I am the mother of two sons who are both Princetonians. My older son had the good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate of his, but he could have married anyone. My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless. Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It's amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman's lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can't (shouldn't) marry men who aren't at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again — you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you
--Susan Patton, Princeton, Class of 1977
Just back from Alaska, which got me thinking about the Ivy League, the New York Times wedding announcements (advertisements of self proclaimed virtuosity), the East Coast, Silicon Valley, Bill Gates, and Daniel Okrant's, "The Guarded Gate" about the early 20th century, when the elites from Supreme Court justices to Eleanor Roosevelt, agreed that WASPs were the superior race, and with the help of the Ku Klux Klan, managed to get a law passed to deny entry to lower orders of the human race, like Jews, Italians, Poles and Slavs and to favor immigration from the British Isles, excluding Ireland.
In Alaska, folks never ask where you went to school, and, in fact, they give every appearance of judging people on what they can discern from talking with them.
I went through some towns where there was only one gas pump (not one gas station--one gas pump). Juneau, the capital, has no road connecting it to the outside world; if you want to get to Juneau, you have to take a sea plane or a boat.
A sign outside a Hertz car rental showed that Hawaii is closer than Washington, DC for folks in Sitka.
Bill Gates, who may be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, spent only a year at Harvard. I haven't read a biography or memoir to give me insight into the man, but I do know that Harvard points to Zuckerberg and Gates as evidence Harvard knows how to assess talent and potential. But is it not just as likely Gates and Zuckerberg chose Harvard, knowing they could go anywhere, and having spent a year there, realized Harvard, its faculty, its students had nothing important to offer?
Tony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Disease, scandalized the faculty of Cornell Medical Center, The New York Hospital, when, at his investiture, having completed his year as Chief Resident in the Department of Medicine, with the grey beards of the Ivy League faculty mucky mucks gathered around, he was handed a set of the keys to the kingdom, admitting privileges to the hospital and appointment to the clinical faculty, and he said, "Thanks, but no thanks."
A Richter Scale 7 earthquake could not have shaken the foundations that white marble, faux papal palace on East 68th Street more.
How could he turn down that honor?
Fauci has never denied the story that when pressed by his friends, he had explained, "Some day I'm going to be either very rich or very famous. But if I stay at Cornell, I will be neither."
I'm betting Gates and Zuckerberg said the same thing to themselves about Harvard.
The fact is, institutions of the dominant tribe try to sell the Kool Aide that they have a process, a drink, to convey the power, the glory. But this idea of the cream rising to the top (to mix a metaphor) is simply a lie used to perpetuate power among some and to deny it to those strivers from below.
For that, it is salutatory to escape the ivy covered walls and to look at those in power, in their fine gowns, and to see through the cover on the emperor to the naked truth below.
PS:
Bonus points: Can you deconstruct Ms. Patton's problem here?
Hint: Begin with it's amazing how little intelligence matters in a woman (to men) if she is pretty.
Extra credit reading: Eugenics 101, "Guarding the Gate"
Extra hint:
--Susan Patton, Princeton, Class of 1977
Just back from Alaska, which got me thinking about the Ivy League, the New York Times wedding announcements (advertisements of self proclaimed virtuosity), the East Coast, Silicon Valley, Bill Gates, and Daniel Okrant's, "The Guarded Gate" about the early 20th century, when the elites from Supreme Court justices to Eleanor Roosevelt, agreed that WASPs were the superior race, and with the help of the Ku Klux Klan, managed to get a law passed to deny entry to lower orders of the human race, like Jews, Italians, Poles and Slavs and to favor immigration from the British Isles, excluding Ireland.
In Alaska, folks never ask where you went to school, and, in fact, they give every appearance of judging people on what they can discern from talking with them.
I went through some towns where there was only one gas pump (not one gas station--one gas pump). Juneau, the capital, has no road connecting it to the outside world; if you want to get to Juneau, you have to take a sea plane or a boat.
 |
| Russians lived in Alaska when it was Russian |
A sign outside a Hertz car rental showed that Hawaii is closer than Washington, DC for folks in Sitka.
Bill Gates, who may be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, spent only a year at Harvard. I haven't read a biography or memoir to give me insight into the man, but I do know that Harvard points to Zuckerberg and Gates as evidence Harvard knows how to assess talent and potential. But is it not just as likely Gates and Zuckerberg chose Harvard, knowing they could go anywhere, and having spent a year there, realized Harvard, its faculty, its students had nothing important to offer?
Tony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Disease, scandalized the faculty of Cornell Medical Center, The New York Hospital, when, at his investiture, having completed his year as Chief Resident in the Department of Medicine, with the grey beards of the Ivy League faculty mucky mucks gathered around, he was handed a set of the keys to the kingdom, admitting privileges to the hospital and appointment to the clinical faculty, and he said, "Thanks, but no thanks."
A Richter Scale 7 earthquake could not have shaken the foundations that white marble, faux papal palace on East 68th Street more.
How could he turn down that honor?
Fauci has never denied the story that when pressed by his friends, he had explained, "Some day I'm going to be either very rich or very famous. But if I stay at Cornell, I will be neither."
I'm betting Gates and Zuckerberg said the same thing to themselves about Harvard.
The fact is, institutions of the dominant tribe try to sell the Kool Aide that they have a process, a drink, to convey the power, the glory. But this idea of the cream rising to the top (to mix a metaphor) is simply a lie used to perpetuate power among some and to deny it to those strivers from below.
For that, it is salutatory to escape the ivy covered walls and to look at those in power, in their fine gowns, and to see through the cover on the emperor to the naked truth below.
PS:
Bonus points: Can you deconstruct Ms. Patton's problem here?
Hint: Begin with it's amazing how little intelligence matters in a woman (to men) if she is pretty.
Extra credit reading: Eugenics 101, "Guarding the Gate"
Extra hint:
 |
| Susan Patton |
Phantom,
ReplyDeleteA) Ms. Patton apparently supports breeding people in much the same way one would breed beagles.
B) Ms. Patton's Princetonian cherubs, if cut from the same cloth as Mom, surely did not have such a wide choice of mates. Any independent, intelligent, self respecting woman would be running for the hills lest the Patton foolishness and snobbery prove contagious.
C) Ms. Patton clearly has issues with attractive women. The enemy-thus her belief that beauty and brains can't reside in the same body.
D) Worthy mates are not the exclusive domain of Princeton and company. In fact, Ms. Patton herself is a perfect example of how many less than stellar mates can be found on these "elite" campuses.
Maud
Ms. Maud,
ReplyDeleteI would think Ms. Patton would breed people as one would breed race horses. Of course, with race horses you are looking for a single measurable trait--speed--as opposed to the traits that punch your Princeton ticket.
I once believed pretty women would have a hard time developing their intellects because of all the forces which conspire against that, but times have changed and I can now say I have encountered high intellects combined with great facial features in actual, living female homo sapiens. A corner has been turned in human history and evolution.