The habits of America’s “meritocratic” elite are the subject of an American Interest blog post that includes the phrase “educational assortative mating” — i.e., Ivy Leaguers marrying Ivy Leaguers, generation after generation, so that the influential elite form a separate caste, with no familial ties to the rest of the nation, and no direct knowledge of how most Americans live or what most Americans believe.
Professor Glenn Reynolds (himself a Yale Law alumnus) sees this as evidence that our national aristocracy “is becoming increasingly inbred and stupid,” but perhaps a more important point is that our soi-disant “elite” are arrogant, lack the capacity for self-criticism, and refuse to recognize the possibility that intelligence is not synonymous with virtue. The simplest disproof of this Ivy League superstition about “meritocracy” is Ted Kaczynski, Harvard University, Class of 1962, but if that didn’t clinch it, there’s Barack Obama, Columbia University, Class of 1983. Very intelligent people can do very bad things. Even if we stipulate not merely their high IQs, but also their good intentions, it is still quite often the case that smart, well-meaning people turn out to be incompetent fools whose hubristic sense of their own superiority is a chief cause of their folly. Have none of these people read David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest? Or are they just too arrogant to understand the fundamental lesson? It wasn’t just the Vietnam War that the liberal elite bungled. They proved themselves at least as inept in domestic policy as they were in foreign affairs, but I digress . . .
Charles Murray deserves an apology. The phrase “assortative mating” is immediately recognizable to anyone who has read The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. In the first 125 pages of that book, Murray and his late co-author Richard Herrnstein described how the advent of universal standardized testing and nationwide recruiting by the Ivy League and other elite schools had created a sort of IQ segregation in American society. Yet this valuable insight was overlooked amid an absurd liberal temper tantrum. Herrnstein and Murray dared to talk about IQ and race and, as a result, they were falsely accused of being crypto-Nazis and advocates of eugenics. To accuse Herrnstein and Murray of racism is analogous, really, to saying that anyone who criticized U.S. policy in Vietnam under the direction of McGeorge Bundy (Yale, ’40) et al., was guilty of being “soft on Communism.” One could hate Communists and also believe that the liberals in charge of U.S. policy were idiots, just as one can despise racism while believing that liberal rhetoric about race and the policies resulting from this rhetoric are profoundly wrong. If voting for Democrats and pursuing liberal policies could solve America’s race problems, then Detroit would be Heaven on Earth, rather than the dangerous and bankrupt municipal catastrophe that it is.
The immaturity and selfishness of Ivy League students like Jerelyn “Who the F–k Hired You?” Luther should serve to remind us that the admissions committee at Yale is demonstrably incompetent to choose our nation’s leaders. The Ivy League is decadent and depraved.
The administration, faculty, students and alumni of Yale and Harvard are destroying America, and it does not matter whether they are doing this accidentally or on purpose. However, if the decades of disastrous policy inflicted on America by the elite were the result of incompetence, we might expect they would occasionally do something good or right, by accident. As it is, everything they do is bad and wrong.
The liberal elite consistently support policies directly opposite to America’s best interests. The excuse that they are well-meaning bunglers is implausible. Only active malice — anti-Americanism — can possibly explain how we have been betrayed so badly by these “leaders” whom elite universities have handpicked and indoctrinated.
The graduates of Harvard and Yale are America’s most dangerous enemies, carefully trained for their assigned roles in accomplishing our nation’s destruction. Americans can never possibly hate the elite as much as the elite hate America. Alger Hiss (Harvard Law, Class of ’29) could not be reached for comment.
Intelligence and Wisdom are two different stats on the character sheet. One may be intelligent enough to know the ins and outs of Socialism but not be wise enough to realize that it is a state of slavery & theft.
Isn’t it funny how a stupid roleplaying game can lead to a profound exploration of the difference between intelligence and wisdom?
You must be referencing D&D, a game I played a few times back in the late 70’s. Personally, I prefer reality to fantasy role playing.
