good history on this has been written and video'd about. Skirts did become a bit shorter and pants were more acceptable on a limited basis but being a housewife was still the big push. And of course the men returning from war with their version of PTSD (alcoholism and violence) beating up on wives and kids with no societal recognition of the problem as s it remained in the closet. So not a great time for women unless they complied.
What you omit is the fact that the people have numbers and there is great power in that fact. That is exactly why the elite work so hard to keep people ignorant and divided based on prejudices. Remember the power of an organized public in the 1930's when people were organizing for a Socialist revolution. FDR gave in with the New Deal to buy off much of the public and then dragged us into a war using the patriotism banner to pull the rug out from under the Movement. Clever of him. We, the people, got some lollipops (never near enough) and the elite have been destroying those social changes bit by bit ever since. I still remember Reagan coming into office and talking about undoing the minimum wage! If the people could get over focusing on the social issues used to divide/conquer and organized based on real issues like wages, environmental toxins, real health care (not the drug programs of Medicare), etc the govt would not be able to resist.
Republicans actually seem scared that abortion is going to be illegal because so many evangelicals really mainly voted on that issue. Of course, there’s also gay and transgender rights.
I’d disagree. Elites may have once had more decency, as Americans tend to have as a whole. Certainly not as much decency as the Average Joe of their day. Remember, philanthropy places invisible strings on all it touches. The Carnegie Foundation is responsible for a lot of the muddle we have in American education, by helping. They sought to train the Good Worker, and then the Savvy Consumer to drive the post-WWII markets. Now they want naked control, where once they offered friendly manipulation.
Isn’t this frequently shown to be false in retrospect? And people were at the least violently racist? Not that they aren’t now, but maybe less so because blacks and other minorities have made some gains. It’s hard to say who anyone means by “elites.” Actually, the tech CEOs could be WORSE.
Many of them happen to side with Democrats and like to think of themselves as good people enough to espouse a facade of some degree of reality. It’s the size of corporations and their lack of limitations in the law, their lack of taxation, the dismantling of unions and benefits, the shareholder power and buybacks, their ability to give huuuuge(r) amounts of money to sway politics their way, as well as relatively new influence via internet media that are primary factors in their transformation. Different factors and assumptions. Neoliberalism a huge influence on current people in power though maybe it’s turning somewhat.
Yes, Derek, I would like to see those "election deniers" and coup attempt participants in jail, but alas, Harvard, Yale, et al seem to insulate their own from accountability. I suspect none of those Dr. Reich mentioned will be punished in any way for their appalling disregard of our democracy and the harm it caused and is causing our nation.
I suspect you’re right, after all, if there truly were justice Trump himself would already be behind bars for the many other things he’s gotten away with even before the attempted coup.
Hey Derek, don't forget, Baby Donnie attended Penn. OK, who knows what he learned, but I suspect, not much, but he didn't have to, he just had to make the right connections and he clearly did that.
After reading all these comments, it seems To me that all u need is wealth, connections & a higher education preferably at an Ivy League University! Is that all it takes to be a politician. U really don’t have to be especially good at it just show ur credentials, right! My only question is why do so many law grads leave their profession to become Politicians or TV journalists or educators?? Is practicing law boring or is it just too many hours of ur life have to be given up in order to succeed?? Can the lawyers on this substack answer this?
I don"t think they learned their morals in college. I think they are following the popular culture that became strong in the 1980's. Greed is a virtue, money is the means to power and power is everything. Anything you need to do to get and maintain power is righteous. Powerful people are good, weak people are useless. Matt Gaetz Josh Hawley, and of course th trumpster himself are exemplars of this culture. What I don't understand is why any person of integrity accepts this as normal.
Fay, You are so right about the '80s culture "Wall Street." I don't think it even matters now what a particular candidate believes. They just have to malign the opponent to win. Republicans are really good at this which is why they control so many state legislatures when the representatives do not in any way reflect the beliefs or desires of the majority of the people. Folks see the "R" and think about the old Republican party that actually had within its ranks really good, honest, caring people. That is clearly not what they stand for now but it does not matter. How do we get people to start choosing representatives that care about this nation and its people? I honestly don't know!
ALEC had more to do with packing State legislators than any other entity. Once they "purchase" a State legislator, ALEC writes the legislative bills it wants passed. As to your last 2 statements, after the country stood idly by and allowed these demons in. ALEC to take over so many small States, I have no idea how to rectify it. Maybe some of the lawyers in our group could have suggestions. Educating these people is out of the question, since ALEC seems to control their schools too.
That is the very problem isn't it? When stating facts or truth to a Trumpanzy (and some others) they turn you off start making false statements (hell I know one who still believes we never went to the moon!) and just refuse to believe the scientific evidence in front of their eyes!
Ruth Sheets and Fay Reid—Let me suggest you consider Jane Mayer, the New Yorker's dark money expert, on gerrymandering: "State Legislatures Are Torching Democracy. Even in moderate places like Ohio, gerrymandering has let unchecked Republicans pass extremist laws that could never make it through Congress." Before these unrepresentative legislators can start stuffing ALEC garbage into state codes they must get elected. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy
Exactly !! Makes you wonder if Ivy League schools are good at attracting money or talent. The ruling class can afford Harvard or Yale while the rest of us can’t afford gas ! Not being able to truly attract for all pools of talent but just monied interest is an aristocratic society. The “death tax” the rich got repealed (no one I know is wealthy enough to leave children the gross amount of money) needs to be re-thought unless you like aristocracy !
We need to get rid of the Sinemas who oppose the ending of the carried interest loophole. Our system is gamed. Built in blockages keep us from voting and getting what is fair and needed. Look at the drilling rights for fossil fuel in our waters and Alaska! (thamks a lot Joe Manchin!) The industry even gets to set the rules for environmental protection of this drilling.! Crazy!
Lots of people come from public schools who go to elite colleges. I really think Cruz was probably hugely successful in high school. He’s clearly intelligent, just a total asshole who has no problem lying.
If the family has contributed, that is the main factor.
I live in Baghdad By the Sea where a high percentage get a bump on diversity. The statutes of limitations has run but many kids with lower scores who can say, play sports a and are fluent in a second language get preference.
I know kids from my hometown with SATs in the 1500s who were rejected by Harvard. I knew kids who could block and tackle in the 1200s who were recruited.
As for Cruz, Princeton was the snootiest school prior to affirmative action.
Ok, yes. I went to private school in the DC area. One of my friends with a low average and low scores and her own BMW got in Princeton because of her ethnicity. Well, people still discriminate on the basis of race alone. Why not solidify a presence of elite African-Americans or Indigenous or Latina people? Still, race has been abused as a category. However, I believe, alongside the New York Times’ columnist John McWhorter, that class should be the new diversity category and that would include people of color who really struggled as well as some whites. Many people (especially white people) in my fairly diverse (due to World Bank & IMF parents) but not adequately financially diverse all-girls private high school in the DC area expressed the view you have expressed about people unfairly getting in because of their race. I just think the unfairness could be worse than promoting a substantive minority presence in a good college. But Cruz—you can tell he’s smart. I’m just surmising get didn’t need the bump.
I believe the problem of universities failing to give students an appreciation for what Bloom called “the permanent concerns of mankind” has been undermining our democracy for a while now. I wrote an essay about it, “The Paradox of a University Education” for my students: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zS5JXq5fKwoXywgOnAKNntn-NBtYHV-zAYwpKw7IMPc/edit
Please feel free. The Paradox Project directions are to write an Abstract (half page), a Personal Essay (on student experience of writing the essay) (two pages), and a five page Paradox Essay. I often create Paradox Topics for the courses I teach: Foundations of Civilizations, Classic Greek Civilization, Roman Civilization, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Critical Thinking, & Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Please contact me if you can use these resources. mtufano@antioch.edu Always happy to share.
Thank you for that wonderful essay, which I read. I always thought Antioch College would have been my first choice and I think now that I was right. Life interrupts many choices. Great essay and on point observation on philosophy. You are a treasure. Keep teaching .
For most legacies once in school. "gentlemen C's" are available.
To get in is another matter. When I was a kid, they only took students from public school who could block and tackle. I was told to get in I would have to take an extra year at prep school.
By the time Cruz and Hawley came around, they recruited on geography and diversity.
Bloom would have been subjected on admission to a quota and rejected on his arrogance.
The issue most clear in Bloom’s evaluation of university admins of the Sixties was his awareness that their coddling students with the power to write “student evaluations” of teachers (which are universal now) would make it impossible for teachers to use the Socratic Method because it makes the receiver extremely uncomfortable; as, indeed, discovering one’s own vanities in any venue HURTS. Indeed, one of the reasons for the strong reaction to his analysis of the university was that it revealed admin vanities (!). The project of helping students to think independently is a dangerous one; can’t have that kind of thing going on, why, we might lose money! …Note that Socrates was treated pretty viciously.
Excellent essay. The problem Bloom speaks of, politics changing how and what is taught continues to get worse. We are actually banning books again. In many conservative circles, ignorance has come to be revered. Did you ever have a discussion with an ignorant person? Because they know nothing, they believe they know everything.
My uneducated grandparents had respect for knowledge and people who had knowledge. Today, knowledge is often looked down upon and called elite.
