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The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

palladiummag.com

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Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#71

Post by frankc »

tossAfterUsing wrote: post #62
inflatableDodo wrote: post #17

You should see what happens when these people leave university and continue the charade in a variety of broken down diesels. A lot of the worst behaviour I have ever seen by people in travelling communities has been from the expensively educated children of the exceedingly rich, pretending to be gypsies.

the woke-est girl i ever met was from the ivy league, the daughter of state department parents. she'd been 'traveling' for a year, and just returned to the bay area... to sleep on a filthy couch in the warehouse where i was living with a handful of other folks. except for the dreadlocks, filth, and b.o., she was as white as the driven snow. she lectured me for 40 minutes. when i told her i was raised by a single moth…

It's like the Pulp song Common People. The moral is that you will never have the same experience as common people because you dont have the same existential dread.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#72

Post by gaze »

DavidVoid wrote: post #10
tengbretson wrote: post #4

Good grief, get to the point!

I think these paragraphs from the "Abandoning The Ship of State" section summarize it fairly well. There is a deep comedy to this sort of signaling. Only around 2% of the student body was in the bottom 20% of American society, and yet extremely wealthy Singaporean students who had spent just a few years in America marched in the street and referred to themselves as “people of color.” People’s experiences were ignored…

Here's at least part of where things fall apart... "What you have is a blind and self-righteous upper class that becomes structurally unable to take coordinated responsibility."

The rich have never "taken responsibility." The rich are rich mostly due to exploitative practices. Yes, the rich cosplay as poor to shirk that responsibility.

The author wants a return to some time when Yale made good elites that lead properly... but the elites have never lead in a "good way." It's all just business as usual.

I haven't fully dissected this all. The author has written for the weekly standard. In particular, articles praising Jordan Peterson. That should clue you into their views.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#73

Post by danenania »

rossdavidh wrote: post #50
nyxxie wrote: post #48

I think the author is ascribing too much intent to a simple economy of shame that’s omnipresent in all classes; if people find out you have more than they do, they hate you. The author herself appears to be biased by this. She believes that the “rich elites” have a great burden of responsibility towards the world, which she justifies with shaky zero sum logic that suggests that because they have more, they necessaril…

Well, by that logic, it should always have been this way. And yet, conspicuous consumption by the children of the ruling class, is not an historically unusual event. Pretending you're poor when you're very rich, while perhaps not unprecedented, is at least not the norm. So I think an explanation is called for, and hers is at the very least quite plausible. Whatever the reason, it would have to be something that is no…

I think it’s still a form of status-signalling. It’s like how the ‘old money’ rich turn up their noses at the ‘new rich’ because they’re too gaudy and obvious in how they display wealth. Even if you can make more money than any of the old rich, you can never obtain the level of social capital and political power that being in the club gets you just by making tons of money—you need to be granted access by existing members who will carefully scrutinize your behavior and ideology before deciding you’re one of them.

But that doesn’t mean that the old money folks aren’t showing off their wealth and power—they just do so in coded ways. What the article describes is basically the same thing.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#74

Post by radford-neal »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #70
jatmataz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the rich parents aren't injecting a huge cash flow, that student still has the safety net to fall back on.

I came from a rich family. My parents let me flounder on my own in college. Never gave me a dime and I had earn everything I ever had. When I was 25 and my GF got pregnant, my parents said, “Well, you’re a responsible adult, you’ll figure it out.” For me? There was no safety net. A year on food stamps, paying child support, working three jobs and being clinically depressed was me “figuring it out.” At no time did the…

Sad to say, you have assholes for parents. Sure, I can see them reasonably thinking that making you support yourself in college was a fine idea. But providing no support that would benefit their own infant grandchild? No.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#75

Post by wwweston »

wisty wrote: post #29
DenisM wrote: post #11

The articles contends the rich kids at Yale pretend to be poor to shirk the elite responsibilities, which then leads to deterioration of the elites. I find it doubtful that the kids have thought it through that far. A couple of more likely explanations come to mind: - Rebellious teenagers always want to establish independence from their parents. Giving up part of the money takes you part of the way there. - It's hard…

The article does seem to get there eventually: > The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions? I don't think it's just…

This is an interesting thesis: social media and other c2c content exchanges have partially democratized social capital.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#77

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

nyxxie wrote: post #48

I think the author is ascribing too much intent to a simple economy of shame that’s omnipresent in all classes; if people find out you have more than they do, they hate you. The author herself appears to be biased by this. She believes that the “rich elites” have a great burden of responsibility towards the world, which she justifies with shaky zero sum logic that suggests that because they have more, they necessaril…

> She believes that the “rich elites” have a great burden of responsibility towards the world, which she justifies with shaky zero sum logic...

"Noblesse oblige"? "With great power comes great responsibility"†? "To whom much has been given, much is expected"? The belief that the wealthy and powerful have a duty to use that power to improve the welfare of the society in which they live has been around for a long, long time. Characterizing it as "jealousy" is unfounded.

† A phrase that I today learned existed long before Stan Lee's popularization of it; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_great_power_comes_great_r...

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#78

Post by nyxxie »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #66
Invictus0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game was and has never been fair. The parent is merely arguing that you should blame the game, and not the players.

You can blame the players for not helping other players, and not wanting infrastructure that takes excess resources from the winners to help all players.

> You can blame the players for not helping other players

Assume we did, what is the correct amount of help that the successful players should help the unsuccessful ones? Unless it's codified into the game itself (being made to pay more taxes based on wealth for example), it's unfair to expect arbitrary players to pay some undefined price to the satisfaction of another arbitrary set of players.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#79

Post by jayd16 »

nyxxie wrote: post #63
joe_the_user wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to college in the Bay Area and to a small private college with significant portion of very wealthy. Some in the private college concealed their wealth, some didn't. The thing is, most middle or above folks with an once of sophistication can sense the trust fund kid a mile away - most working class can sense something too, just maybe don't know the middle-class from the trust funders. I'm shocked the author was…

> the situation makes your point about "they have to conceal it to be treated as human" ring totally false They can smell it sure, but their reaction is proportional to some product of distance between their socioeconomic positions and how much shame the other party signals. Pretending to be poor is demonstrating shame of one's higher position. In your case, this seems to have been enough to placate their less privil…

Calloquially this is known as humility.

Re: The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech

#80

Post by porknubbins »

wisty wrote: post #29
DenisM wrote: post #11

The articles contends the rich kids at Yale pretend to be poor to shirk the elite responsibilities, which then leads to deterioration of the elites. I find it doubtful that the kids have thought it through that far. A couple of more likely explanations come to mind: - Rebellious teenagers always want to establish independence from their parents. Giving up part of the money takes you part of the way there. - It's hard…

The article does seem to get there eventually: > The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions? I don't think it's just…

The article didn’t really consider what I think is the most likely explanation- like you said, these kind of “elites” don’t really have the kind of power or influence they once did. They aren’t just faking humility rather they are somehow accurately perceiving that in the current order power is held by some mix of corporations, special interests, big tech companies, and (left or right) populist movements, but probably not by individual rich kids with prestige and connections. I tend to think its for the worse but am probably too conservative.
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