Isn’t Harvard Just the Worst?
That certainly seems to be the opinion of a few journalists recently. Wait, seems to be? With a headline like "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education," you just know the author is not too keen on the Crimson. The author is none other than our old friend Cockmaster D (William Deresiewicz for our forgetful readers). Goold ol' Cockmaster D recently discovered that he was too elitist to interact with a plumber, so obviously the rest of us are just as bad.
Because we're coddled with extensions on papers and rampant grade inflation, we grow up to be the worst people ever. Also, it's because we have gates:
The physical form of the university—its quads and residential colleges, with their Gothic stone façades and wrought-iron portals—is constituted by the locked gate set into the encircling wall. Everyone carries around an ID card that determines which gates they can enter. The gate, in other words, is a kind of governing metaphor—because the social form of the university, as is true of every elite school, is constituted the same way. Elite colleges are walled domains guarded by locked gates, with admission granted only to the elect.
He's right. Gates might be cool when every other college does it, but how dare we use them to keep people out!
He also points out that George Bush went to Yale, so take that, Ivy League! Yeah that's right one of the dozens of presidents who went to elite universities isn't so awesome! Clearly we have no defense to these accusations, but are we really that bad?
No, we're worse! After the jump, Harvard is destroying the world (and bruising the butts of old ladies).
An article in the upcoming August 2008 Trumpet Magazine tells us that part of the Harvard faculty is a "shamefully destructive force in education" and that "the existence of civilization is at stake." But what harm can come from teaching?
It is time for the great minds of this day to face facts. World evils are increasing as fast as knowledge. Why the paradox? Can the increase in knowledge and the skyrocketing evils possibly be connected?
Again, no defense!
By way of evidence to support these claims, Harvard demonstrated just how detrimental it is to society when a man went on a "kicking spree" in Harvard square, just outside the gates. He kicked several people in the butt before police were able to remove the boot he turned into a shocking weapon.
So to the Class of 2012 I warn you: enjoy these last few months of innocence, because soon you'll join the ranks of an organization whose sole purpose is to destroy the world.
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Read more: Cockmaster D, guest editors, Harvard, Intrepid Journalism, The American Scholar, this is why people hate the ivy league, William Deresiewicz
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June 26th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
That was a little disappointing, IvyGate. Just a few superficial remarks on a well-written and insightful article on schools like the Ancient Eight? IvyGate should thrive off of articles like this one! Why not truly grapple with the arguments set forth in the article? You don’t have to agree with the man. I certainly don’t. But give the points he makes at least a shot by thinking about them critically and giving them a chance to make their case. You do your readers a disservice by dismissing an interesting and controversial article like this one without giving it a second thought.
June 26th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I agree with princeton09. While I read that article, my soul died slowly. My only comfort was that IvyGate would do a good job of tearing it apart piece by piece. But by focusing on the gate metaphor, which was admittedly a pretty ill-conceived argument, you missed the bigger picture in which the past, present, and future of every Ivy League student was trashed by a member of the same elite he tries so hard to abuse.
Also, the article was mostly about how awful about Yale is, not Harvard.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:05 am
What really gets my goat about this IvyGate article is that Penn gets to be the super awesome Solomon Grundy while Columbia is stuck with the boring ass Captain Cold.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:56 am
The first paragraph clues us in to what is really going on here… a 35-year-old man who can’t make small talk with his plumber? It’s not the job of the Ivy League, or any university, to teach you how to be a normal human being. That’s something you learn from your parents, or on your own, and hopefully long before you step on campus as a freshman. Go ahead, William Deresiewicz, blame your snobbery on the Ivies, but I suspect it was fully developed before you even finished puberty.
June 28th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Agreed with the above.
And I hate to say it, but this even sounds like it was written by a college freshman. Let’s hope this isn’t the direction in which summer guest-editing is headed.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:39 am
As a Y07, I definitely thought it hit a little too close for comfort. I may not agree with all of the points he raises (especially closer to the end), but it actually is an interesting and provocative piece. Echoing elseY11, IG really should have done a better job of covering it.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:39 am
When did IvyGate turn into a powder-puff defense of the Ivy League? If I wanted to read mediocre articles about how the Ivy League “isn’t that bad,” I’d just read the Crimson. IvyGate is supposed to be funny and edgy – this post is neither, and one of the weakest I’ve seen on the site.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
This is the biggest drivel I’ve ever read at IG, even more so than all the Lena Chen posts. I know why this article wasn’t attacked: because it hits too close to home for all you ivy retards. You don’t know jack shit about life because you’ve had most of it handed to you, attending your feeder schools (Lawrenceville, Lamb?). Most of you people are unable to do connect with working class people because you’ve never seen them as people, only as servants or nuisances.
