The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

LoneStar — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:56:38 -0000

I agree, it's the possibility of becoming president that's the democratic ideal. Just like the Constitution provides for the Pursuit of happiness, not the guarantee.

But an "ordinary American" will likely never be president, nor should they be.

That is not to say they cannot come from an ordinary background. That I welcome wholeheartedly. The last thing we need is another silver-spoon, out-of-touch, above-the-law politician.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Sidney Gendin — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:26:08 -0000

I don't care who the writer is or what he is writing about but I do care about sentences like "To the extent that intelligence is measurable, I sat in classrooms with people who were smarter than me, worked harder than me, and studied longer than me." He must mean "I sat in classrooms with people who were smarter than I was, worked harder than I did, and studied longer than I did."

Where is written in the heavens that journalists are excused from the rules of good grammar so long as they have "something important" to say?

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

maximusdelicious2 — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:12:36 -0000

Sure, I'm just talking about identity politics, certainly we Americans tend to never be completely politically homogeneous. You can find people of all stripes everywhere I've found.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

silentbeep — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:35:06 -0000

BTW: I am a Latina born and raised in California, and raised Roman Catholic so perhaps you should trust me too. Sorry TNC! I'll stop now!

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Catfish Hunter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:45:05 -0000

Interesting reply, thank you. The distinction is helpful. It's a narrower definition of IP than I had in mind (and would argue for), but I do take your point that both of their pieces could be read as more about how backgrounds shape our views. Still, I'm not quite sold.

First, TNC on Ross: "the dem ideal here is a euphemism for white populism". Not cultural or religious populism. So Ross's sympathy with white pop blinds him to the fact that O actually does speak to the dem ideal. Don't know whether you agree with TNC's take, but that's what I'm going by.

Second: Ross doesn't say that in P's case, the media stomped on "a version of" the dem ideal, but the dem ideal, period. If he'd meant "version" he would have said that in O's case, the media lived up to a different version of the dem ideal, rather than saying it doesn't apply to O.

Third: TNC's take on O: he sees O as sharing his own culture and background, tacitly sees this as a non-elite culture/background, says that from his p.o.v. going to an Ivy doesn't change O from non-elite to elite, so concludes that O is an example of a non-elite making good.

You know, I guess I'm hung up on the terms of the debate, with TNC going along with the notion that the dem ideal is that anyone, particularly non-elites, can *make good* rather than *get a fair hearing*. He thinks P got a fair hearing, but everyone saw that she was unprepared. He thinks O got a fair hearing and won on the merits. For TNC, it's clearly the merit ideal that sorted them out, so why go along with Ross? That led me to my "playing the game" interpretation.

Maybe, though, when TNC speaks to O and the dem ideal, he sets aside the diagnosis that for Ross (dem ideal = white pop), doesn't concern himself with Ross's take on P and the dem ideal, stipulates to the definition that (dem ideal = non-elites can make good, too), and then explains why, speaking from his vantage, Obama is a non-elite, not an elite.

Hmm, yes, that seems like what happened. Stipulating to that definition rolls up the dem ideal and merit ideal into one, labels it the dem ideal, and that's bugging the crap out of me. I assumed that in using the dem ideal as Ross did, TNC was sharing in the confusion, but maybe he was only stipulating it for the sake of argument.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Jennifer D. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:39:07 -0000

Hi Carl, I had no idea if I was saying anything that interesting, but I'm glad you got something out of it. These here internets open up whole new avenues of communication, don't they? Good for you for starting your own blog - I wish you all the best. I checked it out, looked in the comments and saw with relief that no one had said anything mean about me (!) and will come by for a visit again soon.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

jack van Dijk — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:03:37 -0000

Sir, you are gentleman and a scholar and I, although I have the American Citizenship, I am really from The Netherlands.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

TW Andrews — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:08:33 -0000

I wish Ross still had a blog and could explain what he meant. The back-and-forth between he and TNH on family and marriage was some of the best dialog on the topic I've read.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Carl Walker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:13:02 -0000

Jennifer, I have to say I'm impressed with your attitude (as opposed to the "help we're being oppressed as white people" nonsense). I hope you don't mind that I took your story as fodder for my fledgling blog.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Jennifer D. — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:32:02 -0000

Hey, "only in San Francisco" as they say! She was hurt and embarrassed, but we dealt with it with a sense of humor. Honestly, this cannot compare to what other kids have to learn about, because as a white kid in America, you know this is an anomaly. It's not like it's something you know you are going to have to deal with for the rest of your life in one way or another. I get the feeling I'm sounding like kind of an uncaring Mom here ... my kid's got a lot of confidence and she also has lots of Asian friends who rolled their eyes and OMG'd about what the teacher said. She survived it just fine.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

bbs64 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:04:57 -0000

To me this is blurring a distinction between recognizing the role that personal backgrounds play in shaping our views, and asserting the primacy of one kind of background over another. To me, only the latter deserves the epithet "identity politics" (even then I am not fond of the label).

