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The Myth of American Meritocracy
- hayksaakian 14y agoIts much longer than I expected (I'm .25 of the way through), but so far a much higher quality read than I expected from the domain of 'the american conservative'
- jacques_chester 14y agoThat was a cheap shot. There is an intellectual foundation for many parts of conservatism; see Michael Oakeshott in particular as the leading 20th century philosopher of conservatism as a serious intellectual movement. For the pro-market counter-case, see FA Hayek's Why I Am Not A Conservative; though I think Hayek later contradicted himself in The Origins and Effects of Our Morals.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- EliRivers 14y agoThe greatest trick the ruling classes in the US ever pulled was convincing everyone else, especially those who suffer the most from the current system, that they're not poor and they're not an underclass - they're temporarily embarrassed millionaires. When I was working in Italy I would sometimes listen to a US Forces radio station on my drive in each morning, and the success story propaganda was fascinating. Every so often, there would be a completely irrelevant and disconnected sixty second summary of some lucky chap who did really well in business, with an undertone that all you needed was to work hard and you'd become a millionaire.
- snowwrestler 14y agoNo one becomes rich by not trying, and quietly accepting their lot in life. Not everyone who tries to get rich, will get rich. In fact, most won't. That is true. That doesn't mean that trying is foolish. Quite the contrary; it is the basis of free market capitalism. When everyone tries, our collective choices in the marketplace can select for the best ideas, most organized managers, most inspiring leaders. If no one tries, we're stuck with whoever is on top now, staying on top. That's not a recipe for improvement in a changing world.
- gadders 14y agoWell, lottery and inheritances excepted, you won't become one if you don't work hard.
- EliRivers 14y agoI disagree. If you have the right connections and someone willing to bankroll you, you can coast through school, get into a top university, and coast your way into a high-paying job that your connections arranged for you.
- olalonde 14y agoDepending on how you look at it, this could be seen as a form of inheritance.
- gadders 14y agoI think that is less common or easy these days than you would think. I don't know of people in the UK that can get into universities with significantly lower grades, just because of their family. And the part about jobs migt be true for a family firm, but I doubt if it would work at, say, IBM.
- EliRivers 14y ago"I don't know of people in the UK " Yup, my fault, not clear enough. I'm talking about the US more than the UK, although now that UK universities have essentially been told by the government to behave like businesses, with poor people already less likely to apply than the rich since fees went from zero to almost ten grand a year in the course of a decade, I expect the UK to catch up soon enough in terms of buying your way into a good university (there is indeed already rumbling about places going to foreign students who can be charged far more than home students, establishing the principle, so I expect that as soon as universities work out a way to let people buy their way in, they will). ------------EDIT------------- Edit to answer this point below: ""Give up, no point working hard, you will never make anything of yourself, the game is rigged"?" No. My alternative narrative is "know the game is rigged". If you're playing a rigged game, your chances are so much better if you realise this (hence my very first post here - the people who rig the game work hard to make the unlucky ones think it isn't rigged).
- 1337biz 14y agoThis "greatest trick" is in other news also called the "American Dream". It's all a matter of perspective.
- EliRivers 14y agoI'm not sure what your point is. Are you agreeing that the "American Dream" is now (to some extent, which may have been different in the past) part of the effort of convincing people that the game isn't rigged against them, or are you disagreeing with that?
