Saturday, November 29, 2008
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How Far Generalities Take You
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Posted by:
Carol Platt Liebau at
3:04 PM
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Reacting to a David Brooks column that excitedly heralded the Obama administration as a "valedictocracy" stuffed with Ivy League credentials,
Joseph Epstein has written an essay in The Weekly Standard characterizing the products of America's most elite universities as little more than A-grabbing, soulless mediocrities.
In many cases, he's right. And I, too, took issue with Brooks' column here, pointing out that "book smarts" don't necessarily equate with "life smarts" or, for that matter, most of the qualities essential to really fine leadership.
But just as there is a danger in Brooks' uncritical acceptance of the idea that elite degrees confer merit, there is a danger that the rest of us can adopt a knee-jerk anti-elitist stance that's almost as ill-advised. Just as it's snobbish and wrong to laugh at Sarah Palin for having attended the University of Idaho, it's likewise wrong (and as reverse-snobbish) to sneer at and discount someone else who attended Yale.
Of course, a lot of the time, stereotypes (like those about the Ivy League) contain some grain of truth. But as with everything else in life, generalities only inform so much. Both the elitists and the anti-elitists have to come to terms with the fact that Obama advisors will (and should) be judged on their own merits and performance alone.
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The latest in the failure of Obama to produce his birth certificate, as required by law. If he's got a legal U.S. birth certificate, why doesn't he simply produce it? The one he put up on his WEB site, soon after he was asked about it, was clearly a fake It has been declared a forgery by experts. (gees...I could have made a better forgery than that) and when called on the fact that it was phony, he promptly removed it from the WEB site.
It should be obvious to everyone by now...he doesn't have one, because he isn't a citizen. Is he really that arrogant or did he figure in his "smug self-righteousness" that the issue would simply go away? Even his own grandmother, when questioned, stated unequivocally that he was born in Kenya. Will the Democrats then attempt to change the law, because they now control the Congress?
The Speaker of The House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has already threatened to dissolve the Electoral College. (so fraud will be easier) Wouldn't surprise me they'd try something of the sort (it certainly wouldn't be the first time)!
Friday, November 07, 2008
WILL "SCOTUS" (Supreme Court of The United States) SOUTER TELL OBAMA TO PRODUCE BIRTH CERTIFICATE DECEMBER 1 UPDATED:
This is interesting. Souter tells Obama to produce the vault copy by December 1, 2008. (I believe the messiah will defy the Justices.)
Who will force the issue? Who wants to open up that Pandora's box? Imagine if there is something on that birth certificate that disqualifies Obama from the office of the President. What are you going to do? Start a civil war? There will be blood in the streets if the government try's to enforce the rule of law. This should have happened before the election. (Obambi knows it too.)
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correct.
Anaconda, I hope you showed him the door and made sure it hit his backside on the way out!
While I am sure there are many Ivy league grads that have made it on their own, there are many that simply apply to the "good ole boy" network and do have a fine job and high pay just for having graduated from their school. While just a character, and cariciture, the role of Charles Emerson Winchester III in MASH was the epitome of the snobish Ivy leaguer. |
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That piece of paper only gets one through the door.
It is up to the individual to work and strive to make a successful life for themselves.
Problem with the Ivy Punks is that they leave college expecting to have a successful life with little to no experience or effort......
The concern that everyone should be watching out for is the number of lawyers occupying positions in DC. |
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The problem with the Ivy League education is the worldview they are taught. This is true from business to science to psychology. I am a money manager and employer. I have interviewed many Ivy Grads and found them to be totally arrogant in general. One told me how he was going to reengineer my business.