July 12th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Maybe this is what it’s like at Yale (I wouldn’t know) but I’ve spent 7 years at Cornell pursuing various degrees and I can tell you D’s description doesn’t match this place. And to the poster that came right before me, wow, how wrong you are! Don’t make assumptions – I grew up on a farm, I went to school on scholarship, I worked my ass off. And I’m not alone here – there are plenty of other people with stories like mine at Cornell. Haven’t been elsewhere so can’t speak about other Ivies, but I’m offended by ignorant comments like that.
July 25th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
The article left me equal parts angry and contemplative. “Cockmaster D’s” not far off the mark on many of his issues, especially regarding the fact that Yale and the other Ivies are built on protecting their graduation rates by ensuring that students don’t fall through the cracks.
At the same time, as a recent Yale graduate who grew up in a lower-working class home, who went to a “mediocre public school,” and who now takes a job which pays barely over the poverty line, I find his generalizations to be utterly ignorant. By virtue of my hard work and drive in high school I was able to go to a uni which opened doors for me that otherwise would have been closed. And no, I don’t mean corporate finance positions, I mean my poor-paying job which I love.
Yale’s just like Cornell in your post, farmgirl81; its not New Haven which makes the “D”’s statements true, its his perverted version of reality. Yale didn’t make him elitist, or else I would also have been at a loss for words with my own proverbial plumber. Instead, I know exactly what to say: “Papelbon’s an ass, and the Red Sox suck, but do you think your team or mine’s ever gonna catch the Rays?”
September 14th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Does anyone know the circumstances under which Deresiewicz left Yale in order to, apparently, pursue a career as a freelance writer? As a teacher, I can not imagine how it is, on an ethical level, that this man apparently spent years teaching students for whom he holds such active contempt. Intellectually, I am troubled by the caricatures and stereotypes Deresiewicz lobs at Ivy League students. Finally, if no one is willing to say it then I will: there are some things that are better than others: some doctors are better than others, some lawyers are better than others, and yes, because I’m sure you get the point, some schools and students who are, in fact, better than others. I am one hellishly smart attorney and teacher and I graduated proudly from Northwestern’s law school. But I am not so deluded, condescending, or insecure as to be incapable of conceiving that those who attended Harvard or Yale’s law schools might not just be that much smarter or more competent than I. Nor am I so stupid or incapable of comprehension as to fail to conceive that had I done so, I might not be just be that much better educated or that much more expansive in my thinking. I find Deresiewicz’s thinking–that everything and everyone is ok, that we are all equally competent and capable–not only flawed but dangerous. I for one am tired of America’s anti-intellectual culture. It was a disrespect for aspiration and success that led to the disastrous election and re-election of George W. Bush. It is that same national admiration of stupidity that now serves to justify John McCain’s choice of an undereducated, culturally deprived imbecile like Sarah Palin for Vice President. Ivy Leaguers, stand proud and speak loudly: you are sufficiently visionary and honest to openly appreciate the importance of intellect, aspiration and success. Though I may not worship the Ivy League, I for one, openly salute it. It is a travesty that individuals like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are forced to dumb themselves down, to hide their Ivy League educations, so as to appeal to the cynicism of America’s increasingly ignorant masses. Thanks Mr. Deresiewicz, for making matters worse at such a critical time in our history.
November 10th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Oh God, that article made me want to vom. I guess people who attribute their personal inability to interact with others to the schools they went to get published nowadays. To be fair, I recognized some of what he was saying, but it was so buried in attention-seeking drivel and idiotic generalization that it made me want to scream.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
further, I’d like to note that increased solitude doesn’t help your ability to interact with plumbers.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Cockmaster D epitomizes what is wrong with the Ivy League: its proclivity for churning out contrarians and even sometimes hypocrites. My friends at Yale do not have trouble conversing with people lacking Ivy League degrees. Perhaps he should have come to his realization sooner and left the Ivy League that he so disdains. But then I suppose he wouldn’t have a career.