- shiftpgdn 14y agoIt's called the "American Dream" because you have to be asleep to believe it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
- 1337biz 14y agoI think that this almost indestructible believe that anything is possible is a central part of the US existence. Back then, when somebody wrote “all men are created equal”, this statement could be already seen as an insult to large parts of society. The reality is, if people have high hopes and dreams, they are most likely not going to achieve them. But I am absolutely certain that these give them a purpose to try harder and become better in whatever they do. Even so it is largely an illusion, it benefits society overall as it motivates people to live up to their best possible capabilities. But I don't believe that there is anything such as a fair game and that those not benefiting from the current rules of the game will always call it unfair. This is similar to the discussion in the article of the Ivy Schools. Is what they do fair? Absolutely not! Does it serve its purpose of positioning the schools as institutions that bring together the intellectual and societal elites? Yes it does.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- refurb 14y agoI guess it all depends on what your definition of the American Dream is. It's all relative. Definition 1 - In America, it doesn't matter who you are, you can be successful. You could run your own business or attain a high-level political office (to name a few). Definition 2 - In America, if you work hard, you will always attain a high level of success. You will never be treated unfairly or have to obstacles you need to overcome in order to succeed. I think if you ask most immigrants who came to the US from countries with authoritarian regimes, they'll agree the "American Dream" still exists. Of course their perspective is quite different. In their home country no matter how hard they worked they could never be successful because they were the wrong race, member of the wrong political party, didn't have connections to the right people, didn't go to the right schools, etc. I don't think any reasonable definition of the "American Dream" demands that America is perfect. It's just an observation that America is very unique in the world in the opportunities it offers people from all backgrounds. Heck, I've spoke to European friends who feel that the US offers more opportunities for everyone than their home country does.
- jakeonthemove 14y agoIt's a better way of thinking than "I'm poor, I don't think I stand a chance". Even if people don't become rich or successful, they still feel better about themselves. The "work hard and you may become a millionaire" undertone is a good thing.
- smutticus 14y agoIs it still a good thing if it convinces the poor to not act in their self interest by not advocating for change? OR If we agree the american dream is fallacy then is the only purpose of it to keep the rich from being guillotined? I'm not sure what I think of the american dream or even what it means. But I find the idea of lying to the disenfranchised so they can feel better about themselves condescending.
- philwelch 14y agoSocialism, or guillotines for that matter, do far less than the American dream to actually help the poor.
- mcguire 14y agoSource?
- 7952 14y agoPart of the problem is we continue to use words like rich and poor as if they have strictly defined meanings. We get polarisation instead of sensible steps to improve things for everyone.
- tonyedgecombe 14y agoI'm not sure about that, the trouble is if you flip it around you end up saying people are poor because of their own failings. Modern society looks down on poor people, labelling them as losers when they are really a product of unfortunate circumstances. Unfortunate because they had no books in their house, unfortunate because they were surrounded by family who derided learning, unfortunate because they had the wrong colour skin or wrong gender for the career they wanted. I'm not even sure I buy your argument that they feel better about themselves. Being constantly reminded of your supposed failings isn't a great place to be. The worst part of "work hard and you may become a millionaire" is for the majority it is a lie.
- venus 14y agoFor a long time I have had this theory that the reason the poorer classes in the US seemed so paradoxically opposed to higher taxes, or just taxes at all, for the super-rich was because they secretly believed that, one day, they'd be super-rich and those taxes were going to be on them. It's indeed an excellent trick. Appeals nicely to people's greed and wishful thinking.
- geori 14y agoIt's not a theory, it's a fact that people vote aspirationally.
- zjelveh 14y agoIt's also about race. White people think their tax dollars are going to non-whites. Hopefully that changes w/ the demographic shift
- LDale 14y agoI disagree - I believe that when these people make such statements as "I never got a job from a poor man" they actually understand, and accept, their low social position in relation to the wealthy. It is a product of an authoritarian mindset. They respect, or at least accept, the authority of the wealthy - to whom they serve in one way or another - while claiming privilege over those they perceive to be of lower status (say - public servants, minorities, foreigners, immigrants, sexual deviants, etc. and so-on). The wealthy or influential understand that many, if not most, men have a desire to be led - so they conveniently choose to lead these men in such a way that benefits their own status and wealth. A question of importance, then, is what happened to noblesse oblige...
- iskander 14y agoI think Steinbeck's original phrasing is better: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- olalonde 14y ago> The rise of a Henry Ford, from farm boy mechanic to world business tycoon, seems virtually impossible today, as even America’s most successful college dropouts such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg often turn out to be extremely well-connected former Harvard students. I find the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg examples poorly chosen. Silicon Valley is probably one of the few remaining industries that largely resembles a meritocracy in America. There are countless cases of people succeeding despite lacking a formal/prestigious education or having the right connections.
