The Best and the Brightest Have Led America Off a Cliff

Those whom did knew are laughing all the way to the bank. They practice there "concern" face when on the talk shows however they are the same ones whom cashed out in 2006 telling you to "stay in." I'm not talking the Warren Buffet types whom can spare to lose a mill or two on some junk investments. I'm talking about the 401K owner whom dreams of traveling American in a RV has been put on hold for the next 3 to 5 years. I know these "wizards of smart" an't that dumb. These are the same people whom did not even blink while filling up there 745 with super while getting the low down on the cocktail party going down in Georgetown on there blackberry as they speed dial there assistant to get them 1st class tickets from Atlanta (CNN) to Dulles. There is one dude on CNN that they have talk about money and homeboy sounds like he could barley make it out of Miro 101 at Triple Arrow Community College however then I realize its CNN and he is just a shrill (take a guess whom I'm ragging on).
Markets have ups and downs (sorry workers party people) however this mess could of been avoided. More like the scrap you got from falling on a patch of ice is becoming an amputation thanks to some of our leaders on Capital Hill (that was reelected) and the bandit bankers whom will still make out as they days get longer.
Don't worry, Liberals: you can join me in the mountains becuase you guys can sew and pick the right berries.

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I just want to say no truer words have been spoken about the Ivy League elitists than these. Thanks for the article.

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Mr. Hedges is a very brave soul for raising many hard-hitting points in this article.

He is correct to point out that it is not solely the top right-wingers (Republicans) who emanate from these universities but also the top left-wingers as well (Democrats); as he says, Obama and most of his advisers and Cabinet members hail from these places as well. Do keep in mind that the Ivies and indeed the majority of America's universities and colleges have been (for at least the past 30-40 years or so) overwhelmingly left-wing, at least in theory: "By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans. The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative."

Hedges even dipped in to the taboo subject of ethnicity in this article, a subject which is very much off-limits amongst the PC Ivy League crowd unless they are giving the obligatory nod to diversity/multiculturalism even though they themselves often live highly segregated lives. Also, many Americans would be shocked to find out how "market dominant ethnic minorities" (read Amy Chua's book WORLD ON FIRE) are emerging from these elite colleges and universities, with some of these universities being composed of upwards of 40-50% Jewish-Americans and Asian-Americans even though those two ethnic groups are no more than 10% of America's total population...this leaves only about 60-50% of the remaining slots open for standard WASP Americans (who are still about 70% of the population) not to mention African Americans (15% of pop.), Native Americans, and all of the other ethnic groups found in America.

For another good article on the obscene depths to which many of America's Ivy League and business elites are now sinking, check out the following article: "Profiles in Panic"

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Why don't you tell us what you really think Chris? Quit holding back...

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I went to Brown University back in the late 1970s. We had a very open curriculum with modes of thought courses and few distribution requirements. We made our own choices and were left to make our own mistakes and grow up at Brown. We even had the choice of taking a grade of pass or fail instead of a letter grade. The university housed student run living coops. Professors had pot lucks. Once we drove to the beach for class to listen to the lapping waves and discuss meta-physics and the ebbs and flows of life, etc. Some Deans even showed up and drank a beer or two at our frequent on campus parties. There was an active protest for many many months of students walking around the presidents office demanding divestment in South Africa. Every week it seemed there was some interesting and sometimes controversial university sponsored lecture. Hunter Thompson was recruited to teach! I think Brown University back then was an amazingly wonderful place to learn, to question, to mature. And I felt the student body was quite above average. Of course, even so, the majority of students were not real thinkers and truth seekers. But real truth seekers are always just a small percentage of every generation. Most students were there simply to recapitulate the good life their parents gave them. But I would venture to guess that there were more truth seekers at Brown, by percentage of a student body, than anywhere else. I would guess this is generally true across the Ivy's. I have a Ph.D. now and have taught in a southern college where there is 1/20th the number of truth seekers. I wouldn't blame the Ivy League students, the professors, or the institution. I suspect they are the best we have and still perhaps our only hope, We don't need more anti-intellectualism. And I don't think Ivy Leaguers are any more of less moral or ethical than the rest of the population. What we obviously need on the one hand are legal legislative controls on greed and the accumulation of wealth and power, and on the other hand, the creative spirit to experiment with new kinds of education and energy. The institutions in America need to modernize if we are to avoid floundering downhill like so many declining Empires of old. We will need to find a way to get the best and the brightest from these elite institutions of higher learning into positions of authority and power. The question we need to answer is, "How can we pick the best people to lead our nation?" I don't have a fast answer for that. But the vision we need to empower must not only be short term, but long term.

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So were most of our recent Presidents- somewhere along the way.

Want a good reason to reject the Ivy League?
Ask yourself how could Harvard graduate both Al Gore and George W. Bush at about the same time? Obviously Gore used the opportunity and Bush partied his way through, but they both came to the same point- the 2000 Presidential Election.

These men are about as polar opposite as can be, so how is it that they both made it out with a degree? Can't be that tough if Bush got 2 Ivy League degrees- and this was before the massive grade inflation of recent years.

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With everything they turn their hands to, turning to dust; could it be that a sense of entitlement is past its sell-by date? Is it too soon to mention the words'people power'?

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While I'm not so certain as the author of the apocalyptic predictions he makes regarding our political and financial systems, I am reasonably sure of one thing. Education, no matter where you seek it, is always what you make of it.

I teach at a mid-size state university in the South. The thing I tell my students is that all the books that are available to the students at Harvard are available to you as well. It may require more to get them, but you can get them if you so choose. Read them. Then, after you've finished all of your studies and moved on to the next step, keep reading. Keep engaging. Keep critiquing everything that you've learned. True education never ends.

The best thing anyone can get out of an education--whether it ended before high school graduation or it came to a glorious conclusion after a successful dissertation defense--is the ability to think. Not just analyze, not just criticize. Think. Deeply and thoroughly.

While my evidence is strictly anecdotal (full disclosure: you should always be wary of anecdotal evidence), it seems to me that the average American's thinking (at least the ones I meet on a regular basis) is an inch deep and six inches wide. The average elite academic's thinking is a mile deep and an inch wide. My considered opinion is that it would be useful if most people's thinking were somewhere in the range of 100 feet deep and 10 feet wide. Such a goal may seem modest when compared to the complexity of the world we live in, but attaining that goal would require considerable diligence. At least it would be a step in the right direction.

