Private school, they can do what they want.

I don't know about the College, but in 2005 the professional school students sure argued.

No Arguing Allowed

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room." -- President Merkin Muffley

The vast majority of freshmen, and the college itself, have formally declared that "the exercise of kindness" is "on par with intellectual attainment." Both parts of that equation are odd, and they are odd in ways that suggest something has gone awry at Harvard.

'Graphs like that are why Postrel is on my Fantasy Dinner Party guest list. Harvard's goofy juxtaposition belittles both brains and warmth.

students signed because they felt they had to -- a completely predictable, yet somehow unforeseen, result

See also.

When I was at UCR, I had a black studies course, and I was one of two or three white students. The topic of slavery came up, and how slaves were treated worse economically than any other group in history. I stated to the professor that wasn't necessarily true, that workers in the early years of industrialism were treated as poorly because they were completely expendable, whereas slaves were an investment of capital and usually treated as such. I pointed to Upton Sinclair's books about the Chicago meat packing trade as evidence. I thought I was going to get murdered by the professor, whose eyes burned a hole through me, but he ended up giving me one of the few A's received that quarter.

And Nicole is 100% correct about the private college angle. When Antioch established that freakazoid sex policy in the '90s, it was just a funny story... It really didn't mean anything to the rest of us, and nobody much cared when they closed the place down a couple years ago.

But Harvard means more to us. If I'm counting correctly, our last four Presidents have gone there, and at least one Veep. The Ivy League is all over our federal government, proudly if undeservedly.

Harvard WANTS extra attention from the rest of the world: Postrel's piece is how that works.

Correction- GHWB was a Yalie only. T'was Dubya who attended both Yale and Harvard (where, I like to remind people, he got better grades than Al Gore did).

Ah Hah-vad. . .Is not Matt Damon a grad?

It's testimony to Harvard's outsized pull on our imagination that it is believed to have graduated more recent presidents than it actually has.

Of the last four presidents, only GW Bush and Obama attended Harvard - both in graduate school capacities.

GHW Bush graduated from Yale University.

Clinton got his undergraduate degree at Georgetown and won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, but did not graduate from there. He went on to earn a law degree from Yale Law School (where he met Hillary).

GW Bush graduated from Yale University and Harvard Business School.

Obama attended Occidental College, graduated from Columbia University, and got a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Of the Veeps, only Gore attended Harvard.

Quayle graduated from DePauw University and the Indiana University School of Law.

Gore got an undergraduate degree and an interest in global warming from Harvard and attended both Vanderbilt Divinity School and Vanderbilt Law School without finishing either.

Cheney attended Yale, but graduated from the University of Wyoming (BA & MA). He started doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but never finished.

Biden graduated from the University of Delaware and Syracuse University Law School.

Prior to that, only John F. Kennedy graduated Harvard.

Kennedy - Harvard
Johnson - SW Texas State Teachers' College
Nixon - Whittier College & Duke Law School
Ford - U. of Michigan and Yale Law
Carter - US Naval Academy
Reagan - Eureka College

"where the exercise of kindness holds a place on par with intellectual attainment."

Is this why 80% graduate with honors and 50% of the grades given are A's? Harvard is notorious in the academic community for its extreme grade inflation and a generally poor undergrad education. Frankly Harvard undergrad is a bit of a joke. It's probably the weakest of the Ivies and on par with schools several tiers lower in their rankings.

>> You can't get them to argue easily. They're wary of that.

Could that be because they've observed what the consequences of disagreeing with the wrong victim or wrong position are?? It's not the kids' fault, its the fact that people of their professors' generation have denounced the ethic of free inquiry as a tool of racism, sexism, and oppression in all its forms.

I'm busted-

> He went on to earn a law degree from Yale Law
> School (where he met Hillary).

Ah, right. But again, these administrations viewed whole are crawling with Ivy. They shouldn't be.

Also, IU Law never published Quayle's transcript.

Also, IU Law never published Quayle's transcript.

Are you curious about Obama's grades too, Crid?

I volunteer on a tech web site as both an expert and adviser. Tech solutions are mostly hard cold facts -- not that feels like its a good idea.

The recent changes to the Google search engine now take into account the FB, Twitter, and other social networking site to help (or hinder) the ranking for technical solutions.

I do not have -- and probably will never -- have an FB, Twitter or other social networking accounts. I have a minimal web presence.

I refuse to kowtow to FB, Twitter, and the rest of social networking sites. I was the semi-outcast geek that never really fit in when I graduated from high school in the mid-80′s. Now I’m near the top of the game, have intellectual respect from and for my co-workers and when I say something they know it will work.

This whole thing with a niceness pledge is at odds with intellectual honesty. I don't agree with attacking messenger. I don't agree with a summary of "That is a totally idiotic thought," as being the sum total of your rebuttal argument. (Even thought it may be.) You need to break out the other sides points. That can be done. If the other side (person) refuses to concede on factual points -- then they deserve the designation.

To boil down my above comments: I refuse to go back to the cliquish behavior that ruled in school and the near years after that. I’ve grown up and if the world want to pass me, and live in a constant popularity contest — good riddance. I don’t want to deal with children, unless they are children.

As a practical question? Not really.