- jwoah12 14y agoCan you give a few of those examples? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do have this (possibly unwarranted) feeling that most of the supposedly unconnected people succeeding in the startup world today at least have wealthy parents allowing them to work full-time on their startup ambitions without worrying about a job.
- carbocation 14y agoI completely agree with you. These are examples (Zuckerberg a more pure example than Gates) of Harvard having chosen well based on merit. At least, in retrospect, it is easy to say this.
- atlantic 14y agoOn the contrary, these examples seem well chosen. If it is true that the elite is essentially a closed society that looks after its own, while trying to maintain the illusion that a meritocracy is still in operation, then you would expect a certain number of people of modest background to make it into the ranks of the millionaires (thus providing the material for the "success stories" in the media), but none at all into the ranks of the billionaires.
- nuje 14y agoAnyone know how big the Asian demographic is in the US? Would help in guesstimating sincerity of this (vs just a play to get their vote after losing the black and hispanic groups) Regardless, the bigger story of the alarming anti-meritocratic direction in the US is the poor social mobility in general. edit: WP says Asians are 5.6% of US population.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bane 14y agoCaveat for those outside the U.S. American vernacular generally does not include people from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Central Asian countries or Siberia as "Asian". So there are lots of qualifications needed for what constitutes this number. If it is a self-selected demographic choice it may include these groups, e.g. many peoples from the Indian subcontinent refer to themselves as "Asian" even though this doesn't align with the American use of the word.
- codegeek 14y agoI know where you are coming from. But on paper, Asians include people from Indian subcontinent etc. See this wp link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans
- Tipzntrix 14y agoI believe this article specifically states that it inludes Indian subcontinent, Cambodia, Phillipines, and Vietnam with the typical Orientals.
- ht_th 14y agoTo me, these two paragraphs below were enlightening. Not only the admission is sketchy, but the study program can be as well. I wonder why other USA-ians as a community/society seem to accept this kind of favoritism. As the author repeatedly notes, here in Western Europe this is unthinkable. Time and time I am confronted with the differences between USA and Western Europe, even though we seem so close culturally. I find it fascinating. Thanks for linking the article here on HackerNews. """ Finally, there was the case of Becca Jannol, a girl from a very affluent Jewish family near Beverly Hills, who attended the same elite prep school as Julianna, but with her parents paying the full annual tuition. Despite her every possible advantage, including test-prep courses and retaking the exam, her SAT scores were some 240 points lower on the 1600 point scale, placing her toward the bottom of the Wesleyan range, while her application essay focused on the philosophical challenges she encountered when she was suspended for illegal drug use. But she was a great favorite of her prep school counselor, who was an old college friend of the Wesleyan admissions officer, and using his discretion, he stamped her “Admit.” Her dismal academic record then caused this initial decision to be overturned by a unanimous vote of the other members of the full admissions committee, but he refused to give up, and moved heaven and earth to gain her a spot, even offering to rescind the admissions of one or more already selected applicants to create a place for her. Eventually he got her shifted from the Reject category to wait-list status, after which he secretly moved her folder to the very top of the large waiting list pile.90 In the end “connections” triumphed, and she received admission to Wesleyan, although she turned it down in favor of an offer from more prestigious Cornell, which she had obtained through similar means. But at Cornell, she found herself “miserable,” hating the classes and saying she “didn’t see the usefulness of [her] being there.” However, her poor academic ability proved no hindrance, since the same administrator who had arranged her admission also wrangled her a quick entrance into a special “honors program” he personally ran, containing just 40 of the 3500 students in her year. This exempted her from all academic graduation requirements, apparently including classes or tests, thereby allowing her to spend her four college years mostly traveling around the world while working on a so-called “special project.” After graduation, she eventually took a job at her father’s successful law firm, thereby realizing her obvious potential as a member of America’s ruling Ivy League elite, or in her own words, as being one of “the best of the best.”91 """
- guelo 14y agoDamn, there should be a length warning before you start down that thing. Looks like about an hour read.
