Interesting Article about Yale, the elite, and social justice as a way to signal status.

[Justin]

Want to read about how things at one of America's most prestigious universities have gone so far off the rails, and what the implications are?

Then read this:

https://palladiummag.com/2019/08/05/the-real-problem-at-yale-is-not-free-speech/ (https://palladiummag.com/2019/08/05/the-real-problem-at-yale-is-not-free-speech/)


What is the point of this new ideology? This ideology is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system, an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling. Before, to signal you were in the fashionable and powerful crowd, you would show off your country-club membership, refined manners, or Gucci handbags. Now, you show how woke you are. To reinforce their new form of structural power, people dismiss the idea that they even have the older, more legible forms of status. They find any reverse-privilege points they can, and if they are cis-white-men, they pose as allies. On an institutional level, the old ways of legitimizing power are gone, and the new motto is this: diversity is legitimacy.

[Wolfshoon]

I made it halfway through the article before getting too disgusted to go further, "the poor elite's burden of responsibility to lead the lower classes in society" was a very telling read and an insight into what the 5th column is probably made of.

[beast556]

I made it halfway through the article before getting too disgusted to go further, "the poor elite's burden of responsibility to lead the lower classes in society" was a very telling read and an insight into what the 5th column is probably made of.

This pretty much sums up exactly what I was thinking. What a bunch of peices of shit.

[iego]

They have their own domain. .edu

-John

[earplug]

Decades of reverse discrimination may have created this. Compare to various religions and the promise of some sort of great afterlife if you live in poverty.
The herd mentality to follow and be accepted.
I don't see a problem with Yale as much as I see a problem with the population as a whole drinking different flavors of Kool Aid. Its all spiked with the some irrational thoughts.

[Justin]

I made it halfway through the article before getting too disgusted to go further, "the poor elite's burden of responsibility to lead the lower classes in society" was a very telling read and an insight into what the 5th column is probably made of.

Indeed.

And a lot of the political signaling comes across as excessive and gross. It gave me the same visceral disgust reaction that I get when seeing pictures of French courtiers prior to the French revolution.

[Irving]

It's an interesting article, but a lot to take in. I think the most interesting thing about the article is that it tries to make a point, that still misses the greater point.

[Aloha_Shooter]

It's really not a bad article but just bloviates at length like so many academic papers and so much self-appointed elitist writing. It took the author 11 paragraphs to get to his main point or thesis. There IS a happy medium point between Twitter and this kind of unrestricted verbal regurgitation (see? Even non-Yalies can use multisyllabic words strung together like lights on a Christmas winter solstice tree ...

The funny thing to me is that the author seems to be decrying the politically correct (and reality-disconnected) elitism on campus with the same kind of verbosity they use. I wonder if he speaks the way he writes?

[Ah Pook]

There is a good podcast, called the Dr. Duke Show, that covers the idiocy in current education.

[Great-Kazoo]

So basically they are now able to justify it when they say Oh i have a few (insert race, sexual preference, or victim hood lineage here) friends

[Justin]

I keep thinking about this bit in the article:


When these kids grow up, they end up at conferences where everybody lifts their champagne glasses to speeches about how we all need to “tear down the Man!” How we need to usurp conventional power structures.

You hear about these events. They sound good. It’s important to think about how to improve the world. But when you look around at the men and women in their suits and dresses, with their happy, hopeful expressions, you notice that these are the exact same people with the power—they are the Man supposedly causing all those problems that they are giving feel-good speeches about. They are the kids from Harvard-Westlake who never realized they were themselves the elite. They are the people with power who fail to comprehend the meaning of that power. They are abdicating responsibility, and they don’t even know it.

I think she's mistaken in who these rich folks consider to be "the man."

If "the man" is some shadowy "them" that keeps you from doing whatever you want, then, for the exceedingly wealthy, "the man" isn't someone who's even more wealthy and powerful than they are, but rather, the great unwashed rabble of people who make up the poor, middle class, and upper middle class. To them, "the man" is composed of all of the people that fight against their efforts to institute gun control, or confiscatory carbon taxes, or gender reassignment surgery from grade schoolers, or whatever goofy idea pops into their head at any given moment.

[8Ring]

I attended Yale from 1968 to 1972 and have some first-hand information about the College and the economic issues that form a central part of this gentleman's article. I was a working class kid, father a master steamfitter, mother a nurse, and I managed to get very high grades in HS and blast through the SAT tests. As a result, I got admitted. In the early and mid-1960s, Yale had started to broaden its admissions from big-city prep school students to include kids from middle and lower middle classes, certain minorities (e.g. some blacks, and some sons of rich Puerto Rican families from the Island), a limited number of Jewish students, and finally in 1968 a very select group of women who were often completely humourless.?

