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In this episode, we talk about white nationalism.
Participants: Yassine, Walt Bismarck, TracingWoodgrains.
Links:
Why I'm no longer a White Nationalist (The Walt Right)
The Virulently Unapologetic Racism of "Anti-Racism" (Yassine Meskhout)
Hajnal Line (Wikipedia)
Fall In Line Parody Song (Walt Bismarck)
Richard Spencer's post-Charlottesville tirade (Twitter)
The Metapolitics of Black-White Conflict (The Walt Right)
America Has Black Nationalism, Not Balkanization (Richard Hanania)
Recorded 2024-04-13 | Uploaded 2024-04-14
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Notes -
On the whole dysfunction of the schools and their criteria. It just seems like the age of the usefulness of higher education as a selection criteria for the elite should have passed a long time ago. It's too legible, too gameable. What we should do to fix them is the wrong question, we need a whole new pipeline. It's clear from the discussion that teaching people things is not really part of the elite college mission, it should be separated out.
I assumed you were being facetious, and I started to write a response about the elite college mission. But it’s possible you’re dead serious, and have some alternative structure in mind. This is why we have a rule about speaking plainly.
In the interest of not misrepresenting you—do you believe elite colleges spend more or less time teaching people things than they did in the 1950s? And do you think that should actually change?
“do you believe elite colleges spend more or less time teaching people things than they did in the 1950s? And do you think that should actually change?“
I did read an article I believe from the Crimson by a student who said no one puts much time into class anymore and it’s all extra-curriculars. I can’t find it right now. But the average GPA at Harvard has risen to 3.8. If you are going to get an A or A- anyway then you do not have the same pressure to put in the work.
https://www.chartr.co/stories/2023-12-08-2-grade-inflation-at-harvard
So yes I think a strong argument can be made that elite colleges spend less time teaching people things and more time building up extracurricular resumes.
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I think they spend the same or similar amounts of time, it's just the learning seems secondary to the selection and socialization. All colleges have been suffering through becoming more and more instrumentalized as they become a necessary Goodhart's check box for middle class life. I think this process is downstream of the internet bringing all the contours of the various credentialing systems and their bounties to the attention of everyone. You can see this in the sharp plummeting in the ivy league acceptance rate starting in around the 90s.. If you offered someone either the education they can get at Harvard or the connections and credentials which one would it be more rational to choose?
There is undoubtedly learning at Harvard, but is the point of Harvard the learning? And if it's not, if its primary purpose is as an exclusive club for hand selected elites to rub shoulders then the willingness to throw out merit to service political goals makes perfect sense. And also I'd quite like to burn it to the ground.
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