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The articles contends the rich kids at Yale pretend to be poor to shirk the elite responsibilities, which then leads to deterioration of the elites. I find it d
by DenisM 7y ago
The articles contends the rich kids at Yale pretend to be poor to shirk the elite responsibilities, which then leads to deterioration of the elites. I find it doubtful that the kids have thought it through that far. A couple of more likely explanations come to mind:
- Rebellious teenagers always want to establish independence from their parents. Giving up part of the money takes you part of the way there.
- It's hard to be friends with people much poorer than you are - they may not accept you, and you may have hard time adjusting your spending patterns creating various embarrassments. Pretending to be poorer significantly increases the number of people you can be friends with.
As to the deterioration of the elites, I believe that our country lacks raison d'etre, and absent a clear mission people to turn to scrutinizing wealth indicators, culture wars, and such to decide why they get up in the morning. The US used to defend freedom from the Soviets and that was a pretty solid mission in the mind of the missionaries, then it coasted for a while, then tried to fight the terrorism which frankly was never the proper scale of a mission, and now it's just adrift.
- nonce42 7y agoThe author seems pretty confused about rich kids. Having rich parents doesn't necessarily mean that you have a lot of cash in college. (Sensible parents are going to give their college kids enough money to get by, not enough to go on a spending spree.) Thus, it's totally reasonable that college kids are commonly broke. It's not some role-playing to escape their responsibilities as members of the elite. In other words, there's a big difference between being broke and being poor.
- jatmataz 7y agoEven if the rich parents aren't injecting a huge cash flow, that student still has the safety net to fall back on.
- liability 7y agoYes, however the thing with safety nets is people typically avoid having to fall back on them. I could go broke and fall back to living with my elderly mother, but you can bet your ass I'd rather avoid that. A rich kid might be able to ask their parents for more cash, but the embarassment and scolding that might come with that is likely enough to get a lot of rich kids to avoid the situation by choosing to live within the artificially imposed bounds of their allotted budget.
- at-fates-hands 7y agoI came from a rich family. My parents let me flounder on my own in college. Never gave me a dime and I had earn everything I ever had. When I was 25 and my GF got pregnant, my parents said, “Well, you’re a responsible adult, you’ll figure it out.” For me? There was no safety net. A year on food stamps, paying child support, working three jobs and being clinically depressed was me “figuring it out.” At no time did they ever step in to help me financially. When I moved out for my freshman year was their idea of kicking me out of the nest.
- radford-neal 7y agoSad to say, you have assholes for parents. Sure, I can see them reasonably thinking that making you support yourself in college was a fine idea. But providing no support that would benefit their own infant grandchild? No.
- onemoresoop 7y agoRich people can be really stingy
- munchbunny 7y agoMy experience having observed rich friends I knew from my high school and Ivy league college days has been that, when it comes to their own children, this is the exception, not the rule.
- yardie 7y agoI’ve got to ask. But did you consider your parents rich or just just upper middle class. I have a few rich friends and nothing like what happened to you would ever happen to them. First, they would not need to ask for money. That comes from a trust where they get an allowance. I had one friend who feigned being broke because he would spend all his allowance before the next disbursement arrived. And would borrow money from friends. In each case their job was assured. they were graduating into the family business or to manage its wealth. Or start their own business with financial help from the trust.
- RichardCA 7y agoThis exact thing happened to me in college. I had a few fraternity brothers who were always broke and scrounging around, while simultaneously desperately afraid to let on anything about their family background. It's always a combination of wanting their kids to go through a phase of knowing what it's like to have nothing (teach the lesson of frugality), and making them spend their early 20's living hand-to-mouth as a way to maintain the illusion of control. But that's not an indictment of modern culture. You see that pattern occur across generations.
- wisty 7y agoThe article does seem to get there eventually: > The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions? I don't think it's just the lack of a mission that's the problem though. I think that these kids have been disrupted. A sort-of-smart rich kid who went to a good school used to be valuable. They could be like a LinkedIn for a new business with their social network. They could be a StackOverflow, because smart people would want to curry favour and answer their questions. They were a Venture Capitalist for people who had no idea what that meant, let alone where you'd find one. They were a Quora with a rough idea of what management at various levels and in various areas was like. OK, they are still valuable. But they're no longer quite so important - there's plenty of half-decent substitutes.