Democracy takes a lot of work, and we've been lazy for a long time in the good old USA.

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Chris Hedges excellent analysis would have been applauded by Ivan Illich.

Remember Illich's Deschooling Society back in the early 70s?

We know the situation of higher education (and lower too) is bad, and has been bad for a long time. What to do?

Here is a vintage Illich suggestion which has special resonance and technical possibility today:

“The most radical alternative to school would be a network or service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same concern”.

Schooling reproduces the society in which it is embedded. It is difficult to extricate learning from the teaching superstructure. But the Internet and the World Wide Web could be a way to overcome the corruption of education establishments, notwithstanding differentials of worldwide digital access.

I am not fantasizing abut a technological utopia: the positive radical change that could happen following Illich's suggestion for overgrowing the school establishment could happen without a Blackberry, but it's more powerful when there is an extended network.

A Quick Manifesto: start your own "university." Get an open source wiki website and you have as much infrastructure as you need to start a decentralized, grassroots an-archic unschool (note to NSA and Homeland Security--the term "an-archic" is used literally here to mean without overlord control).

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An economic recovery that permits lenders to charge 20% interest is an invitation to feudalism.

The usury laws which limit interest rates to the low teens which were in effect until the 1970s should be restored.

The financial meltdown offers an opportunity to devise financial rules that provide protection for borrowers as well as proift opportunites foe lenders.

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America's top universities aren't necessarily the places where people learn the most. There are "third-tier" colleges, ranked according to U.S. News, that have higher incoming SAT scores than "first-tier" colleges, and which have graduates who score higher on GREs.

College rankings are determined by the size of the institution's endowment. Naturally, colleges that cater to America's elite have larger endowments. But the teaching is usually done by grad students and a higher priority is placed on research than on education. Someone with a bachelor's degree from Harvard or Yale is not necessarily any better educated or qualified for anything than an undergrad from a four-year liberal arts college ranked as 3rd or 4th tier by U.S. News, or a state college or university.

There needs to be greater awareness of how colleges are ranked - the prestige accorded to Harvard, Yale, MIT, CalTech, Princeton, etc. needs to be re-considered in a skeptical light. The research performed by these universities is stellar, but the education given to typical students is not necessarily superior to that provided by less exalted colleges. A person like Barack Obama, who comes from a humble background and passes the rigorous admission process to one of these institutions (rigorous, that is, for someone whose family hasn't gone to the college for five generations) deserves credit. A legacy admission like GW Bush doesn't.

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"The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities." begins Chris Hedges, in his stretch to find something frightening to write about.

What can be laid at the feet of our universities is that they failed to teach George Bush and his pals anything about how to run a country. Mr Hedges should also recall that W removed many of the qualified people from key jobs and replaced them with idological clones--NOT from Ivy schools.

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To say that Ivy League and elite schools are all the same is just plain silly. Sarah Palin said that small towns and rural areas are the real America, and that is silly also. Statements which start with "all people who are" or "all people who do" are dehumanizing and generalized to the point of the absurd. The "us and them" way of looking at things denies diversity and denies people their humanity. There are jerks who went to Yale, there are jerks who went to Mississippi State, there are jerks who went to teachers' colleges, and there are jerks who are plumbers and lawyers and grocery store cashiers. I have never attended an elite school, but I would bet a million dollars I could find innovative, vibrant programs at each and every Ivy League school. To me, the entire American education is much too standardized, but I find it hard to blame Yale and Harvard and Stanford and Chicago and Brown and Princeton. To paint a large group with a single brush goes against the way I look at things. On the other hand, as my "theOnion" t-shirt says: "Stereotypes are a real time-saver".

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Chris, you paint with way too broad a brush, in my estimation. I am the product of public high school and of the so called "little Ivy League," having graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 1960 and then gone on to Hopkins for a Master's degree. It was my experience that the little preppies came already fully formed and sought out just the kind of vapid college experience you describe. On the other hand, there were the great majority of students who did NOT fritter away their time at college in a "four year loaf," with the expectation of heading for the canyons of Wall Street or plush law firms after graduate study. College was exactly what one made of it and it still is. To lump the absurd empty suit known as George Bush together with the likes of Barak Obama is ludicrous on its face. When you do such mental gymnastics you lose all credibility.

Of course, that was then and now is now, and the pressures on students in the current economy, with their huge loan indebtedness upon graduation and the paucity of decent jobs, and blah, blah, blah. It is entirely understandable that the intellectual and moral explorations of wide open groves of academe might be replaced by a more venal and job oriented attitude in students. Back in the day, one could take totally extraneous electives simply because one found them fascinating. I was an absolute dilettante and loved it all. There weren't enough years of college to take all the courses I wanted to take, particularly since I took my junior year in Paris, where I also played the dilettante in the courses I chose to take at the Sorbonne.

My university years were mind expanding and wonderful and anything but what Chris Hedges describes in this article.

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Guess, you'll be off the guess list at many of your old "buddies" parties, Chris.

Nice job excoriating the lavrae ruling elite and their cocoons.

A liberal education can be had just by reading and thinking.

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The recent director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights, Michael Ignatieff, proposed in the New York Times in May 2004 that we should give U.S. presidents the authority to preventively detain U.S. citizens and to engage in “coercive interrogations” should the United States experience another terrorist attack like 9/11. Ignatieff argued that “defeating terror requires violence” and “might also require coercion, secrecy, deception, even violation of rights.” “Sticking too firmly to the rule of law simply allows terrorists too much leeway to exploit our freedoms,” he said.[1]