Sarah Palin asserts the moral superiority of people from small towns, and people without a kind of formal education that she sees as suspicious or elitist. That is a form of identity politics. If someone were to respond by asserting the moral superiority of cities and degrees from the Ivy League, that would be "playing the game". I could play the game by saying I work two jobs, and couldn't choose to quit either one in this economy, and am therefore more authentic than the elitist Sarah Palin. That is playing the game. As far as I can tell, neither Douthat nor TNC is playing the game.

As I read Douthat's column, I see no evidence that he personally identifies with Sarah Palin, or agrees with her on the culture war. (Given his resume, I bet he is smart enough not to write it if he does.) He laments the treatment of Palin, like many with similar political views do. He chooses to regard it demonstration that our media enjoys stomping on a version of the "democratic ideal." In my opinion, he has framed this ideal so that any one of Sarah Palin's faults is implicitly somebody else's fault. My guess is that he has done this because "poor Sarah" is about the only thing a person of his political stripe can say in honest agreement with Palin 2012 die-hards--- not because he sees anything resembling himself in Palin's background.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

steve — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:28:46 -0000

Sure truck drivers can read history, but the vast majority don't. My point is that there is a very real limit on the psychological energy that can go into becoming an informed citizen, and this limit is very low if your life is very demanding.

I had a daughter 18 months ago and taking care of her has sucked a huge amount of my time -- in the precious little free time that i have, I still comment occasionally and try to stay a part of the debate and learn things, but that's only because I'm a junkie for this stuff.

If I were a truck driver with 3 kids, the information about the political process I can realistically digest is incredibly small and that creates a huge opportunity for people who can appeal to voters on a very quick emotional basis (read:Palin) with no real substance or knowledge. Throw in a bad economy and the truck driver's yearning to learn will get closer to 0 as he/she struggles to make sure they can feed their family.

There are many more of these truck drivers than there are of us who read blogs and think as deeply as the people on this board-- it's a very real problem with how voting will affect policy.

I still contend that OBAMA and RICE are not ordinary -- I could never accomplish what either one has done and I honestly have a lot more talents than the average joe in the street -- not to brag -- but it's a fact based upon observing a fairly large segment of my student population at UCLA.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Catfish Hunter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:24:37 -0000

Ah, wait, now I get it. TNC astutely sees identity politics behind Ross's argument about the democratic ideal and Palin, with whom Ross identifies.

Then TNC agrees to play the same game, but when he plays it, the democratic ideal looks in good shape because of Obama, with whom he identifies.

And both Ross and TNC seem to be going by similar criteria of identification, culture mainly, and maybe race insofar as it is connected to culture (which is pretty far).

Ok, all well and good. But doesn't this show that identity politics confuses everyone who plays it? What we're really talking about here is not the ideal that *anyone* should be able to be president, but that *those I identify with* should be able to be president. Which really means that *I* should be able to be president.

This is affirming my hunch that the beginning of wisdom is the realization not merely that you're not going to be president, but that you shouldn't be.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Joshua Lyle — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:35:49 -0000

Well, all the "real" Americans supported secession in the late eighteenth century, fought a war over it, even, so maybe by supporting it in the mid-nineteenth century they were just being consistent.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Catfish Hunter — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:33:27 -0000

Great post. But you can make short work of the reader response: you need a lot more ability to be a good President than to be a good voter.

The democratic ideal was never that anyone can be chief executive, just that no one be barred (by law or custom) for arbitrary reasons.

I read your post as explaining how a person might get confused on this pretty simple point. But I think there's more going on, something that leads people to think that politics is (or better: should be) something anyone can do just by rolling out of bed.

So while a history of rule by mediocre white people might explain some of that, I doubt it's the whole story. It has something to do specifically with politics. No one thinks the "capitalist ideal" is that anyone can be CEO of Walmart Inc.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Joshua Lyle — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:24:38 -0000

(replying to Karen @ 1:49 here as comments only nest finitely)

I don't, actually; I'm an anarchist, so I don't think there ought to be governments and therefore no one to lead them. Moreover, I'm something of an "an-crat" and think that while there may be some role for non-government meritocratic-like or democratic-like organization I'm more in favor of non-traditional, egalitarian, non-hierarchical, open-access, and/or market-based approaches to coordination.

As an aside, a lottery would be quite democratic; the platinum-iridium standard of democratic officer selection is by lot. Election by vote is widely considered to be much more aristocratic than election by sortition, as the elite are much better able to win votes (through having more money, leisure time, rhetorical skill, good looks, merit, etc.) than the common man, who would have an equal chance of drawing the winning lot.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

KStevenB — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:13:52 -0000

Hi TNC. I've been reading your blog for a few months now, but this is my first time posting, so I'm going to divide my comments into 3 parts.