The conservatives, led by monied people like the Kochs, are becoming more and more powerful in education. The last thing they want is people thinking for themselves. They mask much of what they want behind religion. What is better for them than to have people believing that it's not this life that's important. It's the next life where they will be kings. God gives and when people have more, like the rich, they are god's chosen so you shouldn't criticize them.
I have a faith tradition going back generations of Jesuits (Georgetown University) and what those who are educated in Scripture know is that the most repeated word in the New Testament is “metanoia” (Greek) for “change your mind.” The anti-intellectual forces in society have always been there, even and especially in the early Christian church: Jefferson knew this was NOT Christ’s message, and he wrote about it in a letter to John Adams in 1813 (to summarize TJ’s idea: that barely had the Christian story started, did worldly powers take over and reduce the message to something that could (a) make money (want to buy an indulgence?) and (b) control the uneducated masses.) Jefferson even had a “Bible” made for himself that just took Christ’s words and left out all other commentary. What we are facing is a perennial conflict of holding on to “truth” while some dark force (call it evil, or call it lust for power) seems to be ever ready to sucker punch people who are craving some kind of faith, but want “faith light”—-none of this actually having to love one’s neighbors or love enemies. Bonhoeffer talks about this, so does Kierkegaard. K. would call today’s Christians, pagan Christians because they want to “back to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment”—-whereas for actual believers, the whole point is that Jesus is alive in whoever is the least among us right now. Our goal as Christians is to do the work of love; none of which requires hierarchies, church buildings, tithes, or any of that paraphernalia. Certainly does not require a Bible signed by TFG!
You mention Bonhoeffer so I'm sure you are familiar with his letters from prison. Here's an excerpt from one on stupidity:
“In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
“If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.
“The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.
“Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Wow, I seem to have hit a group of people who have read the same books I admire! I feel grateful for your sharing this quotation from Bonhoeffer and wish I had had it when I wrote this essay in 2019. I normally would not share so much of my writing, but I never got this published even though I think it is probably one of my best essays. (Ignore the blue links at the top, they are Google Doc links because it is a long essay so hard to find one's way back to a particular spot.) The Fungus that is Trump by Meg Tufano, M.A. https://docs.google.com/document/d/13NMnttnjNwROa-YHBpuRqepG02JFM4t1z31zKy7Vilk/edit?usp=sharing
I really liked the essay. I'd have to think about it and reread it because there was so much packed in there. I understand why you wished you had Bonhoeffer's quote. Your essay explains a lot about evil and why people act the way they do. Bonhoeffer's explains the people who are the followers. I see how evil isn't deep and our thoughts within ourselves and with others have to go deeper in order to counteract it. It really made me think. Since I'm an atheist, I don't agree with the original sin concept.
William Cash ; There is also the fact that the very wealthy are kind of dumb. They paid for their degrees and can't see beyond the end of their nose, and they don't think they should Have to! They are rich! The really smart money would have a philosophy that if the planet is in peril and there is no place else to live, we better start solving our problem and change course towards climate solutions! A smart patient who needs health care is not going to ignore their doctor just because she is educated, and therefore 'elite'!
Thank you for sharing your work. I just read your essay and admire your thinking. Researching more about Bloom, I found it curious that his work was so poorly received by some of the thinkers of his day -- perhaps this was due to prejudice? While I have not read Bloom, your essay has inspired me to want to know more. I have always respected Noam Chomsky - and his critique of Bloom's work was rather blistering. Regardless of how others felt about his work, I think that Bloom opened up an important discussion in the world of academia - and one which, apparently, we still struggle with today. What is the foundation of a university education? Is the ultimate purpose purely economic -- or must there be a greater good to the society at large?
Meg Tufano ; Thank you for sharing “The Paradox of a University Education”. I never realized that Philosophy was so important, and why anyone would want to study it. Truly it is like a vestigial appendage, One that would allow the person who attained a PHD to simply teach ; as if that was not enough. The emphasis today is on getting a Job skill , so that one can market themself and 'earn a living'. There is increasing pressure on Colleges to have programs that are 'worth it', as in leading to successful employment opportunities. Probably why we are in so much trouble today.
Cool point on philosophy, I haven’t read much of your attachment yet. I actually think Logic in particular should be taught in high school. But other philosophy too, moral and epistemological/metaphysical.
Truth! I worked at an Antique shop for awhile and one of these people came in and bought a 5k painting which I had to tie in his trunk. Awhile after he came back all pissed off because there was a string tied to his trunk lid. If he hadn't been such a snob to start with I would have spoke to him but... So I walked over and pulled on the string were I had set up to simply pull and off it comes! Needless he didn't even say thanks just drove off.
I was in a small community on the Oregon Coast for a wedding several years ago and I met a couple of locals who were accepted into Harvard as students. They were very enamored with themselves and felt entirely superior to everyone at the wedding. Of course, they did not know they were amongst a group of very high achievers who just barely tolerated their self-absorption and lack of social skills. I thought of taking them to a local bar but I became convinced that they would be beaten to death by the locals for their arrogance and stupidity. I asked the General and one of the Senators for the state if I should take them to the local bar and they said that discretion would probably be the better part of valor.
I was very lucky to attend 8 years of graduate school at Yale University. I took full advantage
of copious resources and access to brilliance to learn more, including in exploring moral and ethical inspiration. While there I learned of a high population of Yale students living with the condition "imposter syndrome", the belief you are not actually qualified to own the status you have, always questioning self, and consequently working harder to earn the privilege. It is not uncommon for Yale students to be humble about where they went to school. In my experience, it has been family, acquaintances, and colleagues who brag about my academic achievements, not me. I have no doubt that monsters graduate from that institution, the laws of biology expect anomalies. I saw cheaters and slackers while there, but they were not the majority. I think the majority of the thousands of undergrads and graduate students who commence forth from New Haven do strive to be of good service to society, the author of this blog is just one example - with exceptional excellence in public service. His law class, with the acceptation of Clarence Thomas, was a remarkable collection of people committed to improving social conditions. The bad apples are certainly disappointments, wasted academic resources, and ultimately dangers to democracy. But they are not all of us.
I think the first question is “what did they learn at home?” By the time these “leaders” entered university they had at least seventeen years at home, school and community to learn skills that foster integrity, empathy and compassion. And common sense. They are on their own when they move into their university housing. No parents or teachers to look out for them. They rely on past lessons and opportunities. Their foundation. They may stumble and fall. Or grow up. Now the influences of even the most prestigious and expensive school will build on those life lessons from home and community. Obviously there’s some serious questions about these mostly repubs. Does their political party encourage and accept lying, cheating and corruption?
i agree. universities were once a place to meet, study and understand new ideas and peoples, and to gain a deeper understanding of ethics and ways of living. but not so anymore, it seems.
but (not to excuse or defend these universities), i think harvard, yale and princeton provide fertile ground for their major donors' sons -- and to a lesser extent, their daughters -- to find each other and to form cliques that support and strengthen their parents' and families' lack of ethics, their power-at-all-costs training received in private prep schools and at the family dinner table when these brats were youngsters. these elite universities -- and their fraternities -- simply perpetuate the same cruel and hateful ideals that these brats were raised with. increasing one's social circle is the only real service these universities provide, with the likely bonus of obtaining a "proper mate". university studies are an inconvenience, majors and grades are unimportant (they already have lucrative jobs awaiting them, thanks to daaaaaddy), and actually getting an education is a big fat joke to these up-and-coming elites.
Best explanation yet as to how America ended up with self-interested greedy 'leadership'.
one of my real-life friends refers to these people as "the leadershit" on twitter. always makes me smile.
How to reach out and motivate the many many people way too busy just trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head-- to get out and VOTE for Democrats?
Vote Republicans out of office: they earn this every single day.
I know it's more difficult than I can imagine to work full-time, maybe even multiple jobs, take care of children, and everything else life throws at us. But we are a participatory democracy and the very least we can do is to have a basic understanding of the major issues and then vote.
Having a basic understanding of the issues isn't what it used to be. Alex Jones, who dropped out of community college to pick up a soapbox, is only one of many examples of people who don't understand the realities of life being the ones explaining life to anybody foolish enough to listen. Far too many people now are powered by their hair trigger emotions. And there's a junkyard full of them to sort through on our way to search for enlightenment.
I believe that’s what voting by mail can do for these super busy young families & that’s mainly why Rethugs hate vote by mail! Instead of motivating People to vote they want to make it as difficult as possible so very few of them will take the time to Go out to vote!! Many jobs don’t allow for early departures from work to vote on the way home or even late arrivals to work by stopping on the way into work. The Democratic Party is the only one that has tried to make it easier to cast a vote & I hope they will be working on Voting Rights & laws making it easier to vote in the near term!
oh yeah. So much 'risk'. With a real majority of Dems in congress and the White House, real policy on global warming, education, women's rights, everyone's civil rights, etc. can be achieved including reduction in activity that accelerates global warming (e.g. giving women and girls around the world education and healthcare including control over their own reproduction)
We either really, effectively, address global warming now, or turn into Venus. There's no time left to talk about it.