What happens, I think, is that the Harvard/Yale axis is composed of people who are accustomed to being praised for their intelligence, whose precocious intelligence has been the basis for their uninterrupted record of scholastic success, who therefore believe themselves superior to others, and who expect deference from others. If you have ever met one of these 20-something “elite” types — barely out of college, yet convinced they already know everything worth knowing — you understand the awful hubris that is their most distinguishing characteristic. Washington, D.C., is overcrowded with such people. Every year, hundreds of new-minted graduates of the top universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Georgetown, Northwestern, etc.) flock to Washington and take positions in the bottom echelons of the city’s Ziggurat of Ambition. Congressional staffers, think-tank staffers, journalists, non-profit “activist” types — Washington swarms with these 23- and 24-year-old barracudas, all of whom expect a rapid ascent to the top of the heap. If they haven’t become rich and famous by the time they’re 30, they consider themselves failures. And no matter who you are, or what you have accomplished by way of proving your own merit, these conceited young elitists contemptuously regard you as their inferior. Every one of them things he is the Smartest Person on Earth, and it is quite impossible to convince them otherwise. The typical entry-level congressional staffer, fresh out of Georgetown or UVA, has zero respect for the Representative or Senator on whose staff he or she serves. Wholly egocentric in their worldview, these staffers have even less respect for the voters who elected the Representative or Senator. And this pattern is reflected throughout every other institution in D.C. It is this swarm of ambitious young geniuses, striving to make their way upward in the Machinery of Power, who actually rule America to a greater extent than the people we elect to office.
By the time any of these people “make it” in Washington, they are absolutely convinced they are so goddamned much smarter than the rest of us that we are not even fit to complain about how badly they fuck things up. It is the process by which our elite are selected and trained — a systemic and chronic problem — that really explains why America’s leadership is hopelessly “out of touch” or, as I say, hostile to the interests of the American people.
Measure a man by the lives he touches.
It took my grandfather’s funeral to teach that one to me.
They get into a mental trap I call the Credentials Argument. I have such-and-such degrees, held such-and-such position in my drum circle, I’ve been published here, been asked to speak there. Therefore, if I say 2+2=5 then you must believe me because of my credentials rather than the validity of my stupid argument.
It was NOT a stupid roleplaying game. It was a serious simulation. Now if you’ll excuse me, my female dwarf cleric is going to slay some rust monsters with my +4 Elven Hammer of Verisimilitude.
Idiocracy thought that the world’s best minds would be preoccupied with hair growth and prolonging erections. It turns out Mike Judge was close; they’re busy with Global Warming.
[o]ur soi-disant “elite”. . . refuse to recognize the possibility that intelligence is not synonymous with virtue.
Actually, they refuse to recognize that such a thing as “virtue” exists, at least in the classic, philosophical sense. That is, “virtue” combines moral motive and moral action (or inaction) to obtained the morally correct result. At best, the elite will recognize the validity of motive and result. Most often, they rely on motive only. (See, inter alia, Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed.) This why their actions are generally morally abhorrent and counterproductive.
In truth however, the driving force behind the elite’s actions is the pursuit of power and wealth. All of their self-aggrandizing moral preening merely camouflages their own venality.
As for the “associative mating” bit and the idea that it somehow leads to a tier of better educated children to the detriment of the rest of society, I recall when growing up, my friends fathers were engineers, doctors, lawyers, successful businessmen and the like. Not one of my friend’s mothers had more than a high school diploma. This is not to say that our mothers were unintelligent. They were well-read. They insisted that we speak and write with correct grammar. In point of fact, most of them had read more of classic literature by the time they graduated from high school than your average liberal arts major today. “Associative mating” is not about education. It’s about staying within a social class. It is about maintaining a position. And that position is one of power, provided we continue to let them exercise it, recent social, political and existential debacles notwithstanding.
People might no know that it was the traitor and Russian spy who was our first representative to the UN and handpicked by FDR. http://www.jewishamericanpatriots.com/american-politics/politics/acceptable-lies/.
I don’t hold being Ivy League against some people. What I dislike is purposeful social climbing.
True genius means understanding how stupid you really are. Otherwise, you simply just test well.
Good article…
It’s actually worse than that, What the “elite” deem intelligence is often nothing of the sort. The truly intelligent man recognizes and learns from his mistakes. He accepts that facts are prior and superior to theory, no matter who concocted the theory. He doesn’t persist with a failed strategy or tactic. More, he recognizes intelligent thinking and conclusions in persons not of his circle, and makes use of it without letting his prejudices get in the way.
Few of our self-nominated “elite” display any of those characteristics.
