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How the Ivy League Broke America

theatlantic.com

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Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#61

Post by klabb3 »

sapphicsnail wrote: post #14

It's very strange to read an article complaining about the homogenization of the cultural elite that name drops the university of every author of a book/article that supports his opinion. David Brooks himself is part of the very same cultural elite that he's complaining about. If someone really wanted to bring about a culture with leaders drawn from different economic strata the first step should be addressing people…

> David Brooks himself is part of the very same cultural elite that he's complaining about.

Thats a strengthening of the argument, not weakening. Imagine the opposite: “he hasn’t gone there, he doesn’t understand, he’s just jealous”

> For all his faults, and least Trump is willing to lie to his base

Again, that’s a weakening of the standpoint. It’s completely backwards rationalization.

> People voted for Trump because neither side is willing to do anything to actually help people. That's why people don't trust institutions or "the establishment."

This is so much in the article that it’s arguably the entire point of it. You’re basically agreeing with it, but in a contorted contrarian way.

> It's also hard to take risks or cultivate different skills when you're saddled with college debt you can't get rid if, and when healthcare and rent are taking up a large chunk of your income.

Right, but you can only get so far with a solution that amounts to getting more kids into schools that brag about how few kids they accept. There have to be more avenues and less inbreeding/nepotism/favoritism based on brand names.

At the heart of academic movement of inclusivity sits the most entrenched and extreme form of exclusivity. This is a problem worthy of its own attention, without bringing in socioeconomic everythingism. The fact that you have tons of smart and ambitious kids coming out of non-brand-name schools unable to get their resumes looked at is a disgrace and a failure. It’s demoralizing as hell.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#62

Post by nickd2001 »

watwut wrote: post #33
leovingi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it gives the kids the impression that school is super important >We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school. Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn'…

It 100% makes sense for a parent to not want their own kid to be the "poor but capable kid" who stayed in "the wrong school". Especially since the kid who was in "the wrong school" will be blamed for "being lazy" or "less capable" when they don't perform as well as equally capable and hardworking peers in the "right school".

To play devil's advocate, is a high stress, pressured, test obsessed selective school, populated by entitled kids with pushy parents, "the right school" for the poor-but-capable-kid..... ;). Will they make friends there and be happy and still want to read for pleasure and be curious about the world outside school? (OK , to be fair you might not want them to go school in a very rough area with drugs and other crime, either)

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#63

Post by _1tem »

gadders wrote: post #55
_1tem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the very idea of having standardized evaluations needs to be questioned. Anything that can be measured will be gamed. Nothing “repeatable” can capture the whole value of a human being.

The aim is not to measure the value of an individual, though. A garbage collector is just as valuable as a human being as a brain surgeon. This is about finding a way to identify people who will benefit from the best education

If it was just about identifying people for education, sure. But Ivy League colleges have become a gateway for all powerful institutions and posts in society, it’s not strictly about the education.

The garbage collector might be a better president than the brain surgeon due to traits orthogonal to intelligence.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#64

Post by swed420 »

IceHegel wrote: post #44

The idea of building new institutions is basically right. You can’t fix Harvard. But can you really build new institutions without a new civilization? The point of Harvard is the golden ticket to the upper class. The upper class now sucks (imo), so you can’t just have a better school with the same function.

Agreed.

> But can you really build new institutions without a new civilization?

If enough people replace the pet idpol/culture war issue obsessions, which were designed to keep us divided and distracted from root class issues, instead with a unified vision of what benefits the ordinary person, then there is hope for diverging from this hellscape trajectory.

Here's a starting point with some ideas:

https://jacobin.com/2019/03/sam-gindin-socialist-planning-mo...

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#65

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

I'm really sympathetic to the impulse that led to this article, but I think it's missing something central: The structure of the economy.

The word "inequality" ("inequalities", actually) appears only twice, in one short paragraph, and it's to unfocus the emphasis, away from just wealth, to also include respect.