- digitalsushi 14y agoAre we so ardently lazy, so passionate about sloth that we should feel entitled to warnings that we might inadvertently devote ourselves to something? Would someone make a similar claim were they to accidentally sit down at a free, seven course dinner?
- pfortuny 14y agoLike "warning, deep reasoning ahead and with a lot of examples to clarify"?
- DanielBMarkham 14y agoFor anybody that's been paying attention in the last 20 years, the collegiate funnel to success is broken in the technology/startup sector. I'm not dismissing the role of education, however. Education is vastly important. A formal education with an expensive stamp on it? Not so much. Continuing my discussion of the startup/technology sector, there was a time when a great degree would get you into places where you worked with awesome folks doing hugely important jobs. Over time, more awesome folks and hugely important jobs existed separate from that great degree. We've now reached a point where having that great degree many times is counter-indicative of performance ability, so it becomes kind of a social club. I hate to say it, but for run-of-the-mill high technology jobs where you interact heavily with a business customer and make some magic happen? I view deep dives in college as a warning sign that you might be validating yourself against a model that has little practical impact in the larger world. I really hated to admit that, because I deeply love education. But dang it, I believe the tables are flipped. You are more likely to get great help in the startup/technology sector from some 20-year-old who knows everything about technology from his personal passions than you are from a 25-year-old with a Master's degree from an Ivy League institution. And in terms of organizations, it's a big red flag as far as productivity goes for those places with tight controls over collegiate applicant. Unless you're building the next LHC. Whenever I see some job that's a straight technology job that has "and a masters degree in CS" without the following "or equivalent experience"? I'm thinking this isn't a place I want to be associated with. They have no idea what they are doing.
- mcguire 14y agoI find it strange that you would bring up the (possibly mythical) "20-year-old who knows everything about technology" in the same statement as "deep dives in college as a warning sign". In my, admittedly limited, experience, the big difference between someone with "a formal education with an expensive stamp" and someone without is breadth. There are, as far as I've seen, very few "20-year-olds who know everything about technology", but there are plenty of 20-year-olds who know a great deal about some specific technology or technologies. And if that technology is what you need (note, not what you want), they're golden. And if by "startup/technology sector", you mean the "web startup sector", that's fairly likely. On the other hand, if it isn't, you may not be. If all you have is a hammer and a screwdriver, everything is going to look like a threaded nail.
- jacques_chester 14y agoOne thing he mentions in passing is that the Ivy League process is built on looking for "future leaders". There's not really a test for such qualities. I mean, you can try, but it's very difficult to see how someone performs in trying circumstances until you put them there. In Thinking, Fast and Slow (which I'm sure many of HNers have read), Kahneman gives an anecdote about his time working for the Israeli Defence Force. The IDF wanted a way to identify who should be put through officer training, and they turned to a team of psychologists to develop a testing program. Kahneman and his colleagues came up with a series of scenario-based tests. Some problem would be posed to a group of soldiers ("move this log over the top of this wall"). The group would be observed and notes taken. One thing that the psychologists watched for was spontaneous leadership. Who in the group took charge? Surely such a soldier was bound to command! The problem is that, upon reviewing the performance of their selections, Kahneman and his colleagues found that their candidates did no better -- either in training or in the field -- than candidates chosen by other means. Simply seeing the "obvious" leadership qualities of a particular individual in a highly artificial situation is a basically useless predictor of actual outcomes. It's satisfying noise.
- MMXII 14y agoI think the idea of looking for a leader is poorly constructed. Different tasks can be approached with different structures, which also depends on the composition of the group. The kind of person to lead (or not to lead) the group effectively would vary greatly. So how does it make any sense to pick a leader without knowing the context?
- mcguire 14y agoSure, there's a test for "future leaders": whether or not they are accepted by the Ivy League process. If someone gets that, they'll find it much easier to be a leader in the rest of their career. Oh, you meant identifying individuals who would be good leaders? Yeah, you're hosed there.
- jacques_chester 14y agoAh. Quite. Well you have me there!