The way everything is set up (rigged), it is no surprise that 'compromise' ends up taking something important away We are compromised again by the greedheads. The pharmacy thing, the fossil fuel drilling and the Tax on the wealthy were not great help, considering where we are headed very fast.
the overopulation thing... accelerates the other things
People are waking up... being that they have been living in a psychological Avalon. The Greek Vikingar from Crete colonized the entire planet circa 1200 BC. A xerox copy of that society was the American Vikingr, which the Indians were created from. Then, a xerox copy of that society returned to Europe in 791 AD to reclaim what was lost. The Voyage was too great... and they faded from history. Great Institutions don't teach this history... because it would show they are just xerox copies and their level of intelligence is fading. The proof being that most can not figure this out. The concession... that education can blind good people to the truth. For, they live in Avalon now.
Stealing…
I had the highest aptitude for computer programming than any other child in high school. Finished an entire semester of work in 3 days with no previous experience. The teacher wouldn't let me join the Computer Club. The other kids had lobbied him due to the fact that I was muscular. Educational institutions only accept the next layer down. Xerox copies who are being copied. People of education are the best fingers and thumb going forward. They aren't intelligent until they have been the hand. The rape of America.
It’s not really the schools’ fault to that extent. They are loaded and, having done so gravely inadequately for a long time, are undergoing a lot of changes to be more diverse and accessible to all. But it’s an institute of higher learning. With really smart and earnest professors and students. Probably not so different from Berkeley students. The credential-elitism of our society is a major problem with Ivies that and that’s an inheritance from capitalism and maybe some forms of Protestantism. You can get a great education most anywhere, but we’re all so focused on brand names. And we’re competitive. Our parents are competitive. Actually a lot of people resent you for going to these places. Fair enough. The real cause of our shitty leadership is poor K-12, due to inadequate funding, and how they’re funded, along with the way people who know nothing about how kids learn are administrators and policy people; inadequate structures of community support for poor or lower income families, along with racism; and, again, capitalism and an American identity absurdly steeped in a value of “rugged individualism.”
I guess I should add that de facto aristocratic social phenomena and not just capitalist contribute to our Yale and Harvard problem.
I mean, maybe we should do away with private schools altogether. They aren’t fair and never will be.
hmmm. Anyone else remember the " Skull and Bones Society " ??? GW Bush ??? Others ???
Yes I do! The WS and misogyny in the "universities" is as long as their histories.
LOL I hate the societies but some cool people I knew were in skull and bones. It’s kind of random. This football player who was a good guy tapped this guy who was an Asian computer science major, a cool guy who had a crush on me but I guess I wasn’t into him. I was kind of an idiot, and still am…definitely didn’t get into any of those groups. It’s a senior-year thing. Princeton has worse groups I think, “eating clubs.” I knew Barbara Bush back then. She was a cool person who was always hanging out with these two tall, flaming gay black guys. She has great taste in clothes and was a humanities major. My first boyfriend there had a crush on her first. I watched the debates once with them. He turned out to be gay, like most guys I knew there. She runs a health organization now. I was mostly in touch with her freshman year…we happened to be in the same outdoor get-to-know-you hiking trip before college started. Just to complicate some of the myths.
Her mom actually didn’t agree with a lot of things her dad did during his presidency. Laura Bush was more of a humanitarian then most people know.
Yep. Very creepy.
Yes, and the weird temples these fancy good ole boy societies had. What a crock.
And you also explained almost the entirety of Bunkerboy's sad, failed life: daddy didn't want the liddle guy to fail, so he bought him a high school diploma, then a college one. [sic] Then he gave him a business to run into the ground. Then another. Then ANOTHER. Et cetera.
…infinitum, until he ran the country into the ground!
. . . WHEN they use a whataboutism? "Okay, so what are doing to help AMERICANS?"
. . .
"No, disenfranchisement helps NO ONE."
Wow, Science Girl, you have that right! There are so many legacy students in those institutions, there isn't much left for the rest of the population. The decent people I know about from those institutions were not legacies.
Legacies are unfair. I wasn’t one. You have a lot of money, you get in with far fewer credentials. But I didn’t know many legacies, very few. It’s not like every other student.
Cruz and Hawley were not legacies.
Yes, Robert Reich brings up a great point here about the inexplicable human capacity for evil. They should not be on the side they’re on. They lie all the time, and very much know better.
One question that I am too lazy to look up the answer for is: how many decent politicians (if that is not an oxymoron) also went to these places. I’m a big Booker fan. He went to Stanford…
actually he also went to Yale Law…as did…someone who might write this newsletter 😉
Cruz is a strange case. We know he is Cuban and I believe he left Cuba because Castro wanted to take property from his family. He hates anything to do with socialist policies. It does not matter to him if capitalists are robber barons or not.
Josh Harley is an angry white guy who got into Stanford. He is smart obviously but lacks moral character that he easily hides.
Cruz was born in Canada. His father, an evangelical faith healer, passed himself off as a Cuban freedom fighter. Most of his version of family history is disputed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/cuban-peers-dispute-ted-cruzs-fathers-story-of-fighting-for-castro.html
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_pm/263/
Trump tied Cruz's father to Lee Harvey Oswald. https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/trump-ted-cruz-father-222730
I'm sure that both Cruz and Hawley were good students, but neither of them came from families that could donate multiples of tuition like real legacies.
Hawley is still a legacy no matter how much money his family did not have. He is opposed to Affirmative Action. That shows where his morals is.
But this whole time we’re talking about three people and attributing so much to their college education. So much else happens to people before and after college that I would argue probably impacted them more than their more-likely-than-not liberal professors. (Cruz and Justice Jackson were classmates at Harvard, were they not? He went to Princeton (which I always think of as more conservative—probably partly a stereotype) undergrad but they were classmates at Harvard Law…Actually I also think of Stanford as more conservative, so that makes sense with Hawley. Ish. I think that if you go to an elitist school you probably have some tendency to be a social/economic/political climber, even i do, not that I’m proud of it. But look at Justice Jackson! Totally different story! I think this whole discussion, my own comments included (I just don’t represent any mainstream but am susceptible to making errors in generalizing like anyone else) is still just not especially rigorous. My point has been that the education itself might not be at fault, and probably skewed liberal. I don’t understand how people become monsters! Unchecked capitalism and greed are always a good culprit though!)
Correction I read on Wikipedia that Hawley’s mother went to Stanford. Also he was valedictorian in Missouri. Very smart but he may have been tolerated at Stanford.
Agreed, I'm so glad I receivef my education at a State run university. Plus in California rather than east coast. But that last remark is biased
i also, was educated at a state university. it is ranked as the number one public research institution in the USA (or was. haven't checked recently). as a scientist, i got a very good science education and research experience there, but i did have to get my liberal arts education elsewhere. (despite being agnostic/atheist, i went to what turned out to be a very liberal 4yr religious college -- on someone else's dime -- for liberal arts education and it was very good! surprisingly so, in fact, especially when i tell you that my core liberal arts courses were taught by ordained ministers. although, maybe this quality education was simply cuz i found it so interesting that i was too enamoured to not keep up with all the mountains of reading and homework. and these ministers were extremely open to discussing, in depth, the "Big Questions" with me. how could i not LOVE LEARNING when exposed to THAT?)
Science Girl, I attended a small private southern teachers' college that was amazing! I received a good liberal arts education as well as excellent training for teaching. I taught 26 years and was able to help colleagues and students with ideas that were initiated in my undergraduate college. I am so glad you got to experience open-minded people who cared about who you are and wanted you to think and discuss for yourself. That experience must have been such a "blessing" throughout your life.
teaching: now >there's< a profession where most angels fear to tread. you have my deepest respect and admiration.
The difference between the "Institutions" and a quality school! I always thought this was how a university was supposed to be!
I went to "inferior" schools that have produced presidents and several members of SCOTUS, including one guy who was both president and chief justice of the Supreme Court. William Howard Taft. Not proud of some of my fellow alumni, like Mitch McConnell.
“The future will take care of itself” - Mitch McConnell
Where did he learn this BS?
Brats are created and nurtured. I do agree about the culture around the prep school system in the U.S. and Canada. in developing the attitude and incestuousness of college and the young adult years and alliances, whether through marriage or the corporate world.
I don't disagree with your larger point, but it is illustrative of a variation on the maxim that "all models are wrong, but some are useful." In this case it is that "all generalizations are wrong, but some are useful." My prep school's motto is "Not to be served, but to serve." In spite of having all the privileges listed here in addition to being white hetero male cis-gendered, I have devoted my life to civil service in the federal government.
run for congress and win then eh?
👏👏👏
That’s the traditional function of the USA’s universities: finishing schools for rich kids. Years ago, I walked through the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Passing by a men’s dormitory called Old West, I noticed that the top floor of this 3 or 4 floor dorm has windows smaller than the floors below. I asked about this apparent anomaly; the answer: the small top-floor windows housed the slaves who served their student masters. They didn’t need tall windows.
SofS
Exactly, this is nothing new.. I don't know who told Pro Reich that elite schools graduated good people but the rest of us have known they don't for our entire lives.
The fact that many congress persons are despicable immoral cretins who happened to graduate from elite schools does not in any way imply the same holds for the rest of the graduates. Such a conclusion is biased and illogical.
KM
That is not the conclusion anyone is saying... You are missing the point.
The point is that those educations do not produce good people. Does not mean everyone who graduates from them is not good, just proves that their goal and objective is clearly not to turn out good people.
