2) The Ivy League (along with the university system as a whole) is an important part of it.
If you accept these two things, and you're anything like me, this makes you angry. Ironically, if you asked someone who attends an Ivy, they'd probably tell you they're in favor of a classless society.
I'm not sure that most people you ask at Harvard would favor a "classless society". A distressingly large percentage of them want to go join a financial consulting firm or hedge fund and make as much money as they can right out of school.
Why is this distressing?
Few people really want a true "classless society". I'd assume that few of the founders on HN plan on donating 100% of all income they earn above the median level.
Oh, I absolutely agree. But ask them directly and quite a few of them will still tell you, with a straight face, that they want a classless society.
Sure, you get more private school kids and people from rich backgrounds, but it's not nearly as unbalanced as the scenario you paint.
On top of that, even if there was low economic mobility, that doesn't necessarily mean we aren't living in a meritocracy. A huge part of intellect is determined by genetics, and a huge part of wealth is determined by intellect. Simply put, it makes sense that, on average, richer people would have smarter babies than poor people. There's also the fact that well educated parents tend to instill values in their children that extol education, hard work, etc.
> huge part of wealth is determined by intellect.
Ignoring the huge problems inherent in this idea of "intellect" as some quantifiable quality, this isn't close to true. Parent education and income is by far the biggest predictor of future success.
> richer people would have smarter babies than poor people.
Let's see your evidence, please.
Watch your own sense of entitlement; as a Harvard man yourself, you have all the usual reasons to appeal to genetics, meritocracy of intelligence, instilled values, etc. My suspicion is that you can't see all the obstacles that would be in your way, had you started from somewhere else.
Remember the quote in the article? "Grabbing what you can get isn’t any less wicked when you grab it with the power of your brains than with the power of your fists."
Those that work the system to their unfair advantage through mere cleverness are not necessarily to be admired. Intelligence is a long way short of the most admirable qualities in a man.
However, none of this means we don't live in a plutocracy.
Think about the people who exercise political power. Think of how so many people have made their money not through peaceful, economic activity, but through political activity, whether it takes the form of benefiting from direct subsidies, rent-seeking, central banking, corporatism, tax favoritism, licensing laws, or credentialism.
Hard as it is to accept, the word I chose was warranted.
I enjoy what I am doing with my own life. I am satisfied with me challenges and proud of my accomplishments.
Why should I begrudge the good fortune of others? The universe has blessed me abundantly.
I simply wasn't born with the personality needed for enjoying class-warfare rhetoric. I find it a big turn-off.
1) One group of people becomes enormously rich through some peaceful, economic means, while another group remains relatively poor.
2) One group of people uses oppressive political power to become rich, at the expense of another group, which remains poor.
My problem is with #2. If we were talking about #1, I'd be right there with you complaining about class warfare rhetoric.
Has there ever been a clear separation? No, not recently.
With regard to the school system in particular, I would suggest completely cutting off all government benefits - direct funding, indirect funding, accreditation approval, credentialist laws, licensing laws, everything. If only that were all it took. ;)
Before you downvote to disagree, he did ask!
1. You are the future leaders of America: I heard this frequently, and never understood the import, really. I get uncomfortable when too many people agree with me, let alone do what I say. Why would we all aspire to leadership? And where does that leave me, stranger to my own cohort?
2. The gap years between high school and college were great. I met a Stanford-cum-Oxford philosophy grad who had dropped out and was traveling the world. I had just had a few philosophy classes in senior year. So while he rolled the joints, I asked about Hume, and Popper, and Watts. Yes, I forgot most of the details.
3. Any decent university will have a few excellent professors somewhere, starving for good students. Be one! On account of my time off, I tested out of all the lower-level requirements and went directly into upper-level seminars with at most 10 other students but usually 2-3. I attended and presented at conferences as a sophomore. It was awesome. I already had a decent education from high school, but damn did it get better.
4. Many of my friends and family were quite concerned about my choice of colleges. A middling state school? I often felt the need to explain or justify myself, though in retrospect it would have been better just to talk about all the exciting things I'd been doing, rather than apologize for poor appearances.
[edited for style]
What made you stop going to the elite school?
Did you have any tricks to help you find those excellent professors?
What other exciting things?
But once I got there and compared notes with my prep school friends who were already in their junior year at various big name schools, I realized I had a good thing going and that transferring out wasn't so attractive after all. If I really needed a pedigree later on, I could acquire one in graduate school.