- brianchu 14y agoI am proud (or ashamed) to admit that I read the whole thing. The article is pretty dense and it took me a little over two hours to get through it. Around the middle of the article, the author argues that Jewish whites are overrepresented in top colleges relative to non-Jewish whites, also arguing that white Jew academic performance has declined over the past decade. He argues that in essence, Jewish whites disproportionately dominate colleges, and that both Asians and non-Jew whites are underrepresented relative to the proportions of top students that are Asian and non-Jewish white. However, much of his analysis is based on analyzing the last names of students who earned National Merit Scholarship awards (these are awards given out nationwide among nearly all high school students), a method which might work for Asian surnames (which are highly distinctive), but one that is highly flawed when trying to distinguish between a white Jewish and white non-Jewish surname. This is rather shaky ground. In the author's defense, this is probably the only source of data that he could get, given that it is difficult to find data on Jewish vs. non Jewish white scholarly performance and college admissions. If there's any section you should skim, that's it. The later sections of the article are particularly eye-opening: the author enters into a discussion of the personal biases that admissions officers can hold. One example is that a researcher found that participating in certain "high school activities actually reduced a student’s admission chances by 60–65 percent, ...these were ROTC, 4-H Clubs, Future Farmers of America, and various similar organizations." Another interesting fact is that people (and by extension admissions officers) have a tendency to drastically over-estimate the proportion of blacks/Hispanics/Jews in the US population. However, the article ends rather weakly; the author basically suggests that the best solution is to have top colleges select a small portion of their students by pure talent (geniuses), and then select the rest by lottery out of a pool of academically qualified applicants. To me, this seems just as unfair as the alternatives, and de-motivational for academic success.
- valgaze 14y agoYah it's very long- truth be told, when I first came across the talk about Jewish administrators & saw the length of the article I assumed it was written by some crank with an axe to grind. Whatever one makes of the analysis & conclusions, if you hear the author out it becomes clear that this was done in a very thoughtful & thorough manner. For some context: The author is Ron Unz, an "activist" type & former financial software guy whose company was acquired by Moodys in the mid 00s. He's quite difficult to pin down with traditional USA political shorthand (see his other positions on social services for immigrants vs bilingual education in CA for example.) It seems that whatever subject on which he focuses, he really goes all in. This is a pretty interesting profile of him from the late nineties: http://www.onenation.org/9907/071999.html http://www.onenation.org/9907/071999.html If you're familiar with Steven Colbert's SuperPAC shenanigans you might remember that someone named Trevor Potter (former FEC) was Colbert's legal advisor & "straight" counterbalance. This is what that Potter said about Unz's unsuccessful campaign finance reform initiative: "[...] Unz's "California Voters Bill of Rights" includes voluntary spending limits accompanied by partial public financing, a ban on corporate giving to candidates, overnight Web-based disclosure, and reasonable contribution caps (e.g., $5,000 for statewide races) that should survive a court challenge. "It's far wider-reaching than McCain-Feingold," says Trevor Potter, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission This post was provocative & definitely passed the "...anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" test.
- sayYaeah 14y agoWow, I'd be pissed reading this as an Asian American.
- confluence 14y agoYou know what I find funny? The creator of the word meritocracy created it to parody how people think the world is mostly just. Curious no? I was going to write more on this topic but I'm tired of it like I am with the religious. Instead I will say the following condensed sentence. Libertarianism/conservatism/Republicans/meritocracy are merely derivations of humanity's sociopathic bias known as the just world fallacy. Furthermore most explanations in all business books, magazines and articles focusing on the people make the fundamental attribution error and are mostly bunk. Finally once you understand the complexity of the world you live in you see how people have no fucking clue what they are taking about outside of the hard sciences.
- pfortuny 14y agoAs if people in the "hard sciences" as you call them had any fucking clue what they are talking about. To wit: SUSY, String Theory &c... Not even mathematicians have a clue what we are talking about (apart from 'abstractions' which relate very little to the world we live in).