I am aware of the point. They were only exposed to Keynes and they missed the teachings of the great moral philosopher/economists.
KM
Who was only exposed to Keynes? The law makers that cut taxes while the economy was running massive deficits. Are those the law makers that were only exposed to Keynes?
IF so, then they failed their lesson because that is the opposite of Keynes. But it is right in line with Hayak and Mises and Friedman.
Ok, no. Not exactly. Other schools do turn out people prone to blame the products of elitist institutions for all the ills of society. In actuality, you can learn a lot anywhere, or teach yourself for that matter, and you can be good or evil anywhere—though if you’re more motivated and smarter and more connected to others of an elite status, you’re more likely to do more harm, perhaps, on a white-collar-crime level.
Ouch. I agree with what you say about THOSE. Meantime their WHOLE cohort are not so awful. There are some extremely fine minds at even those (but also other) schools that do the real work of stewardship in society (etc.), it’s just—the non-screwed-up educated people can be true-hearted Americans. The problem is power-and-money and that politicians end up in the pockets of money, beholden to financial supporters and not unhappy about it. That HAS to be the real issue. Marjorie Taylor Greene bankrolled her own local campaign with $900,000 of her own money, her image on signs appeared everywhere, she easily defeated several suitable Republican hopefuls. Money gets them elected. Ivy League gets them to money. Education counts for too little.
Money in politics especially since Citizens United but since the beginning of time or whatever is definitely a problem. But on the other hand, why is the electorate so unable to discern lies and bad character? How we raise Americans BEFORE college and also economic equity seem pretty key to me.
Totally agree
I would call them shameless materialistic yuppies of Gen X who believe in taking the easy road to success by joining up with a power seeking cult minority that wants to rule like royalty while abandoning all vestiges of Democracy!! It would be fitting if the Universities could revoke their degrees as failures to learn what was taught! Are they really wannabe elites of tomorrow? I certainly hope not! But the trumpster has taught them well how to be criminals & try to get away with it! That info they took in readily & easily!
I actually think you’re completely wrong. Colleges are getting more liberal and open to minorities and those whose parents earn less. What you just described is a caricature that is probably way closer to how it USED to be. And it’s not like you can get through Yale, which I did, without doing a shitload of difficult academic work where you’re held to a higher standard because all your classmates were also valedictorians. It’s stressful is what it is. But many students there care deeply about learning and are intellectuals, and are very good people. The “real world” comes along and money makes some people really suck, but they still had to make a considerable effort, and be smart enough, to get through the school. Getting an “MRS” is a completely antiquated idea. We didn’t even really know how to get laid most of the time, much less even find a significant other.
Juliet
I like to think i earned everything i have because i did truly work hard. So i am not saying you, nor your friends there, did not have to work hard to get through Yale.
But your anecdotal evidence of who attends these schools is less persuasive than the empirical evidence. And the empirical evidence (see link below) is that kids from rich families (which students have no control over) or from families with hyper attentive parents (which students again have no control over) tend to be the majority of kids that attend these high status Universities.
And kids from those families, as evidenced by graduates or attendee's like Musk, Josh Howly, Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Cruz to name a few are anti social selfish creatures that vastly over value their contribution to society and who screw people every step of the way and who do not give on hoot about improving society.
Not sure how you can defend the people these schools produce based on nothing more than your view of your self and your friends. Did they teach you about Confirmation Bias at Yale?
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/3/1567/5741707
That is the opposite of egalitarian. No
I agree that the selection of people is unfair, and that some people end up being shitty, power- and money-obsessed people and perhaps are more likely to do so since they bought in (literally) to this system. The girl in my class who also got into Yale was clearly way less qualified than you’d have to be to get in there on “merit,” though, yes, it was a private school where we were already almost all given a boost by our parents’ incomes. Mine were both government workers (non-political ones), but whatever. But anyway, like many people from my high school, she became a doctor. I know this is anecdotal but this whole discussion is not based on actual experience of the people at Yale, and many statements just not as precisely accurate as they could be, like any generalization from basically numerical data. I mean obviously the old-boy network is one of the ways power is gained unfairly, and if people gain power unfairly they are probably way more likely to lie and cheat and be a bad person in society. Things are changing, and most people are not really different from anyone you’d meet on the street on a moral level. And the campus was soooo liberal. I’m sorry, it just was. And idealistic. People change etc. Did Elon Musk go to an Ivy? These few people just don’t represent most people, including legacies. I could be wrong. I think I would know a little bit about the reality though, having been there four years of my life.
Juliet -
You are spot on. The people at an Ivy league school (or Stanford in the case of Musk) are not more likely to be moral or immoral than the people you run into on the street.
They are, however, far more likely to have the power to make lives good or shitty for others. And given that power, the % of them that are shitty matters on society.
Most nations don't have "elite" universities. People just go to the local university and then set out in the world. Those nations tend to have laws and rules that favor the common people more than the US...
Excellent point. "kids from those families... "
GrrlScientist Aug 8 touches another point, which is probably true for all who attend institutions of higher learning, and that is:
increasing one's social circle is the only real service these universities provide...
Perhaps exclusive institutions of higher learning-- Yale, Harvard, Princeton amplify influence of socioeconomic circles from which most of the attendees attend? We might ask, what about that student who attends who came from poverty? How are they affected by the obvious wealth they newly encounter on campus?
What can universities do to impart ethics to their students, so many of whom will take on important roles in society? (Shirley there must be a lot of research on this!)
Maryk
<<increasing one's social circle is the only real service these universities provide...>>
So true. And to think i had to invest $600K in after tax savings to get my 3 sons in to the social network needed to make a living these days. What a waste of money. Not saying it has not paid off, it has. They are doing great. But still.
Economics professors Luigi Zengalis from the University of Chicago advocates that business schools students should be required to take and pass Ethics classes.. Today he says some classes simply touch on the subject. he things students should be instructed in business ethics. I agree.
One just has to wonder about people like JD Vance-- who escaped a life of poverty, moved to Ohio after Yale saying he wanted to help those in the opiate epidemic there, and now, clearly, in it for himself.
I agree.. It certainly appears that way. I for one fell for his apparent grift. I purchased the book but by the time of the movie was on to his grift.
My guess is that his time at Yale made him more open to being "in it for himself" than his time before Yale
Actually though, on a side note, I’ve worked super, super hard for much of my life and have earned literally zero dollars for it. I have survived while being deeply clinically depressed. I would never say that anything that happened to me was egalitarian. I was lucky, then unlucky, but I could be even more unlucky. I think we overrate hard work and the kind of work we do, and underrate our ability to care about others or understand them and to apprehend truth in this crazy world.
Juliet
There i agree with you entirely. Hard work has its place and should not be over looked. But it is the key to a good society and happiness for people. Hell no.
Best of luck on your depression.. it is common and just means you are like the rest of us special and to be loved.
Oh Juliette, yes, overrate dumb luck and achievement and underrate human warmth and the zero dollars for so much hard work. Right ON. PS the MH work one has to do and god bless them that have got to do it and them that invest (deep relations) in them that have got to put one foot ahead of other in doing the hard things. Damn personal “success” is overrated. But I consider it a blind spot to those, they don’t see in technicolor that helping need can be like.
I may have not made clear that I have actually been unable to work because of depression, for a great percentage of the last twenty years, and through part of it on disability. What’s been difficult has been literally living every day, often taking a shower being the hugest accomplishment, often not being able to even do that, and carrying so much shame and frustration. The terror and pain of the worst times is extreme, our system of hospitalization doesn’t help much, meds didn’t work, other treatments did harm and no good. I’m a bit hopeful that I might be recovering right now. But I’ve been in many deeply low places, in underfunded community programs where the misery and poverty is lifelong and beyond heartbreaking. These lives deserve so much credit. Hard work is usually motivated by a desire for something like money or status, and you’re lucky if you don’t work at a meat-packing place or picking fruit in million degree weather, but a lot of human lives are wasted simply “working hard.” Most office jobs seem to suck also. If you’re doing good work, even overworking, that stuff that is actually fulfilling has its benefits for the being, too, and some people are simply addicted to work or inclined. I think laziness is a symptom of a failure of the system to structure your life adequately and to offer people worthwhile outlets for their efforts—a lot of the time. I’ve also just worked long and hard on my art and writing and haven’t been able to get very far yet in putting it out into the world. As long as my depression is manageable, which I can never count on, I can say…just wait and see…
Juliet
I am sorry for your situation. My mother suffered from Depression and it is a devastating disease. But she grew up poor and had to work. She had to push through it until my father reached financial security. Then things got really bad. Ironic..
EU countries have better health care and still high rates of depression. I don't know the solution. But i do with you the best. Staying engaged in board like this can keep your mind stimulated.
VJ
Even Warren Buffet acknowledges the amount of luck that the super rich had to have to acheive their success..
It is not to say they did not work hard. Most did. But lost of people work really, really really hard and are smart as shit. They don't become billionaires.
Not every one with an elite education thinks the way the anti social elites that we all know think.
But enough of these anti social cretans's have come to power that we can say with accuracy that producing them is a feature and not a bug in the system.
Hence efforts to do away with the social capital of these institutions is good for all of us.