- wwweston 7y agoThis is an interesting thesis: social media and other c2c content exchanges have partially democratized social capital.
- porknubbins 7y agoThe article didn’t really consider what I think is the most likely explanation- like you said, these kind of “elites” don’t really have the kind of power or influence they once did. They aren’t just faking humility rather they are somehow accurately perceiving that in the current order power is held by some mix of corporations, special interests, big tech companies, and (left or right) populist movements, but probably not by individual rich kids with prestige and connections. I tend to think its for the worse but am probably too conservative.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ryanmonroe 7y agoThe article's explanations for why rich people pretend to be poor are exactly the "more likely" explanations you say that it misses. The article is saying that shirking responsibility is a side effect. Quotes from the article: > Rich people pretend to be poor to fit in > They want independence from their parents
- buboard 7y agoAlso, middle class struggle makes life more meaningful.
- taneq 7y agoThat is the first time I’ve ever seen those words used together in that order.
- shadowbanme 7y agoMaybe, but I’ve had similar thoughts. For most middle class people like me, the compensation for getting older is that hey, at least you’re getting richer. I might be slower, uglier, and have much less free time than when I was twenty, but hey, at least I have nicer stuff and I can stay in fancy hotels. If you have a Ferrari when you’re 20 then life is pretty much all downhill from there.
- ikeyany 7y agoI think "virtuous" would've been more appropriate than "meaningful".
- buboard 7y agoApart and separately from virtue signalling, i believe the demotion to a life of more struggle, even artificial, gives more purpose and meaning, and thus is pleasant.
- taneq 7y agoI think purpose is important, and creates meaning. I don't know if struggle creates purpose, but maybe it does in the sense that purpose comes from wanting reality to be different than it is, and I guess any way in which reality isn't perfect for you would count as some kind of struggle.
- sangnoir 7y agoIsn't it just a rewording of the Calvinist/Protestant work ethic, though? Weird how the US is getting less religious on the surface, but holds on to the rituals - like some societal TSR.
- godzillabrennus 7y agoHopefully the fight turns to sucking carbon out of the air and creating a sustainable future.
- horseradishh 7y agoSigh, another brainwashed person who believes that carbon is harmful when in reality it's the most important thing for life...
- DenisM 7y agoIt would have been wonderful, but I hardly see anyone trying, alas.
- Jill_the_Pill 7y agoFossil Free Yale kids are making a good effort, not mentioned in the article. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/12/08/ypd-arrests-48-people-at-divestment-sit-in/ https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/12/08/ypd-arrests-48-peo...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rossdavidh 7y ago1) rebellious teenagers no doubt always want to establish independence, but they haven't always done it this way, so that can't be the explanation. 2) if there is any place on Earth where you should not have to pretend to be poor in order to have friends, it would be the Ivy League. Also, again, if this were the explanation it would always have been this way.
- selimthegrim 7y agoTeenage rebellion is not a universal, it tends to be found in the so called WEIRD countries the most
- rossdavidh 7y agoPerhaps (though I've seen disputes of that), but since we're talking about a Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democracy country's history, it still is not an explanation for why this generation's elite's children would be pretending they're poor, instead of showing off their status with conspicuous consumption (as many previous generations have).
- sysbin 7y agoI would say these rich kids haven't heard of noblesse oblige.
- throwawayjava 7y ago"Rebellious teenagers always want to establish independence from their parents" The rebelliousness of college students seems so obvious to me. Everyone here using youthful behavior (almost all in their teens and early twenties) to bash their favorite bogeyman group (usually composed of much older people) is missing the completely obvious.
- Throwaway_3854 7y ago>The rebelliousness of college students seems so obvious to me. Everyone here using youthful behavior (almost all in their teens and early twenties) to bash their favorite bogeyman group (usually composed of much older people) is missing the completely obvious. What do you mean?
- throwawayjava 7y agoI mean that 18 year olds at Yale are... 18 year olds. Protests have been a regular fixture on college campuses (including non-elite campuses) for at least 50 years. Including times when the elite/the country had "purpose". Kent, Ohio isn't exactly New Haven or Cambridge... Youthful rebellion is as old as time, and arguably isn't even unique to humans. Therefore, grounding a sweeping societal critique in any particular mode of youthful rebellion (be it political protest or inane partying) seems a bit... silly.