- confluence 14y agoI'm sorry I couldn't hear you over all the advanced tech keeping us all alive. Please continue. String theory is not fact. Currently accepted theories in physics are relativity and quantum mechanics. You know the shit running the computer you typed that insightful comment on and the fibre optics that brought your great wisdom to me. /sarcasm
- cantastoria 14y agoThe creator of the word meritocracy created it to parody how people think the world is mostly just. Curious no? It would be if it were true. The satire you're referring to, used the word as a way to criticize how the British government of the period was selecting people into an elite ruling class based on suspect standards of intelligence and aptitude. The word itself was invented as a shorthand to refer to that process and its justifications. It was not a parody of the idea of meritocracy as it is understood today. From wikipedia; Meritocracy is the implementation of advancement based upon intellectual talent. Often, advancement is determined by demonstrated achievement in the field where it is implemented. Aside from that, I'm curious, If you believe that meritocracy is indeed evidence of right-wing sociopathic behavior. What would be the Communist/Liberal/Democratic alternative? Surely you're not advocating a kakistocracy (i.e. rule by the worst).
- adjwilli 14y agoWhile I agree with the premise of academia not really being a meritocracy, this article limited scope focusing solely on academia just comes across as thinly veiled anti-intellectualism that conservatives have been preaching forever. Why didn't the author take any time to focus on the lack of meritocracy in corporate culture or even political culture? They hate science, they hate facts, and they want to "defund the left" but destroying our institutions of higher learning and research.
- michaelochurch 14y agoI wiped my LinkedIn profile. I have no problem with them as a business, but this touches on one of the things that's been getting to me about "social" (and I will bring this around to education) over the past few years. There's an inherent exploit/explore tradeoff in "social". Or, more to the point, are you going to document social relationships or improve them (in spite of the fact that there are powerful people who don't want improvements to occur)? There's a lot more money and less risk in the former, but I'm more a fan of the latter, because that's where the great companies come from. Which is why I like Meetup a lot (with its unusual focus on growing the social graph) and feel more tepid about LinkedIn. They're a great company and they've executed well, but their model is still stuck in the old, broken, credential-and-resume way of doing things. Since my colorful Google history has (against my will) been exposed to public digestion, I'll admit that what started that fracas was a document-vs.-improve debate regarding Google+ that I, unwisely and half-unintentionally, got myself caught in. (I was on the "improve" side.) What on earth does this have to do with the Ivy League and college admissions? Well, this talk about "disrupting" education through online courses (e.g. edX, Coursera) is really about improving social and knowledge graphs, and that's really exciting. Admissions officers just document; they take notes on who looked impressive at a young age. I see admissions as a less interesting problem with time. If our generation does its job, no one will give a shit about college admissions in 30 years.
- pitt1980 14y agothat's one of the most profound comments I've read in a really long time, an upvote doesn't really seem sufficient I wish I had thoughts that could further this comment, right now they are failing me though tangentially related thoughts http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?forum_id=2&thread_id=2087697&PHPSESSID=6103edf7a49f646e8c440bc72c04a9eb#21851580 http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?forum_id=2&thread_id=2...
- michaelochurch 14y agoI don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I had the courage(?) to click an xoxohth link at work. I think people are going to be averse to having their minute-by-minute activity mined for any purpose, so I don't see that as a recruiting angle. What I do think is that there's more signal in a person's willingness to learn later in life rather than at age 20 when it's expected. I'm more impressed by the 37-year-old who picked up a machine learning course or textbook on his own and, in a year, picked up a respectable working knowledge of it. Whether he went to college is immaterial, at that point.
- tom_b 14y agoThe proposed "inner ring/outer ring" admissions solution is interesting. The inner ring of admission slots (say 20%) are filled purely on academic merit metrics (NMS, GPA, SAT score, etc), then 80% of slots are filled based on dumping everybody else who meets some much lower cut-off on those academic merits into a lottery for the remaining admissions slots. I'm not entirely sure the author appreciates the likelihood of various strange outcomes using a purely random lottery for admissions, for example "outlier" admissions classes that heavily over-represent one racial/gender group by chance. Another rather damning point of the article is that university admission officers may be spectactularly unqualified to actually make admissions decisions. But I have been privy to the admissions decision process at the graduate level and bucketing applicants into the "will succeed" and "will not succeed" and "who knows" bucket usually winds up with a rather sizable number in the "who knows" bucket. So maybe the critque on the admission officers should be less worrisome than presented. I think PG has made statements that one of the biggest problems with YC applicants is that there just isn't an easy way to look at many applicants and make any reasonable determination about whether or not they could create successful startups. Anyway, this is an excellently thought-provoking article and thanks for bringing it here.
