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I think I get where you are going with this, can you expand a little bit on the wagging the dog part? I am not familiar with that term. I get what it means, hav
by 0des 5y ago
I think I get where you are going with this, can you expand a little bit on the wagging the dog part? I am not familiar with that term. I get what it means, having looked it up, but being new to the concept I want to make sure I understand the context of that segment of the comment correctly.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe actions of big prestigious institutions like MIT have an effect on opinion. So if MIT starts doing something tons of people will just knee jerk take their side on whatever the thing is. So another few institutions might follow suit and it might snowball and standard testing could become back in fashion as fast as it went out of fashion.
- 0des 5y agoAh ok thank you for taking a moment to help me understand that. Having looked up the term and re-read the comment, I see what was meant.
- IncRnd 5y agoThat's a great point. However, you're using the idiom of the tail wagging the dog incorrectly. The tail wagging the dog usually means something important or influential being controlled by something less so. In other words, the tail would be wagging the dog if I wrote a blog post that made people change their opinions on the SAT.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe movement to shit-can standardized tests was far bigger than MIT or any one institution and was part of a broader political trend whereby these sorts of institutions have been adopting particular positions. Hence MIT is the tail in this case.