In addition to Harvard’s top human rights academic arguing on behalf of “torture lite,” Harvard Law School’s Alan Dershowitz supports “torture warrants” so that U.S. presidents can torture detainees in so-called “ticking bomb” cases.
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also during and after the gulf war(first iraq war) the british were taking full creidit for insitagating bush 1 to start and persue war agasint iraq. the reason war criminal blair diidnto take full creidt for iraq war 2 was because that went sour(failure has no fathers claming thiers). itis a fact that merciless war done by america has benen perpetauted by the british agents inside america( and not some indepdnet israli agents as claimed-it jsut so happend that only know israli interest happend to coinside with those of english parasites -that is why war on and for behalf of england is being waged by america the world over.
By the way in IN '88 when Dalai lama, at the height of Tibetan disturbances, visited west, the then british prime minister refused to meet Him. Later on with the demise of Russia and usefulness of China gone and with manipulation to keep power in Hong Kong somehow intact, the same british media and government ,like dog, started barking at China. It is interesting that amnesty international selectively targets those very countries( as it did china after cold war) who are out of favour (because they would not be a british stooge) of the british media and govt. This is not surprising as amnesty international is the creation of british govt, and british media. england with the most appalling record of human rights in last 200 years of her evil rule, needed some organisation to keep the others from charging england off her past and current evil practices. In other words it went for aggressive posture in propaganda war so that others can be demoralized and stopped from pointing out the real evil which is england. That is why amnesty international is one armour of the british lies to exploit the rest of the world. Amnesty international must be ignored and an independent human watchdog (which england will simply ignore) created. One purpose of amnesty international is to create an atmosphere for hatred towards the would be victims of british exploitation so that a victim could be blamed to have deserved the consequences. That is why ,now amnesty international sometimes threatens China, sometimes India and etc.

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these protestant baptists((and so callled religious fundamentalists and evnagalicals bastards)) are the agents of england inside america and have always been.
thse baptists are the ones who created civil war for the benefit of british to reconquer america and during attack of britian in 1812 these baptists were acting as enemy agents inside amaerica.
these baptisat are called patrioit--now what a shame? the southern flag is sympbol of american patriotism when it was really an instrument of treachery to the american independence.

" I am afraid the meddling small minded, fearful white boy is indicative of a large group of the amerikan types who still support a corrupt regieme of neo-con syncopants. He and those like him live in suspicion and fear of anyone different

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Awesome article, Chris Hedges, but doesn't go far enough. If we note that most of the professors and courses are deemed "liberal" yet most of the graduates of these schools are nonetheless funneled into prestige jobs in corporate America, Wall Street and other ruling hierarchies, then we must come to the conclusion that the function of teaching these "liberal" courses with "liberal" professors is to learn the model of how societies should and could work efficiently for the benefit of all not just the elites, but then how to profit with this knowledge from deliberately skewering this model. I think the ruling elites actually made quite good use of their Ivy League education. I always read the Financial Times for the real story of any event, not the New York Times, because the financial community really does know what is truly going on, it's their business to know this and they learned it well at all their elite schools, and then they make the conscious choice to screw everyone and profit themselves with that knowledge. Well learned, indeed!

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The day Gonzales resigned.

The professor, a Yale graduate, made an astute obersvation: behind every major political and financial crime/disaster there is always an army of Ivy League graduates.

Chomsky nailed it right in 'Manufacturing Consent': Elites schools are in biz of developing professionals that carry on the elites agenda.

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I applaud the author of this article for exposing the insidious facade of Ivy League University liberalism. The "powers that be", made up of the leaders of the military industrial oil central private banking complex, have taken over the Ivy League universities and the mainstream media. Their purpose is to create a one world government and one world, debt-based monetary system. A monetary system that enslaves all of us by keeping us in debt our whole lives. In other words, their agenda is a "New World order". At the top of this power structure are the Rothschilds, Rockefellers and several other central bankers.
The central bankers after taking over the printing of money in most European countries were not going to let the United States print its own money based on the value of resources existing and created in this country. Benjamin Franklin stated that the main reason for the American Revolution was to break free of King George's requirement that the colonists use the Bank of England Fiat currency. President Lincoln attempted to fund the Civil War by printing greenbacks, not by using Fiat money printed by private central banks. We all know what happened to him.
Despite the founders of this country realizing the evils of a private central bank printing the money for a country, three private central banks were created during the course of this country's history. The first two did not have a long life span because congressional leaders and presidents realized the insidious evil of these institutions.
The third reincarnation of a private central bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, has fared much better since it was created in 1914. The European central bankers had Woodrow Wilson in their pocket. They also had enough political power to have the federal income tax amendment passed. In this way, we the people, by paying the federal income tax, would pay the interest earned by the Federal Reserve Bank in lending the money they print to this government for its use. By the way, the United States Supreme Court several years after the federal income tax amendment was passed ruled that this amendment did not give the United States government any additional powers to tax the people.
The Federal Reserve Bank has a limitless reserve of paper money to pay off all politicians since everyone has a price. That is why Rothchild has said that whoever printed the money for a country controlled the country.
The Federal Reserve Bank together with the military-industrial oil complex has taken over the mainstream media in this country. So in effect, the "powers that be" brainwash the children of the rich and powerful through their Ivy League university educations and the rest of us are brainwashed by the propaganda of the mainstream media.
The power elite's plan for world domination is flawless. Our only hope is to wake up and disconnect ourselves from the "matrix".
For more articles and videos go to www.911insidejob.net.

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establishment's preferred candidate. From corporations to organized religion he's the one they wanted because they know he will maintain the status quo.
Anyone who truly wanted change from Bush and wanted to support the middle class voted for Hillary.
It's in the best interest of every politician to defend this corrupt and broken system because it keeps them in power.
The French knew what to do when it comes to dealing with a failed political system.

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Agree with much of this article

I call it "hyper-rationalism" where very high IQ actually gets in the way of anything remotely resembling common sense and emotional intelligence (Obviously a gross oversimplification on my part.)

Also many academics suffer from their own "bubble phenomenon" like all of us, I suppose,-each of us having our own bubble boundaries and prism through which we view the world

The neuroscientists call this "bounded rationality" which is actually neuro-protective lest our brains become overwhelmed?

Dr.Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

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These schools function primarily to legitimize the intergenerational transfer of privilege.

I am the daughter of a coal miner who got $600 from my parents for the entirety of my education, which got me to graduate work at Stanford, MIT and Harvard.

Where, once this fact was discovered, I was not welcome.

These places are hostile to people like me, excepting a few exceptional professors who don't fit in well themselves.

I was the sole representative of the working classes in most of my classes. The students were openly hostile to any refugee from the working classes who don't hide it like a shameful blemish; if you are honest about your class background, you will be socially ostracized.