Hayek said highly intelligent people gravitate toward government/socialism for a couple of reasons. First, free enterprise creates some absurdities, like pro athletes making $250 million over ten years for hitting a baseball. Hayek said that makes the intellectuals jealous. They KNOW they are smarter than most jocks. And because they are smarter they think they deserve to make more money than some clod who hits baseballs for a living. What they don’t get, or prefer to ignore, is that while it is true the team owner writes the $250 million check, he can only do so because it is the collective wisdom of ALL participants in our market based society that makes it possible. If we, collectively, decide to stop attending baseball games or watch them on TV, then the owner can’t write the jock the big check. We may not appreciate it, but by our collective actions we’ve all essentially “voted” by our economic actions to give the jock his $250 million pay day. That infuriates the “smart set’. And that leads to the second reason why they gravitate toward socialism and government. They think that because they are so smart, they can design a more “just” system that will do away with absurdities created by market forces that enable guys really good at hitting baseballs to earn $250 million. Guess who benefits most in a socialist system? The credentialed intellectual technocratic elite who decide how everyone else should live.
I’ve not found Ivy League graduates to be any more intelligent than my colleagues from lesser private schools or state schools.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao touched a lot of lives.
Yep, that’s DC, and to a large extent the tech cities as well.
Yes, there have been a multitude of books and articles that have touched on this phenomenon and how it is creating a class system in the US.
The Nazis created an elite generation of fighter aircraft, jets and rockets and yet couldn’t figure out it was wrong to murder millions of innocent people. The Perceptual Trap – which is what I tend to call Orwell’s lesson in 1984 – is a very real and powerful thing.
Great article.
The reason why I have taken the RSM approach to the coming election (i.e. what can I really do? The American people will vote based upon TV coverage…for better or worse).
Currently the top of the GOP race is dominated by a loud mouth elitist who pretends to be a northeastern brute and a wunderkind, while Conservative (or so he says), who has no experience with the real world but a resume with all the Ivy League check marks.
We are screwed, and things are looking up for Team Hillary assuming she dodges prison.
Yep.
And how they touched those lives tells us what kind of men they were.
I believe social justice crusaders believe virtue exists but they disagree on what it is. It is a sad truth that intelligent people can be naive and easily conned. Who could’ve ever believed an entire “elite” could give each other literary awards and yet believe heterosexuality was invented just because of the feral ramblings of a handful of lesbians in the ’60s and ’70s who muttered recycled incantations by chic French intellectuals which acted on them like a deer in headlights?
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
?
George Orwell
Hey sometimes it is handy to test well.
Most of the so called ‘elite’ are not worth a spit. Then again, there are plenty of people of great character and at the other end of the spectrum ‘not worth a spit’ at all stratas of society. But there are people there of real talent and intelligence too (so I tend to finally judge people as individuals based on their actions as opposed to general categories). They tend to be in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering and other courses that are objective. People like Scalia and Cruz (even if they went to law school) are products of Ivy League schools.
That is why it is a mistake to hire from the Ivy leagues for people with degrees in “pol sci” or liberal arts. But you see the same restricted pool of applicants at the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal clerk positions too.
eugenics
Our elites are increasingly illiberal and parochial. They have no idea how ignorant they are.
Hell, that describes half the idiot leftist trolls on the Internet. The other half are high school dropouts getting paid to troll by George Soros.
Reminds me of an old saying:
Scientific progress does not consist of replacing a theory that is wrong with a theory that is right. It consists of replacing a theory that is wrong with a theory that is more subtly wrong.
Occam might agree with that…
All I worry about now is testing well in the doctor’s office, lol.
There’s room enough in a good life for both.
And yet, under communism, the soccer and hockey stars still lived much better lives than the proletariat and the vast majority of the nomenklatura. Hmmm.
Its a natural thing which seems to run across the political class and their hangers on in most wetern nations.
I think part of it is insulating themselves from people who disagree with them.
For example nearly all of Frances political class come from one institution, which also educated most of it senior bureaucrats.
This article gives a good overview of the French disease.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/liberte-inegalite-fraternite-is-french-elitism-holding-the-country-back-8621650.html
“…An “énarque” is a graduate of the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), the state officer training college which is the ultimate, exquisitely narrow, pinnacle of the French education system. ENA, which recruits the cream of the graduates from other elite colleges, turns out just over 100 people a year, numbered according to their brilliance. Oxford and Cambridge, by comparison, produce about 6,000 graduates a year. The top 10 pupils in each ENA year or “promotion” are pushed straight into senior jobs posts in the French administration….”
