dagblog - Comments for "Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)"

Much of your counter-attack

Dan Vitkus — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 16:14:48 +0000

In reply to Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)

Much of your counter-attack is classic ad hominem. Judged on its merits, the New Republic article has a lot of important things to say about how elite universities (and their twisted "meritocracy') perpetuate a corrupt class system. There is a sickness in the Ivy League, and at other elite institutions like Emory, Duke and Stanford. Neoliberal power is reproducing itself in a way that widens the class divide and empties out the ruling class of any ethical substance, with most students encouraged to pursue neoliberal wealth and power by following a narrow instrumentalist, technocratic path. No doubt, there are exceptions to the sick pattern--students, teachers and classes that don't simply exhibit the symptoms of an empire in decline--but his diagnosis is generally valid. And we should heed his call for reform. You can attack his "character" and pick at aspects of his argument, its logic, etc., but I think that he offers us a much needed inside view of what's wrong, and he also provides a few good suggestions about how we might change things for the better,

Yes, yes, a thousand times

Grateful Harvard Grad — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 16:27:46 +0000

In reply to Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! And thank you.

Saw this and thought you

EmmaZahn — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:52:40 +0000

In reply to Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)

Saw this and thought you would appreciate it:

The New Privilege: Loudly Denouncing Your Privilege - The Cut

Its conclusion:

Because in the end, waving away your own privilege — and looking with disdain upon those who aspire to it — is the most old-fashioned form of snobbery. It's Edith Wharton characters with austere taste and Dutch last names sniffing with disgust at the vulgarity of new money. It's the owners of decrepit New England family summer homes shaking their heads at encroaching McMansions. It's saying you went to school "outside Boston," ostensibly to avoid sounding like a braggart, but actually as a dog whistle for those in the know.

In other words, the pastime most likely to indicate a person’s membership in the Ivy League is complaining about the Ivy League in exquisite detail.

It makes a big difference how

moat — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 02:16:57 +0000

In reply to Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)

It makes a big difference how focused upon a field of study a student happens to be. Deresiewicz doesn't address that range and the lack renders his piece not very helpful to those of us in midst of making choices about colleges.

Our family visited Cornell this last weekend and were impressed by their many resources and programs. Other places are offering programs that appeal to my son just as much and he has worked hard enough to work out what sounds right for him. He has an idea.

His experience is much different than mine. I went to a small liberal arts college and became a tradesman immediately afterwards. I don't hold the college at fault for not giving me a seat at this or that place (the feeling is probably not mutual) because I didn't go into it with an idea that the experience would get me to this or that place. It was just very interesting. My son is not the hippie i am.

Deresiewicz needs to pick a lane. If all "higher" education is purely vocational, he has to claim that is his position. If he doesn't like where that philosophy leads then he cannot get so gassy about which institution places some people in one line of work as opposed to another.

PS. Why is this in the Reader's section? The Doctor is on the top banner as a resident blogger.

Actually, ET, I don't recall

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 17:57:40 +0000

In reply to As far as your argument for

Actually, ET, I don't recall saying everyone should go to college. I would never say that.

But I do wonder about the sudden rash of articles that claims college is a bad investment, when the actual economic data says just the opposite: people without college degrees are falling further and further behind. (And as David Leonhardt points out today, those articles are even more misleading because they use private-college sticker prices, rather than what families actually pay.)

Those articles don't say "Don't go to college if you're not good at school." They're telling people for whom college is a real option that "College will be bad for you financially," which is the opposite of the truth.

Yeah, well, I didn't unpack

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 02:38:39 +0000

In reply to You're right, he certainly

Yeah, well, I didn't unpack that dialogue for outsiders either.

You're right, he certainly

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 17:05:33 +0000

In reply to You know, Mike, I didn't

You're right, he certainly doesn't offer an alternative plan. This is a rant, not a constructive proposal. I did find it somewhat eye-opening, but I accept that it's because of my unfamiliarity with the dialog.

You know, Mike, I didn't

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:54:43 +0000

In reply to Doc, I read your piece

You know, Mike, I didn't address a lot of his specific claims because I find them so garbled and muddled.

He does not have an actual plan for producing more diversity at Yale. (And the Ivies' problems with economic diversity is old news.) the meritocratic system he attacks is much better than the previous system, and he doesn't have a third system to replace it.

The arguments he cobbles together, contradictory as they may be, are a grab-bag of old insiders' critiques of Yale (which should of course always be criticizing itself and trying to do better, but not peddling those internal critiques to poor kids as a reason not to come) and old legacy-Yalies criticisms of the meritocracy.

a lot of what he says has been said before by people trying to keep Yale LESS diverse, and I think that history matters.

Doc, I read your piece

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 21:46:00 +0000

In reply to Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)

Doc, I read your piece yesterday before reading Deresiewicz's, nodding all the way through. Today, I read Deresiewicz's piece, and while I still agree with your critique, I found more than I expected in the piece. Yes, he's pretentious and seems naive about the state of public universities, but if you put aside the flippant college advice and paeans to public education, he offers a searing indictment of elite private colleges and universities.

As I understand him, he's not complaining that Ivy students are arrogant, hardly a news flash. He's arguing that the much ballyhooed merit-driven diversity of America's elite colleges is a myth. Not only are the students at these schools still overwhelming wealthy, they're becoming wealthier every year.

That's news to me and disturbing news at that. Having attended an elite liberal arts college in the 90s, I was well aware of the privileged nucleus of wealthy students, but they seemed to be a shrinking holdover from an earlier era. Old waspy alums would often tell us that they would not have been accepted under the stringent academic requirements in place when I applied to college, and the school has become even more competitive since then, so I imagined that merit-based admissions and diversity programs would eventually swamp the privileged elite.

But Deresiewicz argues that "merit-based" admissions are actually driving the trend the other way because of the exorbitant cost of academic, artistic, and athletic extracurriculars needed to make the cut. The Ivy's are becoming more economically exclusive, not less. In that context, I read his flippant college advice as meant primarily for rich kids, and I understood him as wishing that more lower and middle class students were able to attend elite universities. You're right that it's an arrogant way to put it, but I think his argument is not quite as hollow as you present it.

One thing I did identify with

Michael Maiello — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 16:16:48 +0000

In reply to Snobs vs. The Ivy League (or, The Question of Bill Deresiewicz's Character)

One thing I did identify with about this piece is that I went from a small prep school (class size around 100) to a large public university and it really was an eye opening experience. I think I was better off sharing classes with some older students who had to put off college so they would work a few years to pay the bills or even to share classes with people who had kids -- I wasn't going to get that if I'd gone from prep school to small liberal arts college. That was important for me socially and politically.

Not defending the piece, which has all the deficiencies you point out.