This is fundamentally because these instutions primary purpose is to function as the uber-nanny of the children of the rich. Their purpose is to put an imprimtur upon these brats which then legitimizes "elite" corporations to discriminate in favor of them, thereby insuring that the children of the rich will get all the good jobs and control the economy.

It's all about class.

These children are inculcated with a totally bogus sense that they are in "elite" institutions due to their own merit, when the opposite is glaringly obvious -- they are there because they have had access to every educational advantage from their time in utero.

Working class children cannot compete with the massive unfair advantages these brats enjoy and if you try, they treat you like a talking dog.

We need thorough reform of our educational system, top to bottom. The most important is the reform of K-12, so all children have equal access to quality education.

In addition, the figleaf of race "diversity" needs to give way to the hard realities of CLASS diversity.

Any university which has a student body whose parents' income levels do not reflect those of the public at large (Harvards' parents' average income is over $150K) should LOSE ITS TAX EXEMPTIONS.

Our tax money is being sucked up on a mass scale by these institutions via the non-taxation of their endowment income and the income tax exemptions given to their donors. Then, they use our public money to educate almost exclusively the children of the rich.

Larry Summer's attempts to curb this is one reason he was unpopular at Harvard.

If these schools can't get a student body which includes a high share of children of the working classes, they SHOULD LOSE THEIR TAX EXEMPTIONS.

Why should OUR money be used to educate rich brats?

Jan VanDenBerg

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You can see this absurd retreat into specialized, impenetrable verbal enclaves in every graduate department across the country.

The trend began with poststructuralism/postmodernism, an "academic" semantics game which allows the dippiest English Department denizens to fancy themselves qualified to teach across other curricula.

Such postmodern "scholars" have written an entire useless library of "scholarship" in obscure postructural jargon, rendering anything they may actually have to say totally useless to the lay person (not to mention other academics).

But as Liberal Arts students forced to learn dodgey Postmodernist language just to decipher reading assignments come to understand, postmodern "scholarship's" semantic sound and fury usually masks very little content to begin with.

The trend more or less disintegrates in the Math and Science disciplines, evidence of its lack of scholarly legitimacy (silly forays into the "philosophy" of Scientific Revolutions, notwithstanding).

Instead, postmodernism beat a quick path to corporate/civil service America, where its vast practical use as an obfuscatory tool cannot be understated.

Academics know this is BS. The average citizen does not, and stops in their tracks at its employment, rather than risk looking stupid for, say, questioning a $200K "consulting" contract to "market" nonexistant government functions that don't need "marketing" to begin with.

Poststructural/postmodern blither has translated quite handily into the "systems management" jargon used every day to justify privatization of public assets like roads, utilities and schools; transfers of public wealth to pointless government spending; outrageous private sector contracting habits; and policy decisions that cut out citizen interests entirely.

The Scholastics are back among us -- except instead of debating how many angels fit the head of a pin, they're deciding public policy in the nuclear age.

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Wow! Now that liberals don't have Bush to trash anymore, they have turned upon themselves and each other! All of a sudden the messes of this word are the fault of Harvard, Princeton and Yale. I have never seen so much agonized self-loathing expressed on these pages before. Institutions of higher liberal learning are not really hotbeds of evil and conspiracy, are they, posters? Get a grip. Wastrel fools who fail upward through legacy admissions and wealthy, powerful family connections can come out of any institution. It is a shame when such buffoons can finagle their way through Yale or Harvard, as Bush did, but wealth and power have clout, as we all know. I doubt that that is going to change any time soon.

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Now where would Chris Hedges be without his prep school and elite university educations?

His beloved working class family in Maine has no wider platform on which to share their wisdom. Assuming that the plumbers in his family are not blowhard charlatans like Joe the Plumber of Toledo OH, if they are fortunate they working and taking care of their families. But they have no connections, except Hedges, by which they can communicate with us.

George W. Bush graduated from Yale and Dick Cheney dropped out. So what? Bush failed to learn anything much but that's probably not Yale's fault.

Sarah Palin is a prime example of what someone without an elite education doesn't know and doesn't understand. Are we to prefer her small-town and small minded values over the intelligence, education and cosmopolitanism of Barack Obama? Not bloody likely.

Many brilliant people put their intelligence to use to enrich themselves and not to contribute to the wider world. That is a moral failing not an educational one.

What is Chris Hedges thinking?

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I think this greed, lack of empathy and personal ambition, rather than a triumph of stupidity. They are dumb like foxes. Did they do away with Glass-Steagall by mistake?
One of the big lessons at the big schools is entitlement.

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When despotic regimes take over --anywhere in the world, and any time in history-- it's always the intelligentsia and the artists that are singled out for exile, death, or imprisonment. The elite fear those with critical intellect. They foster obedience, obsequiousness, and blind allegience to power.

It is little wonder that the institutions the elite errect to keep the rabble out would foster these same qualities. Sometimes I feel that all you get for your enormous debt for your student loans at these Ivy League schools is being able to say "Four legs good. Two legs bad." with conviction.

As to our elite having "...led America off a cliff"; I have stated my opinion on this often.

We need leaders who can "think outside the box" when it comes to our economic meltdown. And yet all we have are leaders who were brought up in the very theories that brought us to ruin. They are taught with a religious fervor not to question the dogma of Market Fundamentalism.

If anyone from one these elite institutions should happen to voice an unorthodox idea, the herd mentality will quickly shout them down. They learn quickly and early that taking a stand apart from the consensus gets you ousted rather quickly. (Ask Gen. Shinseki about that one!)

They just don't want to hear that they might be wrong. I am absolutely sure that Alan Greenspans' mea culpa to the Congress that his predictive model "might" have been wrong was the most difficult thing he has ever had to do as a public personae.

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This is the state of education in our country!!!! Be afraid. Anything is okay just as long as you don't get caught.

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My response to this article is fed by my dismay at the suggested appointment of one individual to Obama's cabinet in today's NY Times. The potential Secretary of Energy is a Stanford professor with little or no experience in anything outside of the elite academic environment.

I am no anti intellectual, but I am looking for something much more mundane, common sense and a practical approach.Our planet is under siege. There is no time to waste while the energy secretary gets up to speed.

Our education system is not just broken at the pre college level as this article demonstrates. We need leadership that will bring solutions that are fresh and workable. Where will that leadership come from? Apparently not always from the "best and brightest" of the old models.