Then the article, which bemoans an overemphasis on IQ and on the individual, suggests a variety of alternative measures by which we can determine which individuals get a slice of the decaying pie. There's something self-contradictory about this.

We are witnessing a terrible arms race all throughout society, so that a smaller and smaller number of people can have a larger and larger share of desirable things. We're fighting over who gets to extract value. Meanwhile, so much else is left to be undesirable. To be truly a bit shit. The largest firms are getting larger and larger, and you have to get into them if you want to get anywhere. Inequality between firms is way up. A handful of East India Companies is conquering all.

This "Tiger Mom" phenomenon is just the prisoner's best-response to the situation.

The solution has to be a more broad-based cultural and material plenty. We have to have enough to go around, and we have to have nice things. People wouldn't be gouging each others' eyes out if they didn't think their peers were just competitors for scarce resources.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#66

Post by gadders »

_1tem wrote: post #63
gadders wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aim is not to measure the value of an individual, though. A garbage collector is just as valuable as a human being as a brain surgeon. This is about finding a way to identify people who will benefit from the best education

If it was just about identifying people for education, sure. But Ivy League colleges have become a gateway for all powerful institutions and posts in society, it’s not strictly about the education. The garbage collector might be a better president than the brain surgeon due to traits orthogonal to intelligence.

>>The garbage collector might be a better president than the brain surgeon due to traits orthogonal to intelligence.

Yes, I agree with that point.

I guess the linkage to break then would be between Ivy League Schools and powerful institutions.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#67

Post by onetokeoverthe »

keiferski wrote: post #45
onetokeoverthe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ivy UPENN and YALE, for the incoming pres/vp pairing. And vp's wife is also Yale. Just like the D pres husband wife team in the 90s. Bushes, Yale. Obama, Columbia/Harvard.

This lines up with the idea of how great social change tends to be merely one group of elites splintering off from another and co-opting social movements, and not actual bottom-up democratic action.

Yes, like the aptly named Big Game. Go Bears. or Cardinals.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#68

Post by harvardTest1 »

Throwaway here with a side question:

Turns out, we have money. My spouse's side did very well. We should have about 55M by time our kids get to college.

As long as my kids don't do something stupid, the money will outgrow them. Like, they have 'made it', by all my definitions, at least.

So, my question: Do I bother with this rat race for my kids? I was part of it, I hated it, but it did turn out well enough for me (minus marrying well). We have access now to the best tutors and can more than afford great schools and programs and the like. Not a worry at all now. So, do I bother to do it?

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#69

Post by anon291 »

leovingi wrote: post #29
lordnacho wrote: post #26

Long essay, but I agree with a lot of what's said. I think a lot of quality time is wasted due to the rat race starting in early childhood. I live in a bit of a bubble in the commuter belt around London (ie not the US), but I observe some of the same obsessions here as well. In particular, I started to notice that my kid's friends suddenly had a lot less time for playdates in the year or two leading up to the 11-plus…

>it gives the kids the impression that school is super important >We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school. Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn'…

School is important if you want to join the ranks of the 'elite'. It is not important to live a good life.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#70

Post by anon291 »

Woeps wrote: post #43
lordnacho wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sad about it is that it's a lawyer. Now I don't mean to poop on lawyers, but the kind of recruiter we are talking about sells a very specific narrative of success, which is that if you're a top kid in school, your natural path is law/consulting/finance. I went to a famous institution, and there were loads of kids who bought into this. If you don't know quite what you want to do, it is very easy to fall into th…

It's the same here in the Netherlands, I didn't go to a elite school but I am from a place where most people do. And it's just bonkers to me this rat-race that they have been placed in because that's the only way to "happiness"/success ... Also question, is consulting considered an elite job? My impression is that even consulting for the big 4* is nothing special. * are they they same everywhere? : Deloitte, EY, KPMG…

> Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC

The sad thing is that no one's heard of the actual prestigious ones: Bain, McKinsey, and BCG. I sure hadn't when I joined Bain & Co, but all the rich kids were doing it.

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