I agree. Sounds like you are talking about "supreme" court justice bret kavanaugh. Utterly disgusting as I witness our country DEVOLVING into a "winner take all" society. No consequences for those who do bad acts even though those acts ARE REPORTED to higher authorities. Just read how this information was NOT investigated by the DOJ, but simply sent to trump to do what he wanted to do with it. And what he did was NOTHING because .....? Trump's Department of Labor pick, Acosta, and his sweetheart deal to the CONVICTED PEDOPHILE EPSTEIN; How can Acosta even still be in government after that??? Something is VERY WRONG in "our" government. BTW - Epstein did NOT commit suicide. Way too many coincidences in that one.
This is still reversible: Get out the VOTE for Democrats in 2022 & 2024...
They’re not even winners. They’re cheaters.
Thank you for the obvious clarification. Cheaters all.
What is it about the recent spate of 3 supreme court judges that doesn't seem quite right?
What isn't?
It has always been thus.
In the 19th century some openly solicited bribes.
I can not agree more. What makes or breaks a human being is the discussion at the dinner table.
I could not have said it better. I got my undergrad education at Northwestern University, in the top 10 in the 80’s and 90’s, and one of my fields of concentration was philosophy/ethics. At the time I attended, I was a single mother of three, in my 30’s and taking full-time undergrad classes with students a decade younger than I. The stuff that came out of their mouths during discussion was frightening. It obviously came from their parents and their upbringing, and I knew then that if these were our future leaders, we were in big trouble.
CE
We are living in a nation of leaders who serve themselves and not the citizens. Perhaps that is th result of those snotty brats you encountered as an adult attending under graduate school. (BTW - Congrats on getting a degree with 3 kids an home and being single, i could not have pulled that off)
Today Leaders from both sides of the isle are guilty of this and the voters that put them there really are not bothered by it.
I say vote against the incumbent in every single primary. The less security they have holding office the less value the donor class will find with them and less harm they can do.
Almost got it --
fixed it: Vote against the Republican in every single election.
Why? It's a focused way to get a strong Democrats majority-- one that will pass rules and legislation to encode certain customs for federal candidates so they are required, e.g. post 10 years or more of your tax returns; one who will get the money out of politics (Overturn Citizens United, etc.), ETC.
On the other hand, voting out every incumbent will result in an unpredictable mash-up, perhaps as ineffective and combative as it is now.
Mary
The notion of voting for your party every time is what we have now. The dems are not winning GOP vote and the GOP are not convincing Dem voters. So that system has been tried and it is what we have today, gridlock.
I am suggesting something new for voters in BOTH parties. Voters in both parties should stop voting for incumbents in their party primary. Long time GOP like McConnell and DEMS like Schumer and Pelosi are the problem. They are corrupt and serve corporate interests over citizens. That will not stop until law makers start being accountable to voters more than donors. That will only happen if voters in both parties keep getting rid of incumbents.
Your way is what we have today and it does not work in my view.
Exactly!
These people have bought into the idea that the purpose of an elite education is a well paying job, usually one of their choice. They didn't attend schools to learn or even to think about learning. They attended to get credentials on their way to "success." Expecting them to have any firm ethical beliefs is like expecting a color blind person to distinguish between red and green. To most people the differences are obvious but to this group of "high-acheivers" all ethics are shades of grey and the only choice is which one benefits them most.
They go to Harvard or Yale to make connections and to make money. Harvard law school or business school is a passport to wealth.
John, yes, "elite" education for so many is that "passport to wealth." Because there are so many legacies, they make sure those passports remain mostly within their group, occasionally letting in someone else because it looks good and lets people think they have expanded their thinking and acceptance of others. They haven't really.
Those given the "passport" aren't, really. They are given the illusion of fabulous wealth - perhaps a few dozen or hundred million dollars - and invitations with addresses to party with their fellow B-list elite. They never touch a lever of power - they are content to sit in their fabulous yacht or drive one of their stable of fancy cars in one of their stable of houses they call mansions. The lower-middle-class to the elite's elite. A grudging, business-class ticket to their progeny as legacy children. ho-hum.
But you describe the University for the lower classes to rise to their high places-fashioned for them by the Elite. Lick the hand, and riches will be yours unimaginable!
Yeah, JD Vance
Ah yes . . . Let the indoctrination begin !! Disguise the aggenda in a cloak of egalitrainism. Mislead, distract, decieve, Market the whole thing and watch the outcome.
At what point in our American history did education stop preparing young people to be good citizens to make society better. and become job training? That’s what it seems to be now and it’s made a crappy society - Lord of the Flies.
How does education and all the goodness of it factor in when these nitwits(actually very criminal and cowardly) allowed their brains to be infected by a maniac? A) do they care about the planet,B) do they care about the folks,C) do they love the country that gave them opportunities D) are they at all about making life better for everyone?
No. They don't care. Spoiled brats.
I went to university in the sixties and seventies and I don’t think even then the purpose was to make students into good citizens. Many people who went did so in order to prepare for a career, especially those in science and engineering. I was an English major and had no idea what I was going to do; I basically went just because I didn’t know what else to do. In fact, I didn’t figure that out until I decided to go to library school five years after graduating. School was wonderful, and of course at that time there was a lot of political activity that I just absorbed by being there. I would say the main benefits were deepening my ability to think critically and developing an enthusiasm for the liberal arts. If those make people better citizens, great, but we didn’t take civics classes or anything like that. BTW, I went to UCLA for both undergraduate and graduate school if anyone cares. Great school!
Obama, when he was president, made a big deal about job training and the value of a college education. He proposed to grade the colleges. I trust that idea died young.
Many of the Harvard and Yale graduates of my small town childhood practiced "hobby law" and some never passed the Pennsylvania bar.
We had "local admission" for a couple of gentlemen who couldn't take appeals from their cases. One Yalie the other Harvard. We had nobody like that from the local schools.
My dad said that at that at his time, 1930, Harvard Law would take almost anyone (Jews were on quota and females were excluded) but they flunked out about half of the first year class.
I have a close friend who got into Harvard Law probably because he was Phi Bet and had a high LSAT, clerked at the 3rd Circuit, spent two years in a "big law" practice, but came home to his family's small business. Never read a book after that.
Actually when it became mandatory, and a means to control the lower classes, in the 1830’s on. Adult literacy in Massachusetts declined a little then, and has not exceeded the days before compulsory education.
Angela. Unfortunately, you are totally right about "elite" education. I like your red-green vs. shades of grey analogy.
I think the opportunities knock for these people and there are deep grooves worn over time for them. But it’s a value of the larger society, somehow, “achievement.” I think we should as a society strive for less productivity and more wellbeing—like siestas and fiestas and shit. I learned a great deal at Yale about ethics, actually, though the competitive goody-goody-ness of many people—as is true nowadays for me as well, but I guess the people are less successful at it or otherwise too oppressed by poverty to deal—totally annoyed me. I guess people who are educated anywhere can be total assholes and avoid thinking too hard about it. And they can make up clever excuses for doing any number of things and get used to getting away with it. Overachievers get connected to overachievers at these places, some for good, some for evil. Either way, people in America are too focused on their image and the rewards for a well-fashioned one, and not focused enough on searching for the truth that our values very often obscure.
Call me naive (my wife does), but as a college student in the late 70s I pursued a curriculum of interest (Political Science, Philosophy, History, Arts & Language) FIRST, before EVER considering HOW that education might translate into the "real" world. A LOVE of knowledge led eventually to a career in teaching that for me, ALWAYS meant PUBLIC SERVICE!
What ever happened to conducting oneself (in some sense, anyway) to what is in the BEST INTEREST OF SOCIETY!!! We have become a collection of individuals who feel as if the "lifeboats" are for the privileged: Anyone remember "Women and Children FIRST???"
David, alas, the myth of the generous Americans is fading. It seems many of our politicians, particularly the conservative ones are working to be sure they will do well while the rest, those horrible liberals can fend for themselves. They think "I work hard and deserve what I got and if you worked as hard as I do, you'd do well too." They have no idea what they are talking about, but it sounds good to a lot of hard-working people who are desperate to believe that people are poor by choice due to laziness, ignorance, and lack of education they could have gotten if they had wanted it. The elite schools can foster this belief because the whole time at those schools, it is possible to meet no one who is not of one's own privileged class. We elect those "blind" folks to office and permit them to become obscenely rich while promoting their BS and they need to show no evidence they are right. After all, they graduated from Harvard, Yale . . . .
Not entirely true, look at JD Vance. But mostly I agree. Vance wanted out of Appalachian society, and he made it (sort of. Wealthy, but his values?)
JD Vance is a sycophant , so he's 'covered' as an 'elitist' sympathizer.
I agree. There’s also the blue collar workers and civil service employees such as police officers. Not usually having a prestigious education, having obtained a financially secured future, yet enwrapped in the “I worked for all I have, not my fault you didn’t.” There might be a correlation, as 45’s supporter’s seem to be made up with people like these.
It’s funny that trump is not blue collar, yet has grabbed hold of the blue collar narrative and made it a battle cry.
I am also very much an example of this. And graduated in ‘04. You can do good things for the public good in so many spheres, not just the political. Maybe cultural studies which has become increasingly dominant colors this attitude more now. But I’m actually more old-school in believing that the arts can have fundamental systemic impacts by radical movements not just in representation but in form.