It is my conviction that we can never return to our old ways. The new leaders are here to show us how to help ourselves. As they emerge all will be renewed including academia.

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I earned my PhD at an Ivy League university and have spend much of my adult life doing research and teaching at elite institutions and what Hedges describes is, in my view, accurate. I am committed to helping students learn to think for themselves, but it is surprising how few really want to do this. Most of my students are completely focused on the GPA and getting into grad school. The over specialization among professors is absurd ... tenure requirements actually discourage anyone from seeing the big picture, from really contributing anything meaningful to society.

My undergrad experience was very different. I went to a small, innovative, liberal arts college that emphasized learning, tutorials, independent study -- there were no grades, just written evaluations. No GPA, few required courses, no T.A.'s, just dedicated professors with tiny classes and lots of room for creativity. I created my own major and wrote an innovative thesis (on feminist spirituality). I loved it. Going to grad school at a huge Ivy League was a big shock.

One thing that Hedges forgot to discuss is academia's failure to sufficiently promote environmental awareness and sustainability efforts. This has been a huge oversight over the past two decades or so. It has been the environmental activists (not the academics) who have been making important advances. Part of the problem is that most academics are dependent on getting funding, often from the government. This exerts a huge controlling influence.

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I'm sure that there will be backlash from the "best and brightest" bigtime, however. They will continue their self-congratulatory, high self-esteem party all the way down the path to...

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I am sick of these overprivilaged hot shots, who cheated their way throuh school and just about everything else, who are concerned with feathering their own nests, who think that the leg-up in life that they had was meant to be, who are concerned with nothing more than garnering their next "credential," acting like they are the be-all, end-all of God's plan or something, while they oh so generously bail US out of the problems they themselves have created!

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....
The corporate/university system has a nice way in which it works its synergy with corporations -

Most universities have been outsourcing the funding for most "CHAIRS" of departments. This means that each department now gets its funding for the Chairman of XYZ in, say, the economics department from non-university overhead funding sources.

Most PhDs in departments are told to get their own funding for their own "Chair" - in whatever discipline is at issue. The PhD guys now go, hat in hand, to... where would you guess???... to corporations mostly or to think-tanks funded by corporations to get funding for their Chair and for research projects they wish to carry out.

By outsourcing the funding for these Chairs (and research grants/projects) the University removes items of what were its own overhead/expenses and gets the Chairman to go find their own funding... from corporations (or the military-industrial-guys.)

This is true of Physics (where grants and funding come from Fed Government, Defense Dept, and defense corporations) and for the social sciences like Economics where the professors have to get their own funding not only for their own salaries, but for their research projects and the salaries of their assistants. And it is true for medical/drug research where funding comes from pharmaceutical industry.

This brings Corporate America right into the various departments of Universities - and Business Schools and Economics Depts are top of the list of this outsourced funding. This is how we get such consistent Globalization-Big-Corporate propaganda ops coming out of the business schools... no questions asked about the virtues of mega-corporation-globalization operations.

It is how the framing of the whole globalization issue is now dominated by: either you are a protectionist OR you are for global free markets... no other option(s).

Now the PhDs are beholden to their funding sources and will not violate the thrust of what their funding sources want them to do - deliver proof of corporate efficacy, proof of unregulated capitalism, proof of Wall Street operations, proof of... the entire mega corporate value system coming out of the college/university system.

Note, of course, who is not represented in the higher education system - the middle class, the lower classes, the workers, the labor unions, the poor, the exploited, etc. The whole system is designed to do what it does - to provide the framing for mega corporate virtues, framing for why labor unions are bad, framing for why slave labor is good for them, etc.

(If it weren't for Nike, those poor people in Thailand would have no work at all...!!! They owe so much to Nike that merely thinking about forming a labor union is so ungrateful of them.)

Were Harvard, for instance, to use its huge endowment to provide totally free scholarships to ALL of its undergraduate and graduate students, they would get a far wider variety of people. They have no need of charging anything for students at all... ever.

And, they should use that endowment to pay their own PhDs and Graduate Students themselves. That would change the system. But, you will not see that. Harvard (along with other endowments) is who funds the stock prices of their corporate patrons - a nice closed system in which you get just what we have gotten - total financial collapse and CNN/MSNBC spending time blaming it all on labor unions with near zero questioning at all on mega-corporations' culpability.

Don't you love it!
....

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Professors are dogged workers, technologists with an 80 hour workload at the ends of semesters. Of course these poor abused schmucks don't have any new ideas!

Professors are experts at social diplomacy. They live where others fail because they drink their cocktails properly. Why not design an SAT or GMAT test to measure this dubious skill? Then graduate schools could get 100% of the "Best" students and ignore the trash.

Professors almost always got to be professors because they were graduate students of the right fund-raising professor who called in some favors, and put his students in their positions.

Finally and most important, successful professors know who pays their salary. Are they taking Tobacco Institute money? Drug trial money? Especially for young economists it helps to ask: do Republicans run the show? Conservative or centrist Democrats?

President-Elect Obama was looking for an economic advisor. A prof walked in. Obama asked, "How much is 7 x 5?" "35", said the prof. "Thank you, Next!"

The second prof walked in. "How much is 7 x 5?" "32", said the prof. "Hmm, wait outside", said Obama.

The third prof walked in. "How much is 7 x 5?" "Are we buying or selling," asked the prof. "You're hired!", said Obama.

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the IVY Leagues will do hunky dory !

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I have attended both a community college and a local university.

Not only does one pay great sums of money to attend the university, the university expects the student to make great discoveries, run experiments and write journal articles that will benefit the university. The university also saves money by having graduate students teach many of the classes. I find that I learn better from an actual professor who has taught the course previously.

The students that attended the community college were more likely to be non-traditional students (older, with children, less financially well-off, employed full-time, etc.) The focus was on the student actually learning. I found that the professors were more liberal and often leaned to the left. This was less noticable at the university. I felt that the community college environment was friendlier.

The university also had a more diverse population. There were many students from foreign countries. There is a hospital associated with this univerity and I recently went to visit a patient there. A doctor came through with 12 medical students. Only one was white. The rest were Indian or Asian. While I do not object to educating foreign students here, it is my hope that they take that knowledge home with them and that it does not result in the outsourcing of American jobs.