Given the fairly wide background of students in my class, us kids got along fairly well. Admittedly, there were some rich privileged asshole kids from important families who were obnoxious, self-important, and hung out only with each other. (Think New York upper East Side.). On the other hand, I had a roommate in my 2nd and 3rd years who came from a very well-off, old money Virginia family who was as down-to earth (literally, he loved hiking, camping, and spelunking) as one could want. (HIs parents were some of the most modest unassuming folks you could meet.

Other close friends included the son of an Army veteran and weather forecaster from Hawaii who married a German Jewish war bride. This kid was one of the smartest people I've met. Another good friend was the son of a grocer in a midwestern town who had the spirit of adventure (trips to the Caribbean during spring break, getting shipwrecked with me off Cap-Haiten, Haiti). I credit him with my love of shooting as he had in his dorm room (without objection from the powers that be) a Colt Python and a Ruger Old Model Single Six. We went out to impromptu shooting ranges near New Haven where I learned to shoot at rats and tin cans. We later become members to the Yale Bulleye Shooting Team where we were solidly mediocre at the sport. One of the top members of the shooting team, an employee of theuniversity publishing house, had a Lathi anti-tank rifle and a few rounds of ammo. We once went out to rural Connecticut where we shot off a few rounds at a rusted car body. Great fun .?

There were others, the bright diabetic kid from Oregon who had a photographic memory and became a doctor so he could research diabetes, the slightly socially inept guy from New Jersey who literally asked every woman he saw to go out with him, the preppies from Connecticut who like to party with us and played bridge in their spare time, the kid from Lousianna who was always trying to figure out how to make a buck, or the Army Intelligence Vietnam Vet from Georgia who regaled us with stories of interrogations in 'Nam (including allegedly throwing reluctant VCs out the door of a Huey at altitude if they didn't talk soon enough). The Army Intelligence vet showed up a school with a shiny '67 Buick LeSabre two door featuring a landau roof festooned with larged stenciled red, white, and blue stars. He parked this rig on the sidewalks near the residential colleges because he didn't give a shit and no one wanted to screw around with him. Another pal was from a Dutch-American family here in Denver who. like me, loved tinkering with cars, listening to odd rock and roll, and going on long weekend road trips to Boston. Since I rode a Honda 250cc motor bike at the time, my cachet was fixing motorcycles of fellow students and helping them to start and repair their cranky VW bugs.

College at that time was a place to be different. If you wanted to wear a beret, use a cigarette holder, and study Rimbaud's poetry, no one cared. You might be considered eccentric and be a good dinner time conversation, that was all well and good. There were a few folks who stayed in dark places and were asocial, so we left them alone.?

In those days, college was fun. There were "big issues", most about the Vietnam War and Wimmen's Rights, but those didn't stop my group of friends from enjoying life. The classes were interesting, from literature, philosoply, history, and military history to the real hard stuff I didn't understand like advanced math, organic chemistry, and physics.?

What we well knew and understood was that college was not real life and that upon graduation we would have to get work or go to graduate school so we could learn some skill that would actually pay the rent. We never took ourselves too seriously but studied hard and played hard. My buddies and I did some antics at school that would get one arrested, expelled, or both these days but we survived and were the smarter for it. I will leave the details for another day.

It is with dismay that I see what Yale has become; a haven for Social Justice Warriors, a spineless administration that makes decent teachers cower and resign before the wrath of the leftists, and a place where political correctness has subsumed an objective search for truth and balance. I read the Yale Alumni Mag in five minutes and pitch it in the trash. A professorship for John Kerry? Please.?

The City of New Haven, once a working class bastion where things were designed, developed, and produced, (Winchester Arms, Marlin, Pratt andWhitney, numerous foundaries, machine shops, and mills, etc.) has become a declining city where little is built and much is argued over, in the thrall of Democratic politicians, the aggessive entitled, and various gangs. Yes if you are in high tech or are a coder, you can do reasonably well there However, the blue collar jobs that could support families and provide a retirement are long gone.?

On a lighter note, I include a link to a You Tube video from the Simpsons starring C. Mongomery Burns, TV's most famous Yale alum, who pays a visit to his Alma Mater and does not like much of what he sees. Unfortunately this is closer to real life than you might think.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8M2tg2RkIQ

Chris

[Justin]

Appreciate your post and insight.

[RblDiver]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8M2tg2RkIQ

[JohnnyDrama]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8M2tg2RkIQ


Made me laugh.

Thanks