People are doing just what you did David - and in the same proportions by which your generation pursued politics - but those young people are studying computer science, data science, and engineering; unfortunately, our government either hasn't caught up to such a future or cannot get around the oodles of tickets sold to that baby boomer generation that came earlier (i.e. the life rafts are spoken for!)...
(Incidentally, the people Professor Reich singled out for being poor representatives of their respective alma maters didn't study EE/CS; if they had, they'd probably have more humility than to behave as they do in public!)
👏👏👏
Any money in that?
When I was rescuing people from the 3rd floor of a burning building, someone shouted "women and children first. So, I threw them out of the window. We later found out that their was a faulty smoke detector and us guys climbed down the ladder to safety.
A man shouts up to his wife on the 3rd floor and says "Honey, I forgot my watch, glasses, and handkerchief". She throws down the watch - it falls & breaks; she throws down the glasses - they break; she is about to throw the handkerchief and he says "please, enough - the handkerchief will break too!"...
= )
Sorry, but this article misses the point, the elephant in the living room. These universities may spout lofty ideals but in fact are simply the training grounds for those elites who are designated the future power brokers. In fact, more nefariously, they are the fertile grounds for those 'secret' societies such as the Skull and Cross bones that plan how to take control of the world. When Bush was in office this particular society was exposed to the public but today that knowledge is not addressed including by Reich in this article. Instead he promotes the mythological belief that university education is based on promoting lofty ideals of service and democratic ideals. I think that belief system needs to be blown apart as it is not based on reality. Those ideals are good and need to be discussed publicly but they also need to be presented as goals not taught by these universities as the ruling elite never believed in them and send their offspring to universities that teach the values of power and greed and elitism.
thank you. I tried to say the same thing, more or less but not as clearly or well.
This is another uninformed and vast generalization, as I see it. I do agree though that lofty ideals of service are not necessarily the undergirding principles of colleges. Honestly, I don’t think they should be. I think truth should be the object of an education, and I think that should start much earlier than college, of course. You’re learning how to think, and ways of thinking, including how to open your mind.
Surely the Ivy League schools can play to their strengths - but we don't live in a world in which the most a student could hope to know about a school is information arriving by telegram or 'U.S. News & World Report'; surely the fact of inequality eroding their hard-won reputations is self-evident by now (the resources cited by Professor Reich in his introductory class are articles published in journals read by Harvard & Yale faculty, regardless of how ignorant their students declare themselves to be).
What we should do - if what those schools do is of any concern to the public - is hold them to account for the federal dollars they receive & demand that they effect equality in admissions and scholarships (as they will not enable income mobility as long as their culture doesn't change - and their culture won't change until the people who constitute their community changes!)...
As a side note, it’s not about “ignorance” on the part of students. Students aren’t that old. And I haven’t made it my job to investigate that stuff. Still, during the NPR discussion I listened to on the US News rankings, the people who had qualifications to know stuff insisted that for many non-Ivy schools, but really even the less-known of them, many public school students or their parents won’t hear of their institution at all or apply according to strictly the US News yearly info.
I think a lot of private higher ed schools or programs can’t actually afford to have THAT many of their students get a free ride, and the whole thing is super expensive. I was listening to the formed head of Penn’s law school (I think) and current president or whatever of Bard say stuff like that. I mean, they really don’t pay most of their staff enough, especially adjuncts or TAs. In the same NPR snippet I heard recently about the impact of US News & World report’s rankings, I think they said Yale has been touting their first class with over 50% of students of color. There are so many considerations but it’s not, unsurprisingly, as easy as it looks to work out the finances. 🤷🏻
Their endowments are enormous; the *only* reason income mobility isn't facilitated is that it is not a priority.
I know some of these institutions’ endowments are enormous. I don’t know who is in charge and where that money goes, but they are probably beholden to big donors in certain ways, not a great thing. I doubt Reed is in this category. The guy on NPR I heard knew what he was talking about and I was skeptical. I think there are people who are trying to get the US News people to change their criteria in good ways, so income and secondary school diversity gets more credit.
Well, assuming it’s truly possible to just shift the funds and in the context of US News’s rankings not to lose out somehow—yes they should absolutely prioritize low-income students if they can. I think, alongside John McWhorter of the NYT, it’s time for income affirmative action rather than strictly race-based affirmative action. Geographic diversity became a statistic for US News and that did affect admissions. I think they said that during the discussion I’m remembering,
Unfortunately I think you’re right.
Those ideals once were in the universities. Somewhere along the way they were removed. Those ideals produced idealistic people who did not see eye to eye with power. These people created problems for those who wanted to make war. etc . Now it’s job prep. No more.
It has been so for many years. MIT graduates, who learn to design and build stuff, were emphatically NOT invited to the Manhattan Project. They were not considered intellectually nimble enough to build novel designs. The PHYSICISTS were the engineers. MIT restructured its curriculum.
Ibid previous remarks.
Your analysis is all too accurate.
Clearly America’s elite class isn’t what it used to be. Elites have always used their positions of wealth and power to enhance themselves, but earlier generations had a much greater sense of public responsibility and public service. Not to mention ethics and proprietary.
The few members of those earlier generations that I’ve known credited their Ivy League education with instilling the sense they were certainly privileged and deserving of success. But they also had a great responsibility to serve society and make the world a better place. As one member of the Yale class of 1940 told me a number of times “you can always do well by doing good.”
Our modern elites seem to lack that sense of responsibility. Their primary interest is in self dealing and closing off opportunities to the less privileged. They are insulated from the greater society and it’s pain in ways that earlier generations like my friend were not.
Privilege has become a way not to do good, but to become ever more privileged at the expense of society.
Even charity becomes a way of enhancing wealth and influence rather than serving a cause.
That’s bad news for America. Elites have most of the wealth and power and the fate of the nation is to a large extent in their hands.
This is precisely why "everyday Americans" must stay actively involved in choosing and monitoring the politicians who serve them. SERVE THEM. This was the premise for starting this "great American experiment" to begin with. There have always been greedy, power hungry people who have made it to positions of power, but failure to hold them responsible for misuse of that power is detrimental to a healthy democracy. Those in power must be held to higher standards BECAUSE they are in power, and not afforded more privilege at the expense of society.
Celeste, very well-said. Where is the sense of service that was so much a part of the wealthy class in the past? They gave very little compared to their actual wealth, but they gave some. These guys give little or nothing (Trump's foundation for example) but try to make it look like they are magnanimous long enough to get elected. Once in office, it doesn't even matter anymore. People vote for the "R" rather than for the person.
Those people need to be informed that their "R" now stands for reckless. radical, rude, ruthless, repulsive, rank, rabid, and racist. They must be removed and retired! Argh!!
Heart!
Jailed!
Yes, "everyday Americans" must stay actively involved in choosing and monitoring the politicians who serve them." Ordinary people also need to adopt a more realistic attitude toward the rich and powerful. One of the things that stand in the way is this bizarre idea that rich elites like Trump are "just like them." I have to say that I'm dumbfounded when I hear so many of his working class supporters say things like "he's somebody I could have a beer/Big Mac/fill in the blank with." This is despite his often voiced contempt for anyone less affluent than him and his habit of cheating vendors and contractors (people like them). Elites are not going to have a beer with you and they don't have your best interests at heart.
It IS amazing how many people in the country say he is "just like them". I wonder how many of their parents gave them millions of dollars, how many of them avoided the draft on bogus health claims, how many of them drastically cheated on their taxes, and how many of them would bury their childrens' mother on a golf course for a tax break? He is beyond disgusting. But I preach to the choir...rest assured I tell everyone who comes close to listening to beware before it's too late. And I'll continue to do so, with the hope some folks will actually take a second look at this maniac, and the others supporting him, before he does more damage than he already has.
Rich elites are job creators.....ha,ha, what a joke.
I don’t think they’d really enjoy having a beer with him if it actually happened. All he’d do is brag about how great he is. Who wants to listen to that?
Trusting that you lovingly use the term “ordinary people” as it gets complicated to be actively involved in choosing, monitoring, and being more realistic about politicians when you’re struggling to put food on the table and get shoes on your kids feet in time for school. Reality is relative and often very scary so if someone familiar says they will sincerely throw you a lifeline you jump at it with hope in your heart. The promise turns into a con, a grift, a lie, but some cling to the fact that a POTUS wouldn’t lie to the people. If the truth is accepted you have nowhere to turn, you become more scared, and angry at the naysayers. We can each only do our best and try to gently bring the lost on board. Wish I knew how for sure, but will try. We sure do have a mess on our hands.
We somehow need to help people with their discernment of source credibility. Many Republicans think they ARE holding people accountable somehow. They want to take away government power in a broad sense. Public libraries could offer media Ed (or studies) classes perhaps.
Let's not forget that many of the great philanthropists also were very brutal and caused many blue collar deaths making their fortunes and were rabidly anti-union. But I do agree that in the end, they attempted to make improvements in society. And then there were a few, like Teddy Roosevelt's father, who was quite the rich man helping the poor.
I agree completely. I do think that as a class past generations of rich elites had more of a sense of "we're all in this together." Yes, some were dishonest and brutal, but there was a sense (in general) of the need to improve society as a whole that is lacking in this contemporary generation.
