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What's always been striking to me is seeing the pervasive humanistic, liberal attitude at a place like Princeton. People there must somehow deal with the disson

What's always been striking to me is seeing the pervasive humanistic, liberal attitude at a place like Princeton. People there must somehow deal with the dissonance of being the best example of entrenched privilege, absurd wealth, sophistication, luxury, comfort. Yet anytime I've been there it's all about the virtues of egalitarianism, inclusivity, etc. A jarring juxtaposition of rhetoric/reality. > they often justify their entitlement as something they deserve after years/decades of not 'living life enough.' Possibly, although I suspect it's more an ego phenomenon. Where they're all aware they've hit the jackpot in global relative terms, but they see this as some type of weird manifest destiny and duty where they're now tasked with using their privilege to be elite agents of good in the world.

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Possibly, although I suspect it's more an ego phenomenon. Where they're all aware they've hit the jackpot in global relative terms, but they see this as some type of weird manifest destiny and duty where they're now tasked with using their privilege to be elite agents of good in the world. I'm not saying it true, simply a rationalization they use to justify it which you can see and feel in their behaviour; the only person I ever knew from Princeton was an engineer ( afirst generation immigrant?) Indian or Arab family (I forget but recall his community pics) and he was always super helpful but also very reluctant to talk about 'campus life' and preferred to help us understand the math and engineering aspects behind certain things in a car forum. Not sure what happened to him, but this may explain why most like myself in University were completely over it by our sophomore year and openly bitched about it hindering our 'real lives' he, a PhD student at the time, was spending the majority of his time answering questions about things like unsprung mass, and analyzing home-brew ECU Turbo maps and hanging out with us at meetups eating BBQ with dirty, oily fingers than being amongst 'his own.'

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Possibly, although I suspect it's more an ego phenomenon. Where they're all aware they've hit the jackpot in global relative terms, but they see this as some type of weird manifest destiny and duty where they're now tasked with using their privilege to be elite agents of good in the world. I'm not saying it true, simply a rationalization they use to justify it which you can see and feel in their behaviour; the only person I ever knew from Princeton was an engineer ( afirst generation immigrant?) Indian or Arab family (I forget but recall his community pics) and he was always super helpful but also very reluctant to talk about 'campus life' and preferred to help us understand the math and engineering aspects behind certain things in a car forum. Not sure what happened to him, but this may explain why most like myself in University were completely over it by our sophomore year and openly bitched about it hindering our 'real lives' he, a PhD student at the time, was spending the majority of his time answering questions about things like unsprung mass, and analyzing home-brew ECU Turbo maps and hanging out with us at meetups eating BBQ with dirty, oily fingers than being amongst 'his own.'