And the isolation is only going to get worse. Increasingly, the people who run the country were born into that world. Unlike the typical member of the elite in 1960, they have never known anything but the new upper-class culture. We are now seeing more and more third-generation members of the elite. Not even their grandparents have been able to give them a window into life in the rest of America.Read the whole thing. It's worth every minute.
Update: Our Monastery of Miscellaneous Musings has a perfect post to go along with Charles Murray's essay.
Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteChelsea Clinton getting hired by NBC is perhaps the latest best example of this elite culture incestuousness.
I have not yet read the linked piece but Angelo Codilla, a professor at a Northeastern university penned a great piece a year and a half ago regarding the increasingly insular world of this country's political/ruling class. I'll try to dig it up.
great read...it all feels very Roman.
ReplyDeleteAngelo Codevilla and Murray are paralleling each other:
ReplyDeletehttp://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the
And dig this from Russell K. Nieli:
Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "Being an officer or winning awards" for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, "has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions." Excelling in these activities "is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission."
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_diversity_punishes_asians.html
Exit question: how have all those Ivy League degrees that litter about Wall Street and Washington D.C. been working out?
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_diversity_punishes_asians.html
Dean, I'd seen that before in Mark Steyn's latest book - that the typical groups of Middle America are actually millstones for those applying for Ivy League schools. They're self-selecting their own kind.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, as we all know, Rednecks Are Stupid.
Oh and thanks for that link to the Spectator!
ReplyDelete