The Poms have their Universities they traditionally produce their “ruling class from”.
Even here in Oz its not unusual for a person to leave school, join a university political group, leave with a soft degree then go and work as a “staffer’ for a pollie before eventually being given a seat to run for in an election.
Completely unsullied by having ever had to dirty their hands with commerce.
It results in things like ‘I don’t know anybody who voted for Romney” and a severe insulation from the economic effects of regulation and laws on average citizens.
I do have a solution.
Every lawmaker and their extended family is to be followed 24/7 by a police officer who’s job is to indict them for any breaches of any laws immediately and without any excuses. In addition they will automatically receive the maximum sentence allowed under the law, after all if those who write the laws don’t keep to them, why should anyone else?
Pollies are only happy to keep piling on regulations because they will never be subject to them..
Oh and a reminder, BOTH your major parties voted to re-instate their legalised access to insider trading.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130416/08344222725/congress-quickly-quietly-rolls-back-insider-trading-rules-itself.shtml
“…So… with very little fanfare, Congress quietly rolled back a big part of the law late last week. Specifically the part that required staffers to post disclosures about their financial transactions, so that the public could make sure there was no insider trading going on. Congress tried to cover up this fairly significant change because they, themselves, claimed that it would pose a “national risk” to have this information public. A national risk to their bank accounts.
It was such a national risk that Congress did the whole thing quietly, with no debate. The bill was introduced in the Senate on Thursday and quickly voted on late that night when no one was paying attention. Friday afternoon (the best time to sneak through news), the House picked it up by unanimous consent. The House ignored its own promise to give Congress three days to read a bill before holding a vote, because this kind of thing is too important to let anyone read the bill before Congress had to pass it.
And, of course, yesterday, President Obama signed it into law. Because the best way to rebuild trust in Congress, apparently, is to roll back the fact that people there need to obey the same laws as everyone else. That won’t lead the public to think that Congress is corrupt. No, not at all….”
Mmmm…I think there’s a little more to Cruz than that. As for Trump, he is blowing the populist horn, and a lot of people who are tired of being not only ignored but snubbed and disrespected are answering its call.
Quoting Mark Steyn: “The smart people in the Republican Party spent $100 million to get Jeb Bush to 3%… That’s how smart the smart people are.”
It still amazes me that Soros isn’t better known for his escapades.
He’s everything the progressives blame the Koch brothers for and more. Only he actually did it.
One of my latest things has been telling folks that environmentalism is junk and ecology actually works.
You can almost see the gears and springs flying off behind the eyeballs.
There is no one more arrogantly parochial than a leftie who thinks that anyone who disagrees does so out of fear.
Back when mentors in business were still a Good Idea™, mine used to say that intelligence was what you did after the sh*t hit the fan.
Petite Female dwarf cleric slaying rust monsters is totally realistic. I am digging it 🙂
Soros betrayed is fellow jews to the Nazi’s. Its no surprise his antics in America.
Yet actual ecology and environmental conservation is lost on them. The microplastic problem of the oceans for example still needs cleanup and there is still people dumping shit into the oceans,rivers,aquifiers and land yet ”Global Warming ”is more important than that
Hi IQ people need a firm grounding in reality vias hands-on experience before they can concoct accurate hypotheses to describe reality.
Egalitarianism demands that an unequal world be made equal at the expense of liberty.
I got in a discussion yesterday with my son and daughter-in-law to be, both from the elite schools and addicted to “policy”. The discussion was about guns and stopping violence
I daresay their solutions were irrational,, ignored black on black violence, inner city family dysfunction , psychotic behavior, etc. but were taken as orthodoxy graven in stone to their minds.
There’s also what he did to the British pound, but arguably he was just taking advantage of the stupidity of the Bank of England and Her Majesty’s Government.
Another great example:
When Canada made its decision to exploit the tar sands for oil, the only decision left was where the oil would go: the USA or China.
The US has an infinitely better record for clean, efficient burning than China does so it wasn’t even a question.
The enviros should have supported the Keystone XL as the best option, but instead helped boycott it, ensuring that the oil would go to China. They shot their own cause in the foot.
That’s because they don’t actually care about the environment. That’s just public posing.