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I could not help but read Chris’s article with a dash of amusement, not only because I am Harvard educated, but also because he completely misunderstands the subject matter.

His first sentence gives way his gross ignorance of Power and how it has evolved and developed over time – the man is obviously not educated nor are many of the readers of this site as the comments so obviously testify.

I have had an elite education and I can assure you it has nothing to do with running the economy in the interests of the many- there has been no mismanagement – it has been well managed to favour the interests of the few at the expense of the many. There is no concern for the great unwashed and their inability to afford health care – my colleagues simply don’t care. Their aim is and has always been to stay at the top of the social pyramid and in that desire they have been fantastically successful.

Regards from Australia

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While I agree with Hedges' overall idea that most of the "elites" of America have done the country no favors, I'm confused by something. Hedges tells of his coming from a working class background, but of having gone to New England prep schools & Harvard. He then closes his thoughts with "Barack Obama is a product of this elitist system." I'm confused because as I understand it, Obama comes from a similar working class background as Hedges - & then progressed down a similar Ivy League path. It seems to me that this gives them a quite similar background..... ?! (BTW, I believe that Obama's exposure to both worlds - watching his struggling single mother, seeing the street-grit side of life while organizing in Chicago, & then coming to travel in the spheres of the most elite of the country - is what has given him such a unique appeal across America & the world. I feel that unlike William Deresiewicz, who Hedges refers to, Obama can talk, & consult, across the class divide. That is just one of the several reasons that I believe Obama is indeed the real deal.)

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Nice article - a little generalizing but true enough to make it good.

The so-called best and the brightest owe alot to the national and world community for all that they have taken and caused over the years. They won't see it that way and they will point to a smattering of grads who have done amazingly great things, but the facts are there. They may be among the most academically gifted and brightest but they certainly don't qualify to be among the "best".

Two of our greatest Presidents, arguably the TWO greatest, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson came from humble backgrounds and not from the elite schools. We need another one of them!

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That is the all telling line in this article. Just after the Enron debacle, I remember hearing a radio interview with a professor in the Harvard MBA program. The program host said "don't they teach business ethics any more?" The good professor answered with an audible smirk, "most of the students in the program have been in the real world, have worked, and would sneer at any doctrine of ethics in business".

This is where we are, while the world looks on with mouths hanging open in disbelief.

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This article provides terrific insight into the thinking and likely values our next president--the “product of this elitist system” Hedges describes. I first came across it and commented on it over here a couple of days ago. I still can’t read it or comment on it enough.

For me, the column’s title pretty much says it all. It’s all about what you learn. “The Best and the Brightest”--at what?

Like the’ best and brightest’ pragmatists of Halberstam’s book of the same name. Where you see, even back then--starting with Kennedy—that the masters of the “technical fix” and eschewing “ideological” positions and structural change were just as busy driving head-long for the cliff as they are today.

And familiar to both today and yesteryear is what gets defined as “ideological”--any position at odds with what nourishes the power of the current entrenched system.

And what gets learned is the unambiguous consequences of choosing the “pragmatic” over the moral:

“Intelligence is morally neutral. It is no more virtuous than athletic prowess. It can be used to further the rape of the working class by corporations and the mechanisms of repression and war, or it can be used to fight these forces. But if you determine worth by wealth, as these institutions invariably do, then fighting the system is inherently devalued. The unstated ethic of these elite institutions is to make as much money as you can to sustain the elitist system.”

A moral basis and true belief in the common good get put off the table--especially when those with strong vested interests happen to be sitting at the table!

So it should be any surprise when in the future Obama unveils his “universal” healthcare plan we find out he has chosen to sustain the current system--creating a pure ad-hocery that somehow manages to keep around the profit motive of the parasitic insurance industry insiders and their allies?

Whether it’s war or a corrupt system, as Hedges writes: “They will feed the beast until it dies.” That’s the simple lesson because, as John Kenneth Galbraith once put it:

“Real "reform" begins... with belief, not with laws and government.”

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. . . (or written) than these. Mr. Hedges hits the nail right on the head over and over. The situation is only relatively less bleak at the "lesser" schools also. Perhaps the powers that be at these schools are merely honing their resumes for a shot at the big time, or perhaps the mindset which Mr. Hedges describes is now so endemic in academia that even lowly state school administrators can't imagine any other way.

Like Mr. Hedges, I am also a working-class intellectual. I identified wholly with his brief description of his background. So, where is the organization for people like us? Is there a union of working-class academics to promote the interests and viewpoint of those of us who can identify the class-originated defects of the status quo? If not, let's start one. As the article indicates, the effects of bourgeois academic cultdom are not confined to universities. There are bigger stakes.

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For one thing he upholds "morality" as some general good while in fact it is just the usually written rule sets of a particular mythology.

For example the ten commandments is the "morality" of the master race mythology of Judaism and those rules were never intended to apply to non jews who are generally regarded as subhuman. For example the term "neighbor" refers only to other Jews. Those outside of Judaism are openly scorned.

Doubt that? Then consider this present day when all Jews celebrate the day of atonement by reciting the Kol Nidre or prayer asking forgiveness for:

ALL THE LYING AND CHEATING THEY WILL DO AGAINST NON-JEWS *IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR*.

As for ignoring "big questions" in the elite schools, none of which he seems to know himself, he just might mention - but of course is scared shitless to do so - the question of just why the 2.7 percent of this hopeless quasi democracy which are Jews can TOTALLY CONTROL our entire country as an elite master race and not even be a race at all?