Anaconda's Grip Blog |
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An "Ivy League" degree does not confer a privilege to govern or lead. The holders of said degrees think that it does, but let us disabuse them of their folly. Marx was an intellectual, after all. Was he right? |
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Epstein's analysis can't be dismissed as mechanical anti-elitism. He correctly notes that the humanities and "soft" sciences are the disciplines where political correctness stifles disagreement and eliminates rigorous standards. The Ivy League brand is so strong that only those who've been on the inside know how devalued these fancy degrees can be. And they certainly wouldn't want to tell tales out of school, so to speak. |
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It is not that I for one fear those that went to Ivy League schools and the like. It is what they LEARN at these institutions that worries me. Also, there is a tendency now among the political class to equate where one went to college/university over their life experience. After all, what impressed Americans in the 1980s about Ronald Reagan? That he went to Eureka College or his overall life experience? I worry that we also are electing a lot of lawyers-no offense to the poster-and not enough business people, farmers, people out side of the box, so to speak. |
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No matter what type of education you have , Some people will always be ahead . Some People because they are smart & Some because they are greedy . Myself ,I like to think that that even with a college ed. that I have more than just a little greed somewhere in there . But like the old Man said ,Some can ,Some teach , Greed is where it shows. |
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We are not behind anyone in engineering. It this were true there wouldn't be a problem with industrial espionage in this country. Foreign concerns pay fortunes for American technology which is better than any anywhere.
German engineering, quite frankly, stinks. They can't build a reliable car and never could. For reliability you go to Japan, where you find engineering approaches invented by Americans (ever hear of Edwards Deming?)
The problem is that American businesses are dominated by the short term thinking of idiots like Jack Welch, who is arguably the worst manager in history.
Welch left GE profitable, but doomed because virtually all R&D was ended under Welch's "look good this quarter" philosophy. He transformed the greatest manufacturing company in history into a second rate financial concern. 70% of GE's profits came not from manufacturing, but from consumer loans.
Harvard, Wharton and the rest teach that there are no principles by which large concerns are run. There are only the immediate profit/loss sheets and whatever boosts them is the right way to run a business. Pragmatism dominates in business as in politics, with the same disastrous results.
It's why you see businessmen and politicians claiming to defend free enterprise while clamoring for more and bigger government bailouts.
American intellectuals have always longed for an aristocracy (rule of the best). They want an American royalty with an Ivy League degree replacing the Coat of Arms. A brave new world where degrees guarantee automatic status with no need for actual, real world accomplishment.
America once had an authentic respect for accomplishment but little tolerance for titles and degrees. Today, America is a status society like most of Europe. That's why Obama won, because he is European in attitude and temperament.
America got what it deserved with Obama and will get even more of what it deserves with a ten year depression. |
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I recall previously addressing this very topic on a Liebau post. Is intelligence simply the ability to internalize and regurgitate information in an intelligent sounding manner or is intelligence the ability to honestly and accurately interpret said internalized information? Does it really make any difference if one attends an ivy league university of some hodunk college? In fact, does it really make any difference if one attends a university at all? If an intelligent person is capable of researching a topic and understanding its complexities without a university degree, is that person any less capable than one with an ivy league degree? What I learned as an undergraduate and graduate student, jumping through the hoops in order to attain my degrees, is for the most part useless. What I have subsequently learned on my own I find much more valuable. I've been told that one learns to think while pursuing a college degree. But is subjecting oneself to the mind numbing propaganda so prevalent at our colleges and universities a process that teaches us how to think? I doubt it! I'm sure that independent thinkers can come out of our ivy league schools, but then they had better prove that ability outside of academia. Otherwise, they are just useless fools with with a good memory and a useless degree. |
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I mean, you the brilliant Dave M., slamming our best and smartest as "d*** dumb." You have foxmustang "afraid" of Ivy League graduates. And finally, if that weren't enough, you have Shelly, ranting about Jews from some trailer somewhere.
Face it, you losers, you had your chance in life, and you failed. You couldn't get into the best colleges because you weren't smart enough or didn't try very hard. You couldn't get a good job because no one likes a bitter ignoramus. Etc. etc.. |
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Shelly you are a muslim right? |
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Be afraid.....very afraid.....
These Ivy League institutions, especially their business schools, produce more of the corporate Robber-Barons than any other schools.....
Especially be wary of persons with degrees from Harvard Business School and Wharton Business School (Penn University).......... |
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Ever heard that old cliche:
"He has to be from Harvard. Nobody but an ivy-leager could possibly be so d*** dumb!!" |
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