- flurie 14y agoI find it a bit curious to call Harvard's entrance exam[1] a "simple objective test of academic merit". I would call it a glorified spelling bee whose word list was handed out only to the most privileged. [1] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde...
- nsxwolf 14y agoWhy does everyone seem to ignore today's standards of living for even the poorest classes in America? All this talk about the top 1% just sounds like envy. Why do we compare ourselves to that? I live in a neighborhood of a thousand 3000 square foot houses with three car garages. I imagine all the people in them reading that article and shaking their fists with anger at the 1% and realizing they're all failures who will never get ahead. I just don't get that mentality.
- ditonal 14y agoIt's in everyone's best interest to have fair, just economic systems. Good systems where wealth is more strongly linked to economic output rather than birthrights lead to more prosperity and justice for everyone. Too much wealth inequality hurts growth, and it also creates political inequality that can create a feedback cycle that worsens the problem. Social justice and economic justice are inexorably linked, if one group has all the power, bad things happen. Also, you clearly live in a very wealthy neighborhood, but many people are struggling. Even if people aren't struggling, the "you can't complain about anything being injust because someone, somewhere is in a more unjust situation" is an absurd line of reasoning.
- nsxwolf 14y agoI know I'm not struggling and I know that other people are. I was just trying to demonstrate how silly it can look when people complain. No matter how much people have they're always comparing themselves against these impossible outcomes. I don't see how others having more in any way diminishes what you have. Also, why can't owning a hot dog stand that pays the bills and puts your kids through college be considered the American Dream? When did that turn into yachts and trips to the International Space Station?
- gadders 14y ago"Too much wealth inequality hurts growth" - that's just an assertion. China, for instance, would appear to defy this rule.
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- api 14y agoSome good points in here, but one thing to keep in mind: The American right hates higher education for reasons that have nothing to do with meritocracy. Higher education takes young people away from their small often rural and suburban cultural bubbles and exposes them to a larger world. This exposure undermines the parochial teachings of fundamentalism, and tends to corrode prejudices through contact. (E.g. seeing that gay people are not monsters or twisted freaks that only want to get in your pants.) The cosmopolitan influence of universities is deeply hated and resented by social conservatives.
- twoodfin 14y agoThat must be why Harvard and Yale grads are automatically disqualified from being nominated for President by America's mainstream right-wing party. Your comment might make sense in the bubble in which you live, but it's balderdash.
- mudil 14y agoAs some who is Jewish from the former Soviet Union, and who was denied even to take an entrance exam to a Moscow college, I am saddened to see that American educational admission process looks more and more "Soviet" nowadays. Kids are denied opportunities because of their ethnic or social background, in a supposedly free and fair country! But this is just a tip of the iceberg. The American groupthink of political correctness, lowest common denominator, and political posturing toward various political/ethnic/religious/sexual orientation groups is rotting this country inside out. Worse things are yet to come. /rant over
- mcguire 14y ago"American educational admission process looks more and more 'Soviet' nowadays" Be careful when choosing your enemies. You become them.
- joshbert 14y agoThis is a massive over simplication, but my personal take is that the people who make it big always had a nag that they were going to be successful. Success doesn't strike me as something that you just stumble upon. There is always work to be done, but most people just won't do it. I'm not saying most people are lazy, I just think that they decide to work on the wrong things. Furthermore, if your determination can be deterred by an article, I wouldn't bet for you to be successful to begin with.
- hudibras 14y agoThe chart showing the number of Asian students at Caltech vs. the Ivy League is shocking. Caltech's numbers have risen in proportion to the number of Asian-Americans aged 18-21, but the Ivy League numbers have been flat for many years. There's no doubt that a de facto quota system exists for Asians in the Ivy League.