Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Nordic countries are capitalist
It's not so simple. In fact they are partially capitalist but mostly socialist - the majority of their wealth (>70% if you exclude housing) is publicly/socially owned.
What Oxford taught me about posh people
241–250 of 383 posts
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#242I went to a state school and state sixth form, and my experience definitely deviates from that presented in the article and some other comments here. I think the part of the article which focuses on more personalised teaching rings the most true for me. There may be differences due to the subject, level, or college. I did a one-year masters in STEM in a very international graduate Oxford college. But the vast majorit…
Rebanks (author of this article) studied History, which I imagine has quite a different mix of people than e.g. engineering or one of the sciences.
I can't find out the college he attended, but I agree that college choice really can impact who you meet and the general "vibe".
My experience at Cambridge (similar path to you, Alex) is also at odds with this article.
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#243As someone who was also raised in the North of England, went to a state school, and also ended up going to Oxford, this article is spot on. It took me a while to realise that the state educated people were often the more talented ones (they've not had anything handed to them on a plate), and our lack of poshness was actually something to be proud of - not something to feel inferior about!
Also comp educated and went to Oxford. I feel like in the last 5 years or so it's become "uncool" to be posh. Feel like this has been instigated by (in the West) Brexit and Trump bringing the Establishment down a notch.
> Brexit and Trump bringing the Establishment down a notch.
What does this mean? You don't get anything more Establishment than the teflon-coated career of Boris Johnson (MA Oxon, II.1)
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#244 Like father, not like son in https://archive.is/YIjwk
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds rather defeatist. Is it impossible to make work, life, or social structure more fair? I doubt you think that.
Do you really want life to be more fair, though? I think, across the board, people actually want mercy and grace. They’re not interested in fairness, they’re interested in help. When they make mistakes, they want to be lifted up and forgiven. When they fall on hardship, even if their own making, they hope for help to recover.
Isn't that a type of fairness?
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't want to improve my own life at the expense of others. That is not what freedom is about. Your comment implies that freedom is a zero-sum system. It most assuredly is not. Under freedom, you (selfishly) prosper by creating value that other people want to give you money for. Stealing is zero-sum, this is not stealing. (Wealth transfer programs are inherently zero-sum, and are unfair.)
> Under freedom You're confusing freedom with capitalism. Understandable, since we need to spend 40+ hours a week to earn our "right" to shelter, survival and general health. In other words: the right to exist and participate. That doesn't make us free - it makes us beholden to an employer if on the payroll, the market if self employed and the greater economic system in both cases. If we were truly free, we would onl…
> it makes us beholden to an employer
Oh phooey. I've been an employer and employee many times. At no time was I "beholden" to my employer, and at no time were my employees "beholden" to me. It was a simple transaction - trading labor for money. Either party could (and sometimes did) walk away at any time for any reason they pleased.
I've even been fired more than once. Didn't matter, I just got another job. No employee ever genuflected to me, either.
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#247I expected Oxford undergraduates to be the best from all over the world, intensely passionate about their subjects. What I found were kids more passionate about drinking and clubbing and gossiping than studying. There seemed to be some weird hierarchy about who sits where in the dining hall that was completely bizarre. 'Default' social activities organized by the various committees all involved brain-dead clubbing an…
The noisy ones are the ones making the most noise. You might not have noticed the studious ones, as they were hiding away in their rooms :-) You even say that you didn't see your fellow CS students much.
On a more serious note, it comes back to what are top universities for? Excellent learning - you said that the tutorials, lectures and practicals were good to great, and I can assure you this is not true of all universities. But also: Building up a network. Gaining credentials. Learning those subtle cues that will allow you to mix with the elite.
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds rather defeatist. Is it impossible to make work, life, or social structure more fair? I doubt you think that.
Now that you mention it, the USSR did make many things more fair. They did it by hammering everyone down to the bottom.
The USSR just replaced some inequalities with others. For instance there were lots of status-based perks, currencies and even exclusive stores. See for instance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_(favors) and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryozka_(Russian_retail_sto....
The meme about Soviet equality is pretty misleading. Their particular brand of autocracy increased inequality if anything, just expressed in different ways.
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#249I expected Oxford undergraduates to be the best from all over the world, intensely passionate about their subjects. What I found were kids more passionate about drinking and clubbing and gossiping than studying. There seemed to be some weird hierarchy about who sits where in the dining hall that was completely bizarre. 'Default' social activities organized by the various committees all involved brain-dead clubbing an…
Seems like the school culture can shape behavior and varies a lot. At my undergraduate college, my fellow math undergraduates* conformed to the stereotype of focusing on academics. Other activities like sports, games, and anime were considered less-serious, and someone who spent too much time socializing was frivolous. A student won more respect from peers by being capable in class than by being good at Smash Bros in the lounge, and they attempted to portray, whether true or not, the image of being hardworking and studious.
At my graduate institution, the undergraduate attitude was quite different; socializing was important, learning the minimal amount was efficient, and cheating was socially accepted (by peers, not necessarily the profs).
I was shocked at the difference in academic achievement this caused. The tests at the second institution were far easier, yet people were failing them. This was a difference between scoring 80% on nontrivial proofs, vs scoring 60% on one-step theorem applications. I don't think the incoming freshmen were vastly inferior. Rather, the culture at the first institution forced students to apply themselves through peer pressure, because that's what they perceived everyone else to be doing, and also what was valued. My advisor at the second institution seemed quite pessimistic about changing its culture, and viewed the first institution as a rare exception that would not be emulatable. He did agree on the extent of the difference.
From the prof perspective, this is all irrelevant because it's quite rare for a school to develop a good culture, so it's not the experienced reality for most profs. Asking to become faculty at a top institution where the undergraduates also all care about academics is like wishing for unicorns.
* Some selection bias here: I took grad classes, so these were the only math majors I had exposure to. Although, these were the only classes available because the school was small, so I'm not sure what an undergraduate could take if he didn't want to take grad classes.
Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the US isn't a good example of a country where people have a fair chance at success in life IMO.
The US raised scores of millions of immigrants from poverty to the middle class. Poor people immigrated to the US, people with nothing but a suitcase. The US has seen the most spectacular rise from poverty to wealth ever seen in history. In WW1, for example, the German soldiers knew they had lost when the Americans arrived, well equipped, tall, and fat with food. The Japanese soldiers had a similar reaction when faci…
The US raised scores of millions of immigrants from poverty to the middle class. Poor people immigrated to the US, people with nothing but a suitcase. The US has seen the most spectacular rise from poverty to wealth ever seen in history.
You won't get very far turning up to the US with nothing but a suitcase today. If you don't have significant assets or a confirmed job offer you'll be turned around and sent back to where you came from, and sometimes that'll happen even if you do have those things. Holding on to an outdated view of what America is like is ... unhelpful.