But there's some annoyance about press disinterest in the question. That works for both parties: I think people who say public service is about being "smart" are wrong. Apparently were expected to think Obama's smart but Palin (or whomever) isn't just because some goofy liberal says so. But I see no reason to trust their judgment... Not about candlepower, decency or any other virtue.

Worse than dim, Obama's callow: He's never actually done anything for anyone, like hire somebody for a job and cut them a check for doing work.

That was for Dee: Because Obama's performance has been tested and proven so weak, grades are kind of irrelevant at this point... But be sure to follow the link in the previous comment anyway.

But again, these administrations viewed whole are crawling with Ivy. They shouldn't be.

Especially given the generally poor quality of education at "elite" schools today.

We're being governed by the inexperienced and undereducated. The ones who can compete to get the job, but haven't a clue what to do when they get it.

That's why so many of them are pushing socialism and big government. It just seems things would work so much more efficiently if someone took charge (like on school projects). But real life doesn't work that way.

And those Ivy-covered administrations are crawling with lawyers. First thing we do....

> First thing we do....

Brush up on our classics? Gotcha, that's fine. But step carefully. Clichés are distrusted for good reason.

> We're being governed by the inexperienced
> and undereducated

Rhetoric counts, right? Describing the problem as "undereducation" fuels the fire.

I'm plenty pissed off with the the comfort Americans feel in describing themselves as "governed", which is why I used "public service" earlier.

(More)

People who used to believe in God now believe in government. (Hi, Amy!*) They think government, and the irresistible authority of government, is the only way they'll be able to express their personal decency.

Yet the mechanism remains supernatural. Instead of the distantly-whispering presence of a celestial Holy Spirit, people nowadays rely on the vague, folklore-tinged intuitions of psychology. (The best psy texts are impenetrable and untestable, just like with the last Good Book: This characteristic adds greatly to their utility. Consider "Dianetics"... If you dare!!!!!)

In place of the Trinity, we get the meek, terrified, terrified but sincere voice of the Inner Child:

I'll use the razor-sharp sensitivities of my most delicate personal fabu-litude to divine which of these corrupt, idiotic politicians can lead us to a Promised Land of sustainable freebies and effortless, tepid comity!

Think about this wretched little artifact from just a few seasons ago, and the affinities by which it appealed to the I.C.:

• Simple color scheme on a line drawing! No artsy complexities!

• One word, and it's a short one! No arguments, clever adversaries or quarrelsome details!

• He's not even talking! "Hope" is a silent force! He won't say upsetting things!

• He's looking up, like a child, with an expression of concern! He has feelings, just like real people! He's youthfully slender-chinned, unlike that bald old warmaker Karl Rove!

When I say "being smart" isn't something I care about with politicians any more, I mean it. It's not a metaphor. It's not clever. I'm not saying I actually have my own very complicated definition of "smart" which you wouldn't be able to understand. We need bigger things from their character than brains.

I'm saying that if you elected a decent guy (or gal) who went to a trade school, who ran his own business and worked in his own community and was really successful (including by hiring and managing people who were truly brighter for specific purposes), and who read ten books a year for pleasure, you'd do get better public service —from the President down through the school board— than we do by hiring these fuckheaded Ivys... Timid masters of technocracy's mundane, cancerous arts.

___________________________________


*Yeah, that's a dare. I think this presumption is so deep in the popular mind that people, even those who seek to lead libertarian lives, deploy it all the time.... As if laws and sanctions and policy could correct everything that's wrong with our culture. I intend to harsh our hostess for this every chance I get in the times ahead. If another commenter wants to hold me to the same standard, that would be just fine, m'kay?

Resolved: No more fucking with people through government than is absolutely necessary, and faits accomplis are expressly not excepted.

(That last part was for Napolitano.)

There just had to be a busted link in there, right?

So,is it really respect or is it fear of repriasl for saying something others find offensive?

Used to be you could only be punished for physically harming or seriously harassing someone, these days any innocuous comment someone takes offene to is grounds for punitave action

Private school, they can do what they want.

True.

However, they should consider changing their motto to reflect to the new reality. Veritas no longer seems to fit.

If you tell the truth, keep one foot in the stirrup -- Turkish proverb

"This whole thing with a niceness pledge is at odds with intellectual honesty. I don't agree with attacking messenger. "

Big part of the problem here... Argument ad hominium has always been an undercurrent in American politics, but never has it been as successful as it was in the latter half of the 20th century. Certain political groups have gained the power to destroy their opponents with ad hominium attacks, and no defense is possible. We've even had people like Alinsky who studied the psychology of ad hominium and developed it into a fine art. This is why we have so many people who are cynical about politics today: because ad hominium has completely shoved aside evidence-based argument.

"Instead of the distantly-whispering presence of a celestial Holy Spirit, people nowadays rely on the vague, folklore-tinged intuitions of psychology. "

Crid, this is a great point. For most of the Enlightenment, religious people generally viewed whatever God they believed in as the entity who kept them on the straight and narrow... if they did something bad, they'd have to answer to God for it. What we have a lot of now is a concept of God as sort of a pet genie: God will give me whatever I want, God will demand nothing of me, and God will smite whoever disagrees with me or opposes me. And this holds for a lot of people who claim to be non-religious.