Yes, he is right about the superior language skill of these over-educated fools but he is clearly one of them himself,

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I went to boarding school. One of the best in the country, the same one John McCain attended. At the time I attended (which was a long time ago) the "undesirables" were placed in certain dorms and the successful kids of big donors were placed in their own dorm. This was never formally stated but it was obvious.
Competition was based less on merit and more on prestige. A guy like George Bush would have done very well. Someone who had lots of money, was relatively good looking, and easy to get along with has a MUCH better chance of success in those environments than an inquisitive mind that goes against the grain.
A rich, beer guzzling, date raping, elitist ass (to be judgmental but precise) was sooner accepted than physically weaker boys or boys who challenged the status quo.
Truly Darwinian and entirely Machiavellian.
Also when I attended the "rat system" was still in effect. This system placed less value on younger boys (like freshmen and sophomores) as well as new students or "new boys". The lesser students held the door for "old boys", ate after them at lunch (even if they had the same lunch schedule), recieved few if any perks or benefits of attending, and were generally hazed, teased, and tortured until they acheived old boy status. Don't get me wrong, if you were a misfit in any way the hazing never stopped. But the power of "old boy status" to people who had taken a beating as younger boys often manifested as vengence on the new kids.
The majority of the graduating class went on to the best schools in the country and those who did not attend the elite Ivy Leagues were looked down upon and considered lesser people for their failure.
I learned a lot about people during my time there and even though it was considered one of the best schools in the country I hated it, despite that I am athletic, relatively good looking, not a bad student, and could fit in (despite my lack of wealth).
My problem? I did not agree with the value system that underlined the whole process. I felt the education offered was cookie cutter and I wanted to smack half the student body for not realizing how fortunate and priveleged they were.
It did not teach us to be men, or human beings, or responsible members of society, it taught us how to achieve even at the expense of others.
As a result I TOTALLY agree with this article, though I have to say that not all Ivy League students should be considered little George Bush's, there are many brilliant minds at work in our best schools. What should be attacked is the environment that allows a George Bush to become successful, to become President, to become the worst leader this country has ever experienced. Though he looks great on paper, character counts for far more than all the benefits of a top notch education. George Bush and many of the leaders we are saddled with, have no regard for us and in the end you will not be invited to the brunch or board meeting or cotillion. You will be left to fend for yourself while the elites take your money, your health care, your educational system, and your vote all the way to the bank that daddy owns.
Another quick point is that despite all the benefits, the majority of the boys I met at this school were by far some of the weirdest people I have ever met. In my opinion, it was mostly because they truly believed that whatever they thought was right. They were the best, the smartest, the wealthiest and as a result unequivocally correct. Sound like anyone you know?

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inequality.
American picks the 'best and brightest' based on those who already have too much. Look at McNamara, one of JFK's whiz kids who had no idea why the Vietnamese were fighting. Look at the guys who buy their political positions and this is considered OK because they have millions so they must be smart. America needs leaders who are sensible. Sensible people do not go to war for no reason. Electing only grandmothers would solve most of Americas problems in no time.

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I don't have a DIGG account, so I Stumbled this because I think it is excellent and thought provoking. Is it flawless? No. But it is a good launchpad for additional discussion.

Perhaps the college profs commenting here could pose this question to their classes: "Has elitism failed America and, if so, what should be changed to make the system work again?"

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The last two presidents of Mexico have been ivy-league and notice the direction they have gone...

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I invite everyone to read Kurt Vonnegut. He gives an even deeper analysis of the profound ironies of elites in American society. Sometimes it takes a "children's crusade" to see that the emperors wear no clothes.

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The Ivy leagues aren't about education but about maintaining an oligarchy. You go to Harvard or Yale or whatever not because you can learn more (you can't) but because you can meet the right people to get ahead.You get connected there not educated.

There was a time in Early American history when those schools also gave the best education but that time is long past.

Mostly these days its about knowing the right people and acting the right way.

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I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Hedges about the reason why we often get such little value for the money from those who graduate from prestigious schools. As most of us realize, 'who' you know often trumps 'what' you know in life, and being a graduate of a prestigious university is like being a member of an exclusive club. Graduates benefit from incestuous alumni networks, whether it be because of connections provided by their former professors and advisors, or from alumni of these schools. Many students graduating from so-called second and even third-tier colleges and universities receive just as valuable an education, but lack the connections that facilitate entry into the most sought after and powerful positions in government and industry. We need to move to a more merit-based system that places more importance on what an applicant knows and/or has accomplished rather than on the school they attended, or the circles they travel in.

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I am a recent Brown grad and I feel that I was greatly encouraged to think creatively and not be an automaton. I immensely enjoyed my time there.

At Brown, there are no core requirements and you can take any class you want pass/fail. Given this freedom, I was able to seriously study physics and philosophy while also throwing in a bunch of other interesting courses. However, the class that had probably the greatest impact on my time there is one that Hedges seems to ignore and one that I would not have taken had I not gone to a school that encourages such intellectual exploration: Ghanaian Drumming.

My professor, Martin, a master drummer from Ghana, taught what he called the African education. We learned drumming not by playing each part as a singular portion of the piece, but by learning how all of the parts relate to one another. This methodology was reinforced by the "each one teach one" style of practicing, in which Martin emphasized "Peruvian [periphal] vision" and "the meeting of the ones"--essentially both seeing and hearing what others were playing and being able to relate to them.

In addition, another valuable lesson I learned from drumming was that it was one of the first things I ever was really bad at in my life yet wanted to be good at. There are plenty of things that I am no good at, but have no intention of actually excelling in. However, drumming was exciting and compelling, and I wanted to do well--but I sucked. Despite its seeming simplicity, my brain could not process that basic concepts. From this experience I find myself better able to emphasize with high schoolers who can't do basic algebra, for example.

Now to undue all that I have said (everyone put your judging caps on): I currently am employed as an investment banker. However, I don't feel that this defines me in the least. I don't feel like explaining it all hear, but I encourage you read the book "Siddhartha" to understand more. Basically, its all about experiencing the world and finding your path. You can't know what tastes best until you've sample many flavors and learned from the misgivings of each.

Despite the fact that I am employed by a, gasp, investment bank, I find myself everyday trying to figure out what gives life meaning--the universal understanding as Hedges would put it. I like to think that many of my fellow Brunonians and "elitists" alike feel the same way. Sure there are some privileged kids who only do it for money and power, but in my real world (not stereotyping thought experiments) I have found them to be few and far between.

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Very perceptive observations. When someone who lives and works in the belly of the beast says it,
it has an impact that is hard to deny. I'm sure this guy will be catching endless crap from his colleagues until the day he dies. But I hope not. Clearly if the most intelligent of us have bought into a system that is carrying us all off a cliff, the change we need is surely far more RADICAL than what Obama is offering. Could the Khmer Rouge have been right in taking the intellectuals from the cities and making them work in the fields? (joke)

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In my field of study, I use two complex systems as examples to explain how the dominant element within each ultimately undermines the entire system. A dominant elite minority may prove to be another such example.

