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> There’s a reasonable argument for putting the top professors together in one school, sure, and maybe even PhD students. Who's "putting" the professors there?

> There’s a reasonable argument for putting the top professors together in one school, sure, and maybe even PhD students. Who's "putting" the professors there? The entire thing seemingly hinges on the idea that Harvard's role in society is somehow intentional and planned, as opposed to emergent and organic. I just don't buy it. The institution's stated objective may be the creation "citizen-leaders", but the influence Harvard has, and the harm this causes, is entirely predicated on our willingness to buy that narrative. Make an argument that Harvard's importance and credibility is vastly overrated, go ahead. I'm fully on board with that. But don't go blaming the institution itself for it. There's a ton of organizations with similarly lofty goals and aspirations, but we don't consider them harmful. That's because the harm is coming from without, not within. Harvard doesn't need to not exist for us to be able to ignore it.

r00fus 3y ago
> The entire thing seemingly hinges on the idea that Harvard's role in society is somehow intentional and planned At some point it doesn’t matter. It’s a self-reinforcing systemic effect now. almost all of the political class having gone to these Ivys means Ivys have vastly more representation than anyone else.
creer 3y ago
These ideas have a lot of following - that things are planned, intentional, designed to be that way. We might hear "why is that job worth so much money and that one isn't?" or here "why Harvard, at all?". And this is worth countering. Society as a whole rarely plans "one more Harvard" - and when it tries, it rarely succeeds. Many people did work hard to make Harvard (or anything that exists now) into what it is now - while from society's point of view, it just happened. At some stage these are the fruit of a market economy: some people put in their effort and now Harvard is what it is. In that case ironically, "putting the top professors together in one school" is pretty universal. High prestige institutions are attractive - for their colleagues, pay, facilities, projects, etc. The good news for the US is that there are many such "top institutions".

r00fus 3y ago

> The entire thing seemingly hinges on the idea that Harvard's role in society is somehow intentional and planned At some point it doesn’t matter. It’s a self-reinforcing systemic effect now. almost all of the political class having gone to these Ivys means Ivys have vastly more representation than anyone else.

creer 3y ago

These ideas have a lot of following - that things are planned, intentional, designed to be that way. We might hear "why is that job worth so much money and that one isn't?" or here "why Harvard, at all?". And this is worth countering. Society as a whole rarely plans "one more Harvard" - and when it tries, it rarely succeeds. Many people did work hard to make Harvard (or anything that exists now) into what it is now - while from society's point of view, it just happened. At some stage these are the fruit of a market economy: some people put in their effort and now Harvard is what it is. In that case ironically, "putting the top professors together in one school" is pretty universal. High prestige institutions are attractive - for their colleagues, pay, facilities, projects, etc. The good news for the US is that there are many such "top institutions".