First, a response to the post: I'm an African-American who grew up in a small, working class town in the South, but I'm starting work on my second Ivy League degree in the fall. I've lived in a working class world, surrounded by white farmers who love Sarah Palin and around liberal millionaires who are disgusted by her. And from my own experiences, I would say that the idea that any one person can represent "real America" is patently false. America, at its core is diverse, and the moment we highlight one racial or ethnic as being representative of whatever real America is, that description by default comes up short. The idea that the salt-of-the-earth white working class is real America doesn't align well with the past, and certainly doesn't mean much now. I think there was always a racial component left out in these descriptions, which brings me to TNC's point.

I see what you're saying about how Barack Obama and how he could be your/our neighbor, but I guess I just see it a different way. Why do we want our president to be like our neighbors? Our presidents should be exceptional; they should be the best of what we have to offer. They often have been. They may have started off struggling and under-educated, but they rarely ended up there And exceptional doesn't mean they need to have Ivy League degrees. Many with Ivy degrees aren't capable of running a pet store, not to mention the country. I also know some very talented amazing African-American folk, but most don't compare to Barack either. These exceptional people can come from anywhere, as long as they're well-educated (not determined by where you went to school) and well-connected. Those qualifications don't limit you to Manhattan or the Beltway. They could come from Nebraska or Harlem, but odds are, the person qualified to be president is not your neighbor.

Second, a what's up: I'm a big fan of your blog; probably my favorite actually. I think your writing is very expressive, and your opinions very sharp. From one brother to another, I appreciate the diversity of your opinion. And I'm in East Harlem quite often, so if I ever see you in the streets, I'll be sure to say what's up.

Third: Your partner is from Covington! I grew up in an even smaller town, called Mason, right down the road. It's rare to even hear about other Tipton Co. folk outside of the South. I'm assuming she's older than me (I'm 25), but I'd be willing to bet we know some of the same folk.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

tigger500 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:34:54 -0000

These are the posts that keep me reading your blog, brother. This is just dope.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

hwickline — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:15:08 -0000

Thanks for another great post, Mr. Coates. I think I learned something, and I haven't even finished my first cup of coffee yet.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Winston — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:17:03 -0000

"I don't want to gloss over the differences in the black community, in terms of class etc. We are human, and, as with any community, we have our fault lines. There is also something to be said for the notion of "acting white," even if it's not clear exactly what.

I love the first bit about being human. That says it all. Also, I find the second bit about 'acting white' hilarious! I last heard that as a boy in South Africa, during the seventies. My elder brother telling me, 'don't get white.'

That is, a white telling a white not to get white. You know? There were 'whites only' signs all over the place...

Funny guy, my brother. Like you, I'm also still not clear on what it means...

Except maybe if it is what a black brother once told me about being black. He said black is not a colour.

What do you say to that? If it's not a colour, what is it? A feeling?

If so, how different is it to feeling white? Is that what he meant?

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

Hicks — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:49:21 -0000

It's knocking on 11:00's door here in the San Fernando Valley. Catching a glimpse of this in the minute I had to myself at work, I was looking forward to reading when I got home. This was outrageously informative, thought-provoking and entertaining. There were so many "Aahhh" moments from TNC and commenters.

Add me to the people who don't want Shelby...er, I mean Fan, banned. If only for the sake of "it takes all kinds..." and that's what I appreciate about here. ALL kinds come to the party. I'm sincerely interested in her sincerely engaging with everyone here. Without, you know, the snotty asides. Frankly, I think she's pulling everyone's leg. And TNC - she can't do any worse than the comments of reformed supremacists you called for the other day.

Of course, as a graduate of an HBCU who clearly has risen as high as I can to be a legal secretary (to white lawyers, as was my dream to be "whilst" at my HBCU), I would never, nay, could never, engage the delightfully arch Fan in any serious discourse. But I've always been an underachiever.

Really, TNC and everyone. Wonderful stuff.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

eric k — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:06:06 -0000

Uh no,

FanRadio simply has no sense of humor and took a bunch of saracasm literally.

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

metricpenny — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:03:42 -0000

I'm way late to the dinner party (if I might continue cheesncrakrs' metaphor) but this post has to go in the TNC Hall of Fame.

I shudder to think that you wouldn't have a writing career if this were 20 years ago - a black man with no college degree, with grammar and punctuation challenges (hey, just keeping it real!).

Palin being considered as a serious candidate for the presidency of the US, a dim watt who couldn't touch your talent with a 10 mile fishing pole, is proof that being white in America has its priviledges.

Mad props are due The Atlantic for providing you with the opportunity!

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

eric k — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:02:17 -0000

An interesting tid bit from Nixonland (which anyone interested in politics has to read!) was the story that Nixon won his first congressional seat by taking out the guy who was supposedly the inspiration for the Mr Smith character, he was a long time congressman who was routinely voted the best Congressman regardless of party. He was noted for his honesty, integrity and intelligence. Nixon's approach was to turn all that against him "the bastard thinks he's better than you"

Re: The Importance Of Being Ivy League

metricpenny — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:37:45 -0000

I agree. I am laughing so hard, I'm crying.

"Clarence Thomas, is that you?" FTW!