The first example is automobiles. There are 4 basic modes of urban/suburban travel -- (cars/trucks, walking, mass transit, bicycling). The automobile presents such a severe impediment to the function of the other modes, in the end, neither can travel by car function effectively.

The second example is the global economy. Economies range in scale from local, regional, state, national to global. Each scale of economy is critical to maintain. Today's global economy undermines every lesser scale of economy, leading to the collapse of all economies; the same way automobiles first undermine other modes of travel and then their own effectiveness.

Here's a third example: Metropolitan areas have at their core an historic district. (Large metropolis have numerous historic centers but use the single district for this example). Surrounding the single central city and beyond its historic inner-city neighborhoods are bedroom communities that accommodated growth based on the new residents commuting to central city jobs. Thus, a metropolitan area is comprised of suburban 'local' economies surrounding a 'regional' metropolitan area economy. Unless the numerous suburban 'local' economies achieve an adequate level of functionity, a metropolitan regional economy will collapse.

I'm not sure elite economists understand what I'm trying to convey here. They'd rather rest on their "The global economy is inevitable" laurels.

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This is a huge trend:

- Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class
- Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education

...and when you click on those links, you'll find many many more recommendations.

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What a great article about our educational system which could apply across the board in many ways. Been to Harvard recently? The campus itself is surrounded by a really run down area. You have to ask yourself how the most brilliant would permit that situation to develop. There's no question that there's an elite division working within these colleges but there's also clear evidence that there's a total disconnect beyond the ivy walls. When a place like Harvard can't get their act together in order to protect themselves, then, you have ask yourself is this not just an example of total stupidity? Then, there's the idea that GW graduated with an MBA from Harvard, which on the face of it, couldn't be possible. GW can barely deliver a complete sentence. For sure, I don't really like this article at all. It's too painful to have to realize that the messages of my upbringing were fundamentally flawed.

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Mr Hedges is sure headed in the right direction in the relation of conceptions such as 'education', 'pedagogy' and the purpose(s) of such in this society. Calvin anyone? Luther? Smith? Let's remember that there is now, and there always has been, a deep and abiding anti-intellectualism engraved into the very character of what it means to be 'an American'.

Thinking and Knowledge are dangerous. How could any thoughtful person think that our Educational System is set up and organized to achieve those purposes? Make no mistake: we are in the grip of a return to puritanism and the obscurantism of those days of Plymouth and the Mayflower and of those Moral Philosophers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The Conservatives of our times are in deadly earnest and are accomplishing great strides daily (and these Conservatives can be found in the most unlikely places sometimes -- like in supposedly Liberal and even Progressive camps; even some of the Left!!).

Education? Teaches Answers, not Questions; teaches Conclusions, not Premises; Teaches Suppositions, not Pre-suppositions; teaches Rationalizing, not Reasoning; in short, In-Doctrine-ates.

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When you attend an Ivy League school you are indoctrinated into how to serve corporations plain and simple. That doesn't make you the best nor the brightest. It makes you a a greedy, self-serving bastard who the rest of society can live without. Besides it's completely based on how much money your parents have or if they are alumni. When Americans hear someone went to Yale or Harvard they think that person can do no wrong and that they deserve to rule them and make important decisions for them. No they don't. It's just another school. How well you are educated depends on personal effort, not an overpriced tuition. These people realize that they can make millions by participating in our corrupt political and economic system. That makes them the worst and the dumbest to me.

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USA, Inc., The Great Mother of the American Corporate State.

Nothing free market about that. The free market
demands failure from the unsuccessful without
help from anyone. Therein the corporation fails,
first because if is awarded limited liability from day one.
Amerika has gone far beyond that
propping failure after failure on someone else's
tab. After all, public edjukashun has taught us
all that nobody fails, amongst a host of other
lies. The slugs that graduated from those
schools will soon learn the lesson of the
street, the best school if they're lucky enough
to survive it.


Statism will die a well deserved death.

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I served a community of this country's wealthiest people for 14 years and I have to say, for the most part, they are idiots. They may know their specialty quite well, but common sense they have no clue about.
I ran a hardware store in a town of millionaires and billionaires and even though they were millionaires they wanted to seem like regular Joes so they tried to do some of their own home repairs, but they did not have a clue.
Now, I might work in a hardware store but I have more education than most doctors, I just don't have the degrees. So when I say Stanford, Harvard or Yale types are all the same; cookie cutter elitists. you can take my word for it.
I know one man who holds a PHD in Physics from Stanford, his father was a Nobel Prize winning physicist, and he may know physics, but that is all he knows! Otherwise, he is just a moron!
The sad part is, the children of these idiot elitists are going to follow the same path as their fathers and they will be successful for it is pre-ordained. One son of a millionaire left town to go to college, when he return the next summer I asked him what he was doing for the summer, he said he was working in a Senator's office! His father was a Wall Street Wizard whose assistant was Robert E. Ruben!!!
The point is, the world is corrupt and it has always been corrupt and always will be corrupt as long as the ruler's only goal is power and wealth

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Just watch out for Timmy Wise he's on a barbituate leftie warpath, dude.

It's nice to see a critique of the owning-class appear on Alternet.

I had to laugh at all the sycophantic owning-class kool-aid rebuttals in the comments... more than a few of them showed their inability to read.

Brilliant work!

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Augh, yes, the comfortable and pathetic domain of a tenured professor.

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When I was at Stanford 38 years ago, I railed against "expertise," specialization, and professionalism, but, then, we in the minority there expected (naively) a counterculture to emerge to challenge and transform (evolve beyond) the "straight" (corporatist-conformist) culture we found ourselves in.

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While I agree with the basic thrust of this article and commend the author for stepping out on this critique of the underpinnings of our elitist establishment, I do take issue with the opening statement "intelligence is morally neutral." This doesn't line up with my own personal and educational experience. If one takes a more holistic view of what constitutes intelligence - which, I assume, this author would do - then we are necessarily led to believe there are many forms of "intelligence" (emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, and yes, even moral - see Howard Gardner). Any society which builds its ethical codes on a such narrow interpretation of intelligence and personal development is surely to go the way of Rome.

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