I don’t know that it was so great back in the forties. For one thing, women weren’t even allowed, say, in Yale, till 1969. People of my generation and younger are highly socially conscious. Maybe it’s unclear who exactly you mean by “elites.”
The elite were the same then. Wealthy people from the burgeoning industrialization, the military/industrial complex with oodles of influence/power and the war fever that had permeated the country. Remember the '40's were bookended by WWII and the Korean War. Lots of war effort stuff and pressure to conform and support. Women leaving the military after WWII discovered how second class they really were not receiving benefits/jobs and those who worked in the munitions plants and discovered their own empowerment were told to get back to being housewives. Daycare and jobs became closed to them and their work experience with tools and equipment were literally denied. Some good history on this has been written and video'd about. Skirts did become a bit shorter and pants were more acceptable on a limited basis but being a housewife was still the big push. And of course the men returning from war with their version of PTSD (alcoholism and violence) beating up on wives and kids with no societal recognition of the problem as s it remained in the closet. So not a great time for women unless they complied.
What you omit is the fact that the people have numbers and there is great power in that fact. That is exactly why the elite work so hard to keep people ignorant and divided based on prejudices. Remember the power of an organized public in the 1930's when people were organizing for a Socialist revolution. FDR gave in with the New Deal to buy off much of the public and then dragged us into a war using the patriotism banner to pull the rug out from under the Movement. Clever of him. We, the people, got some lollipops (never near enough) and the elite have been destroying those social changes bit by bit ever since. I still remember Reagan coming into office and talking about undoing the minimum wage! If the people could get over focusing on the social issues used to divide/conquer and organized based on real issues like wages, environmental toxins, real health care (not the drug programs of Medicare), etc the govt would not be able to resist.
Republicans actually seem scared that abortion is going to be illegal because so many evangelicals really mainly voted on that issue. Of course, there’s also gay and transgender rights.
I’d disagree. Elites may have once had more decency, as Americans tend to have as a whole. Certainly not as much decency as the Average Joe of their day. Remember, philanthropy places invisible strings on all it touches. The Carnegie Foundation is responsible for a lot of the muddle we have in American education, by helping. They sought to train the Good Worker, and then the Savvy Consumer to drive the post-WWII markets. Now they want naked control, where once they offered friendly manipulation.
Isn’t this frequently shown to be false in retrospect? And people were at the least violently racist? Not that they aren’t now, but maybe less so because blacks and other minorities have made some gains. It’s hard to say who anyone means by “elites.” Actually, the tech CEOs could be WORSE.
Many of them happen to side with Democrats and like to think of themselves as good people enough to espouse a facade of some degree of reality. It’s the size of corporations and their lack of limitations in the law, their lack of taxation, the dismantling of unions and benefits, the shareholder power and buybacks, their ability to give huuuuge(r) amounts of money to sway politics their way, as well as relatively new influence via internet media that are primary factors in their transformation. Different factors and assumptions. Neoliberalism a huge influence on current people in power though maybe it’s turning somewhat.
Yeah, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
Most of them also deserve handcuffs for their involvement in helping aid and abet an attempted coup by a sitting president.
Yes, Derek, I would like to see those "election deniers" and coup attempt participants in jail, but alas, Harvard, Yale, et al seem to insulate their own from accountability. I suspect none of those Dr. Reich mentioned will be punished in any way for their appalling disregard of our democracy and the harm it caused and is causing our nation.
They all should be out of their seats in government and in jail.
I suspect you’re right, after all, if there truly were justice Trump himself would already be behind bars for the many other things he’s gotten away with even before the attempted coup.
Hey Derek, don't forget, Baby Donnie attended Penn. OK, who knows what he learned, but I suspect, not much, but he didn't have to, he just had to make the right connections and he clearly did that.
Business school. Totally different than undergrad
After reading all these comments, it seems To me that all u need is wealth, connections & a higher education preferably at an Ivy League University! Is that all it takes to be a politician. U really don’t have to be especially good at it just show ur credentials, right! My only question is why do so many law grads leave their profession to become Politicians or TV journalists or educators?? Is practicing law boring or is it just too many hours of ur life have to be given up in order to succeed?? Can the lawyers on this substack answer this?
You never know. Fingers crossed.
Ruth Sheets ; And the loss of their seats in government.
I don"t think they learned their morals in college. I think they are following the popular culture that became strong in the 1980's. Greed is a virtue, money is the means to power and power is everything. Anything you need to do to get and maintain power is righteous. Powerful people are good, weak people are useless. Matt Gaetz Josh Hawley, and of course th trumpster himself are exemplars of this culture. What I don't understand is why any person of integrity accepts this as normal.
Fay, You are so right about the '80s culture "Wall Street." I don't think it even matters now what a particular candidate believes. They just have to malign the opponent to win. Republicans are really good at this which is why they control so many state legislatures when the representatives do not in any way reflect the beliefs or desires of the majority of the people. Folks see the "R" and think about the old Republican party that actually had within its ranks really good, honest, caring people. That is clearly not what they stand for now but it does not matter. How do we get people to start choosing representatives that care about this nation and its people? I honestly don't know!
ALEC had more to do with packing State legislators than any other entity. Once they "purchase" a State legislator, ALEC writes the legislative bills it wants passed. As to your last 2 statements, after the country stood idly by and allowed these demons in. ALEC to take over so many small States, I have no idea how to rectify it. Maybe some of the lawyers in our group could have suggestions. Educating these people is out of the question, since ALEC seems to control their schools too.
Maybe the schools will be flooded. Or burned by climate heating, and it will be obvious that leadership is lacking.
See my comments about the appearance of impropriety below.
That is the very problem isn't it? When stating facts or truth to a Trumpanzy (and some others) they turn you off start making false statements (hell I know one who still believes we never went to the moon!) and just refuse to believe the scientific evidence in front of their eyes!
I love that word Trumpanzy.
Ruth Sheets and Fay Reid—Let me suggest you consider Jane Mayer, the New Yorker's dark money expert, on gerrymandering: "State Legislatures Are Torching Democracy. Even in moderate places like Ohio, gerrymandering has let unchecked Republicans pass extremist laws that could never make it through Congress." Before these unrepresentative legislators can start stuffing ALEC garbage into state codes they must get elected. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy
Ruth Sheets: voters need to know where candidates get their 'donations'. Who are they really working for?
Anyone with integrity does not accept this.
Exactly !! Makes you wonder if Ivy League schools are good at attracting money or talent. The ruling class can afford Harvard or Yale while the rest of us can’t afford gas ! Not being able to truly attract for all pools of talent but just monied interest is an aristocratic society. The “death tax” the rich got repealed (no one I know is wealthy enough to leave children the gross amount of money) needs to be re-thought unless you like aristocracy !
We need to get rid of the Sinemas who oppose the ending of the carried interest loophole. Our system is gamed. Built in blockages keep us from voting and getting what is fair and needed. Look at the drilling rights for fossil fuel in our waters and Alaska! (thamks a lot Joe Manchin!) The industry even gets to set the rules for environmental protection of this drilling.! Crazy!
Cruz would never have been admitted to Princeton when I was a kid. Public school. Couldn't get s fatherrship. No evidence he could block or tackle.
Most probably, he got a diversity bounce.
Lots of people come from public schools who go to elite colleges. I really think Cruz was probably hugely successful in high school. He’s clearly intelligent, just a total asshole who has no problem lying.
Diversity is a recent phenomenon at Ivy league colleges. Analyzing, Ivy colleges have recently been caught discriminating in favor of legacies and against Asians. https://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-discrimination-affirmative-action-racial-preferences-colleges-11640121699
If the family has contributed, that is the main factor.
I live in Baghdad By the Sea where a high percentage get a bump on diversity. The statutes of limitations has run but many kids with lower scores who can say, play sports a and are fluent in a second language get preference.
I know kids from my hometown with SATs in the 1500s who were rejected by Harvard. I knew kids who could block and tackle in the 1200s who were recruited.
As for Cruz, Princeton was the snootiest school prior to affirmative action.
Ok, yes. I went to private school in the DC area. One of my friends with a low average and low scores and her own BMW got in Princeton because of her ethnicity. Well, people still discriminate on the basis of race alone. Why not solidify a presence of elite African-Americans or Indigenous or Latina people? Still, race has been abused as a category. However, I believe, alongside the New York Times’ columnist John McWhorter, that class should be the new diversity category and that would include people of color who really struggled as well as some whites. Many people (especially white people) in my fairly diverse (due to World Bank & IMF parents) but not adequately financially diverse all-girls private high school in the DC area expressed the view you have expressed about people unfairly getting in because of their race. I just think the unfairness could be worse than promoting a substantive minority presence in a good college. But Cruz—you can tell he’s smart. I’m just surmising get didn’t need the bump.
I believe the problem of universities failing to give students an appreciation for what Bloom called “the permanent concerns of mankind” has been undermining our democracy for a while now. I wrote an essay about it, “The Paradox of a University Education” for my students: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zS5JXq5fKwoXywgOnAKNntn-NBtYHV-zAYwpKw7IMPc/edit
Superior essay .. brings points home well. I might like to use it with my English students (with your permission, of course).
