Elite schools draw students form across social and class boundaries. Yes, there are elite schools whose students are unable to have social intercourse with tradesmen, but this is not a disability, but a cultural and social divide. There is nothing wrong with this.

I respect responsible and professional tradesmen, whether they speak the Queen’s English or not.

It is not imperative that I understand the Cockney or that I understand the gesticulations of those from the Bronx. It is not incumbent upon one to do so. We trade currency for work.

This is not a disadvantage of an Elite Education.

Per lunch, Ken and Larry think you should bring the cheese. I can manage the whine…noooo problem.

Ken, Larry, can you guys bring the finger food?

Oh, and BTW, did Ken tell you?
‘I’ am providing lunch tomorrow. Everyone’s invited. Really, it’s on ‘me’. And no ‘cold feet’ allowed.

It will be Southern style, with a hint of Tex-Mex, and California cuisine…for good measure.

Could you please provide the whine?

Further, instead of considering Kerry and Bush, consider Obama. oops! There goes his selling point.

Next, it seems like his beef is with the insulated elite who grew up in the prep school environment. While that may be valid, it’s still unfair to blame colleges for the flaw that originated much earlier and is contained within a subpopulation of the school.

I haven’t read the entire article, but from the first 1/3 it seems like he makes a classic grave error–assuming that one subsection of the yale population speaks for what is the problem with elite higher education. Please. Get out of your small bubble. Within the classes I’ve TA’ed at Penn, I’ve certainly seem my share of anti-intellectual prep school grads with a sense of entitlement (you can often spot them by the jewelry if female or sandals and polo shirts if male). However, I’ve also met FAR MORE students who are intellectually engaged and lack that sense of entitlement. Many of whom came from that prep school environment.

After my first semester TAing, I got one comment that was searing and will inform me throughout my teaching.Someone wrote that they enjoyed the class but they were disappointed because it seemed like I assumed the class didn’t want to learn the ideas behind the stats I was teaching. Don’t knock down elite students without engaging them. they’ll surprise.

You clearly did not deserve a Williams Education.

Your retardation is a pre-condition of your existence. You are infirm.

The mediocrity that surrounds our country is profound and pervasive.

If we do not turn it around, the aliens that are in control, will prevail in a manner that will unwind the history of this nation.

You cannot entertain these swindlers for they will steal your seats, your entries, your schools.

They are diametrically opposed to your success.

They want and intend to diminish your interest in your schools.

Stand firm and with resolve.

You are within your rights.

Where I think he’s right on the mark is that the template for the highly competitive, aspirational student produces a contradictory sort of performance of egalitarian concern for social transformation coupled in many cases with an exquisitely elitist affect, that many bright students become less socially and culturally literate rather than more so in their four years in college. Deresiewicz worries that the commitment to social transformation he sees in past generations of American intellectuals has disappeared, and that few students see themselves as being on an intellectual journey or pilgrimmage. They think for themselves, he remarks, “only because they know we want them to”. (So too do many speak of social transformation: because that is what a potential holder of power in the future is supposed to do.)

And welcome to Dan Seaton and Marcos Sahm, our newest EphBlog authors!

Why are those four yeas – which, considering you are trying to learn as much of something pretty complex as you can as quickly as you can, is almost bound to be a somewhat elite experience – supposed to address every problem people have? So the dude utterly lacks social grace – as Loweeel says, you really can’t figure out what to talk about with a guy wearing a hat of a specific sports team? – how is that an indictment of his university?

Again, (per my comment to ’10 on the “Athletics Admissions thread), I believe that intellectual development is enriched by engaging with all kinds of people, and the ability to do that, begins with the willingness of the individual.

The problem lies with Deresiewicz, and others like him. I suppose you could make the argument that people who are pre-disposed to a ‘sense of entitlement’, are more attracted to elite, status symbol schools. But I don’t buy the premise, that those schools are responsible for this…ahem…’disability’.

I just love the irony that Deresiewicz has no idea how to engage the guy wearing a SAWX hat in small talk. The opening was QUITE LITERALLY staring him in the face. So much for Yale’s admission standards. And as for small talk, “Who sucks haadah, Jeetah oah Arawd?” is usually a good starting point.

It’s always amusing when an author’s own idiocy undercuts his argument.