How the Ivy League Broke America

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-
college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/

Every coherent society has a social ideal—an image of what the superior
person looks like. In America, from the late 19th century until sometime
in the 1950s, the superior person was the Well-Bred Man. Such a man was
born into one of the old WASP families that dominated the elite social
circles on Fifth Avenue, in New York City; the Main Line, outside
Philadelphia; Beacon Hill, in Boston. He was molded at a prep school
like Groton or Choate, and came of age at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.
In those days, you didn’t have to be brilliant or hardworking to get
into Harvard, but it really helped if you were “clubbable”—good-looking,
athletic, graceful, casually elegant, Episcopalian, and white. It really
helped, too, if your dad had gone there.

Once on campus, studying was frowned upon. Those who cared about
academics—the “grinds”—were social outcasts. But students competed
ferociously to get into the elite social clubs: Ivy at Princeton, Skull
and Bones at Yale, the Porcellian at Harvard. These clubs provided the
well-placed few with the connections that would help them ascend to
white-shoe law firms, to prestigious banks, to the State Department,
perhaps even to the White House. (From 1901 to 1921, every American
president went to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.) People living according
to this social ideal valued not academic accomplishment but refined
manners, prudent judgment, and the habit of command. This was the age of
social privilege.

And then a small group of college administrators decided to blow it all
up. The most important of them was James Conant, the president of
Harvard from 1933 to 1953. Conant looked around and concluded that
American democracy was being undermined by a “hereditary aristocracy of
wealth.” American capitalism, he argued, was turning into “industrial
feudalism,” in which a few ultrarich families had too much corporate
power. Conant did not believe the United States could rise to the
challenges of the 20th century if it was led by the heirs of a few
incestuously interconnected Mayflower families.
--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

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Post by Leroy N. Soetoro
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-
college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/
Every coherent society has a social ideal—an image of what the superior
person looks like. In America, from the late 19th century until sometime
in the 1950s, the superior person was the Well-Bred Man. Such a man was
born into one of the old WASP families that dominated the elite social
circles on Fifth Avenue, in New York City; the Main Line, outside
Philadelphia; Beacon Hill, in Boston. He was molded at a prep school
like Groton or Choate, and came of age at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.
In those days, you didn’t have to be brilliant or hardworking to get
into Harvard, but it really helped if you were “clubbable”—good-looking,
athletic, graceful, casually elegant, Episcopalian, and white. It really
helped, too, if your dad had gone there.
Once on campus, studying was frowned upon. Those who cared about
academics—the “grinds”—were social outcasts. But students competed
ferociously to get into the elite social clubs: Ivy at Princeton, Skull
and Bones at Yale, the Porcellian at Harvard. These clubs provided the
well-placed few with the connections that would help them ascend to
white-shoe law firms, to prestigious banks, to the State Department,
perhaps even to the White House. (From 1901 to 1921, every American
president went to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.) People living according
to this social ideal valued not academic accomplishment but refined
manners, prudent judgment, and the habit of command. This was the age of
social privilege.
And then a small group of college administrators decided to blow it all
up. The most important of them was James Conant, the president of
Harvard from 1933 to 1953. Conant looked around and concluded that
American democracy was being undermined by a “hereditary aristocracy of
wealth.” American capitalism, he argued, was turning into “industrial
feudalism,” in which a few ultrarich families had too much corporate
power. Conant did not believe the United States could rise to the
challenges of the 20th century if it was led by the heirs of a few
incestuously interconnected Mayflower families.

Yea, "Ivy" became more about the name/company/connections
than about any kind of "education". More "clubs" than
universities. They keep just enough "grinds" to produce
quotable papers and get defen$e contract$, looks good.

And, ya know, WHO CARES ? "Universities" were always mostly
for the rich boys (eventually girls too). "Social evolution"
was always More Important. Get to know the Right People,
say it the Right Way, learn the Secret Handshake ... this
was, and REMAINS, important. Read back on the medieval
universities - "schools for gentleman, future rulers in
politics and industries". Less WHAT you know than WHO
you know.

And alumni contribute heavily for all that ....

This is the truth of high-level universities.

If you want something else, try a tech school.
Of course the Ivy's will be yer bosses ....

WAaaaah ! UNFAIR !!! Get used to it. Clear that
the power pyramid, the pecking order, is heavily
wired into the human brain.