The long answer (?) is that while one half of my family is highly educated, the other half is comprised of tradesmen and small business owners with little formal education. I had a choice--I could have gone to Harvard, had that been my goal. I had all the prerequisites and could have traded on family connections if need be. I had the option, and I opted out. That's a lot easier than standing outside the gates and saying "I don't need this," even though they never would have let me in anyway. I am not that strong.
re: professors
It's much easier to find and get the attention of good professors when you are a big fish in a little pond. They will find you. Obscure departments are better than big name ones, but even a comp-sci department will have plenty to offer once you get past the hazing. At a no-name school, you trade duller classmates for better access to the faculty. There were a few good students at my university to be sure, but outside the upper level and graduate classes, the mediocrity was astounding. At least I didn't go in expecting big things! Elite schools can be really disappointing that way.
re: exciting things
This wasn't my route, but two years at a Jesuit monastery somewhere in Europe could be pretty exciting. You could learn Latin and the local language, work alongside the monks (?), and quiz them on their studies. Philology, the precursor to modern linguistics, is very interesting but has high barriers to entry (multiple classical languages). Fields like that are self-selective.
Italy has lots of small scale yet sophisticated manufacturing, so that would be an obvious direction were you so inclined. Lots of legal hurdles but it can be done. Take that back to college and you'd be in a class by yourself.
Leadership might not necessarily entail leading a group of people. Leadership as the way they use it seems to be more synonymous with excellence. There are so many areas of life and all of them are important. Even the cleaner down the street is a future leader for she can vote, she can chose our prime minister, she can grow children and educate them properly, etc. What they mean is that soon we will have their occupations and do with the world what we like and that thought is quite exciting.
I wish I knew of their existence, but nothing in my environment prepared me for being one of their students.
So of course these institutions are for an elite. Not everyone gets the same opportunities, because not everyone is even aware of those opportunities.
A sense of sadness suddenly shocks you when you realize it's too late for entering in the circle.
The article and the comments here are mostly American-biased. In fact, HN is many times very American-biased. There's nothing wrong about it, but please realise it.
The word MIT, Stanford and Ivy League are simply in your words Oxford and Cambridge. That's your issue.
That's nonsense. There are fantastic universities the world over: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/hybrid.asp?typeCode=24...
What kind of person (at 35 no less) still identifies so strongly with the school they attended as an 18 year old?
And to be wracked with guilt about it?
And to blame his schooling for his inability to speak to the plumber?
This is nothing short of neurotic.
Now, I didn't attend an elite prep school (quite the converse), nor did I remain in the academy after graduating (no loss for the academy, given my GPA...). So perhaps I received a subtherapeutic dose of whatever has saddled him with such despair. But I have no problem communicating with my fellow rural firefighters, a merry mix of garbagemen, carpenters, surveyors, innkeepers, pastors, snowplow repairmen, and the occasional stray programmer. I can take commands from an irrigation pipe salesman or a backhoe operator. They can do things I can't do, while I can do things they can't do; there is mutual respect. Occasionally they tease me for employing a sixty-four dollar word when a ninety-eight cent word would do, but we maintain communication, and we value our differences.
Certainly, my experience as as member of the pampered elite must have been very different from his. Am I the outlier, or is he?
That explains a lot. That is the land where pedigree is everything, especially so in the humanities.
No wonder the poor guy is so confused, enough time in the ivory tower and he actually started to believe the company line.
Not to bash on academia exclusively, I've seen the same thing from friends in the legal industry.
I think it applies to any industry where reputation and prestige is paramount.
People don't unlearn to relate to people in good Colleges, they just never knew in the first place.
Edited to add: LOTS (if not most) of people at 'elite' Colleges know how to relate to 'average' people.
At the end of sophomore year, the tutors at the college decide whether you belong there. Hubris is probably a strong reason for kicking out a student, though over two years humility is strengthened in most.
It tends to be at university when one meets honest-to-goodness exceptionally intelligent people that we first learn our own limitations.
College degrees today are titles of nobility, thanks to state support. Yeah, I thought we abolished those, too.
It's really not that difficult: watch sports. For men, it's the easiest icebreaker. A plumber in Boston? Chances are good he knows that the Red Sox swept the Tigers this week. There ya go - instant conversation.
Like I said, this tends to work for men. As for talking to women... I'll let somebody else handle that one.
