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How the Ivy League Broke America

theatlantic.com

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Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#81

Post by 082349872349872 »

Hilift wrote: post #28

Something missing is deindustrialization following WW2. The US northeast (where "Ivy League" schools are located) shifted a huge amount of industry to other parts of the country, where factories had been established during the war. A few years later, the south had more electoral votes than the northeast and midwest. The votes determine leaders, not educational institutions. Look at the electoral votes from 1956: NY:…

Tangentially, I know someone who used to sell textile machinery to new factories in the southern states, which left the old northern factories vacant, which yielded cheap space near Boston in which to expand for a fresh startup called DEC.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#82

Post by DiscourseFan »

ctchocula wrote: post #58
anon291 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the one you responded to, but the guy above him. I would say a few things: 1. Less social anxiety / confidence -- simply realizing that the worst thing that happens is you fail. It does help to have daddy's money for this though. 2. More calculating -- One trait I absolutely noticed in all these people was that they had planned out their entire life. This did not mean the plan always happened as expected, but the…

Reminds me of "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people".

A quote discussing the behavior of people?

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#83

Post by tonyedgecombe »

leovingi wrote: post #59
lordnacho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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't matter anyway which school the other children end up in. Trying to get a less academic kid into grammar school isn't going to he…

Thank you for the clarification. Difficult to argue about this without the context, but even with it, there are so many unique and specific cases that it can essentially be brought down to the individual level. Some children can be pushed way too hard, some can be pushed not enough and certainly some parents can take their own personal ambitions way too far, as it sounds like in the case you are describing. Unfortuna…

Finland maybe? My understanding is they don’t have private schools.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#84

Post by ta12653421 »

ctchocula wrote: post #58
anon291 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the one you responded to, but the guy above him. I would say a few things: 1. Less social anxiety / confidence -- simply realizing that the worst thing that happens is you fail. It does help to have daddy's money for this though. 2. More calculating -- One trait I absolutely noticed in all these people was that they had planned out their entire life. This did not mean the plan always happened as expected, but the…

Reminds me of "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people".

++1

I have read this on Quora 10 years ago, esp. when i was in a highly divese neighborhood, like: Poor people, doing-well-people, refugees, unemployed, but also academics and wealthy. So i could jump segments very often in a week, and this saying turns out to be absolutely right, in my perception. Since then, i'm looking/hearing very thoroughly when being in a group situation.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#85

Post by watwut »

nickd2001 wrote: post #62
watwut wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

Then it is wrong school. But the other issue is that you are strongly drawing here on the stereotypes - that this school will be test obsesed, kids in it will be bad entitled kids and you cant make friends with them.

Kids in real world selective schools do form relationships, are curious, interact and like the world outside. Some selective schools are like you describe ... but others are not and kids in them are happy.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#86

Post by AlexCornila »

lordnacho wrote: post #48
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'…

> 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't matter anyway which school the other children end up in. Trying to get a less academic kid into grammar school isn't going to he…

exactly, please see the “The Tyranny of metrics” book. We are all subjected to the same system of management; kids in schools, parents at work.

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#87

Post by matrix87 »

anon291 wrote: post #12

> And yet it’s not obvious that we have produced either a better leadership class or a healthier relationship between our society and its elites Part of the problem is as follows and I see it so often in politics. We have an excellent technocratic leadership class. But being a technocratic leader does not make you a great leader of people, and frankly -- given the way many technocratic fields in the humanities are ta…

> It's not a surprise to me that the Kennedy family, being Catholic, the exact opposite of Buddhism in that sense, was always seen as particularly charismatic and alluring amongst political dynasties

I don't think the "technocrats" (or whatever they're called, "materialistic liberals", yada yada) are drawn to Buddhism and stoicism because of their actual content. Platonism is an extreme form of a detachment style philosophy. Platonism and Christianity are brother and sister

If I had to guess, they choose Buddhism et al because it fills a similar hole that Christianity filled, but it doesn't put them on the same dirty level that the masses are on

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#88

Post by insane_dreamer »

harvardTest1 wrote: post #68

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 (m…

> Do I bother with this rat race for my kids?

No. Raise your kids to find what it is that they want to do without the shackles of it having to be something that will also bring in a lot of money (it might, it might not). They can look at college as a means to get educated rather than as job prep. They have the freedom to discover what it is that makes them happy or in what ways they want to contribute to society and a better world for their children.

Lots of money doesn't buy happiness, but in today's world having enough money to free your kids from that pressure, is a gift.

The problem though that many people with that money don't use it to relieve pressure on their kids but rather to increase the pressure. "I got into Harvard, and your neighbor's getting into Harvard, so you have to get into Harvard too."

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#89

Post by matrix87 »

I guess because he has some school from the northeast on his resume, he can write this far too long, hand-wringing blog post where he hyperfocuses on the value of his own credentials

This is the problem with the Atlantic: the authors haven't touched grass in a long time and it really shows

Re: How the Ivy League Broke America

#90

Post by riehwvfbk »

watwut wrote: post #85
nickd2001 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

Then it is wrong school. But the other issue is that you are strongly drawing here on the stereotypes - that this school will be test obsesed, kids in it will be bad entitled kids and you cant make friends with them. Kids in real world selective schools do form relationships, are curious, interact and like the world outside. Some selective schools are like you describe ... but others are not and kids in them are happ…

The type-A kids are friends with type-A kids, yes. Everyone else is ostracized. That's what gives rise to stories of "entitled, can't be friends with them".
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