Please feel free. The Paradox Project directions are to write an Abstract (half page), a Personal Essay (on student experience of writing the essay) (two pages), and a five page Paradox Essay. I often create Paradox Topics for the courses I teach: Foundations of Civilizations, Classic Greek Civilization, Roman Civilization, Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Critical Thinking, & Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Please contact me if you can use these resources. mtufano@antioch.edu Always happy to share.
Heart!
Thank you for that wonderful essay, which I read. I always thought Antioch College would have been my first choice and I think now that I was right. Life interrupts many choices. Great essay and on point observation on philosophy. You are a treasure. Keep teaching .
Thank you so much. My course meets August 30th. I'll send an email soon.
For most legacies once in school. "gentlemen C's" are available.
To get in is another matter. When I was a kid, they only took students from public school who could block and tackle. I was told to get in I would have to take an extra year at prep school.
By the time Cruz and Hawley came around, they recruited on geography and diversity.
Bloom would have been subjected on admission to a quota and rejected on his arrogance.
The issue most clear in Bloom’s evaluation of university admins of the Sixties was his awareness that their coddling students with the power to write “student evaluations” of teachers (which are universal now) would make it impossible for teachers to use the Socratic Method because it makes the receiver extremely uncomfortable; as, indeed, discovering one’s own vanities in any venue HURTS. Indeed, one of the reasons for the strong reaction to his analysis of the university was that it revealed admin vanities (!). The project of helping students to think independently is a dangerous one; can’t have that kind of thing going on, why, we might lose money! …Note that Socrates was treated pretty viciously.
Absolutely!
Excellent essay. The problem Bloom speaks of, politics changing how and what is taught continues to get worse. We are actually banning books again. In many conservative circles, ignorance has come to be revered. Did you ever have a discussion with an ignorant person? Because they know nothing, they believe they know everything.
My uneducated grandparents had respect for knowledge and people who had knowledge. Today, knowledge is often looked down upon and called elite.
The conservatives, led by monied people like the Kochs, are becoming more and more powerful in education. The last thing they want is people thinking for themselves. They mask much of what they want behind religion. What is better for them than to have people believing that it's not this life that's important. It's the next life where they will be kings. God gives and when people have more, like the rich, they are god's chosen so you shouldn't criticize them.
I have a faith tradition going back generations of Jesuits (Georgetown University) and what those who are educated in Scripture know is that the most repeated word in the New Testament is “metanoia” (Greek) for “change your mind.” The anti-intellectual forces in society have always been there, even and especially in the early Christian church: Jefferson knew this was NOT Christ’s message, and he wrote about it in a letter to John Adams in 1813 (to summarize TJ’s idea: that barely had the Christian story started, did worldly powers take over and reduce the message to something that could (a) make money (want to buy an indulgence?) and (b) control the uneducated masses.) Jefferson even had a “Bible” made for himself that just took Christ’s words and left out all other commentary. What we are facing is a perennial conflict of holding on to “truth” while some dark force (call it evil, or call it lust for power) seems to be ever ready to sucker punch people who are craving some kind of faith, but want “faith light”—-none of this actually having to love one’s neighbors or love enemies. Bonhoeffer talks about this, so does Kierkegaard. K. would call today’s Christians, pagan Christians because they want to “back to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment”—-whereas for actual believers, the whole point is that Jesus is alive in whoever is the least among us right now. Our goal as Christians is to do the work of love; none of which requires hierarchies, church buildings, tithes, or any of that paraphernalia. Certainly does not require a Bible signed by TFG!
You mention Bonhoeffer so I'm sure you are familiar with his letters from prison. Here's an excerpt from one on stupidity:
“In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
“If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.
“The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.
“Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Wow, I seem to have hit a group of people who have read the same books I admire! I feel grateful for your sharing this quotation from Bonhoeffer and wish I had had it when I wrote this essay in 2019. I normally would not share so much of my writing, but I never got this published even though I think it is probably one of my best essays. (Ignore the blue links at the top, they are Google Doc links because it is a long essay so hard to find one's way back to a particular spot.) The Fungus that is Trump by Meg Tufano, M.A. https://docs.google.com/document/d/13NMnttnjNwROa-YHBpuRqepG02JFM4t1z31zKy7Vilk/edit?usp=sharing
I really liked the essay. I'd have to think about it and reread it because there was so much packed in there. I understand why you wished you had Bonhoeffer's quote. Your essay explains a lot about evil and why people act the way they do. Bonhoeffer's explains the people who are the followers. I see how evil isn't deep and our thoughts within ourselves and with others have to go deeper in order to counteract it. It really made me think. Since I'm an atheist, I don't agree with the original sin concept.
William Cash ; There is also the fact that the very wealthy are kind of dumb. They paid for their degrees and can't see beyond the end of their nose, and they don't think they should Have to! They are rich! The really smart money would have a philosophy that if the planet is in peril and there is no place else to live, we better start solving our problem and change course towards climate solutions! A smart patient who needs health care is not going to ignore their doctor just because she is educated, and therefore 'elite'!
Thank you for sharing your work. I just read your essay and admire your thinking. Researching more about Bloom, I found it curious that his work was so poorly received by some of the thinkers of his day -- perhaps this was due to prejudice? While I have not read Bloom, your essay has inspired me to want to know more. I have always respected Noam Chomsky - and his critique of Bloom's work was rather blistering. Regardless of how others felt about his work, I think that Bloom opened up an important discussion in the world of academia - and one which, apparently, we still struggle with today. What is the foundation of a university education? Is the ultimate purpose purely economic -- or must there be a greater good to the society at large?
I responded above (the threads seem out of order but maybe I do not understand how to use this).
Meg Tufano ; Thank you for sharing “The Paradox of a University Education”. I never realized that Philosophy was so important, and why anyone would want to study it. Truly it is like a vestigial appendage, One that would allow the person who attained a PHD to simply teach ; as if that was not enough. The emphasis today is on getting a Job skill , so that one can market themself and 'earn a living'. There is increasing pressure on Colleges to have programs that are 'worth it', as in leading to successful employment opportunities. Probably why we are in so much trouble today.
Cool point on philosophy, I haven’t read much of your attachment yet. I actually think Logic in particular should be taught in high school. But other philosophy too, moral and epistemological/metaphysical.
They feel it's to their advantage to act stupid. I am being charitable here.
They’re not acting.
Truth! I worked at an Antique shop for awhile and one of these people came in and bought a 5k painting which I had to tie in his trunk. Awhile after he came back all pissed off because there was a string tied to his trunk lid. If he hadn't been such a snob to start with I would have spoke to him but... So I walked over and pulled on the string were I had set up to simply pull and off it comes! Needless he didn't even say thanks just drove off.
What a total twit
But they are pretending, a subtle difference that is well brought out by M. Scott Peck in his book, "The People of the Lie."
I was in a small community on the Oregon Coast for a wedding several years ago and I met a couple of locals who were accepted into Harvard as students. They were very enamored with themselves and felt entirely superior to everyone at the wedding. Of course, they did not know they were amongst a group of very high achievers who just barely tolerated their self-absorption and lack of social skills. I thought of taking them to a local bar but I became convinced that they would be beaten to death by the locals for their arrogance and stupidity. I asked the General and one of the Senators for the state if I should take them to the local bar and they said that discretion would probably be the better part of valor.
At Harvard, they were probably snubbed as public school riffraff.
I was very lucky to attend 8 years of graduate school at Yale University. I took full advantage
of copious resources and access to brilliance to learn more, including in exploring moral and ethical inspiration. While there I learned of a high population of Yale students living with the condition "imposter syndrome", the belief you are not actually qualified to own the status you have, always questioning self, and consequently working harder to earn the privilege. It is not uncommon for Yale students to be humble about where they went to school. In my experience, it has been family, acquaintances, and colleagues who brag about my academic achievements, not me. I have no doubt that monsters graduate from that institution, the laws of biology expect anomalies. I saw cheaters and slackers while there, but they were not the majority. I think the majority of the thousands of undergrads and graduate students who commence forth from New Haven do strive to be of good service to society, the author of this blog is just one example - with exceptional excellence in public service. His law class, with the acceptation of Clarence Thomas, was a remarkable collection of people committed to improving social conditions. The bad apples are certainly disappointments, wasted academic resources, and ultimately dangers to democracy. But they are not all of us.
Yup
I think the first question is “what did they learn at home?” By the time these “leaders” entered university they had at least seventeen years at home, school and community to learn skills that foster integrity, empathy and compassion. And common sense. They are on their own when they move into their university housing. No parents or teachers to look out for them. They rely on past lessons and opportunities. Their foundation. They may stumble and fall. Or grow up. Now the influences of even the most prestigious and expensive school will build on those life lessons from home and community. Obviously there’s some serious questions about these mostly repubs. Does their political party encourage and accept lying, cheating and corruption?
Power currupts, as does the pursiut of it.
As Princeton class of ‘75 I agree wholeheartedly with you. All the people you mentioned must have majored in arrogance and overconfidence.
Agree. Humility seems to have been in rather short supply.
I graduated from Yale & am so grateful that I had the wisdom to follow William Sloan Coffin & not William F. Buckley.
I did not graduate from Yale, so I was not put in a position of choosing between Mr. Coffin or Mr. Buckley.
You still may choose.