College as an incubator of Girardian terror(danwang.co)
danwang.co
College as an incubator of Girardian terror
https://danwang.co/college-girardian-terror/
93 comments
"This person may have gone to a school that would be in the set he describes as 'elite.' I think this might have warped his worldview because they're the only places where people can unironically imagine America as a 'meritocracy'"
Thank you for this very efficiently delivered powerful social critique.
> I'm not sure where this author went to college, but outside of a major city like London or NYC, you'd be hard pressed to find a more experientially diverse place (in America, at least) even amongst freshmen.
This seems to be a different claim than “they get the same indoctrination as each other”, which certainly seems fairly true from the fallout in a 9-5 job.
Granted, I think this is more of a problem with the “ivies” (public and private) than an endemic one as there’s less pressure to politically and economically conform.
This seems to be a different claim than “they get the same indoctrination as each other”, which certainly seems fairly true from the fallout in a 9-5 job.
Granted, I think this is more of a problem with the “ivies” (public and private) than an endemic one as there’s less pressure to politically and economically conform.
Which state school gives a tuition discount to students over 30? That's really cool.
I can’t find the exact program but this was in Massachusetts. Quick googling showed me, though, that if you’re over 60 you can take 3 credits at a state school for free. There are a ton of tuition waver programs for all sorts of demographics. If you live in New England and you get into undergrad, you can go to Mass state schools for slightly more than in-state tuition, which is what I did. Probably saved me like 45000 dollars.
Agreed. His description of college life would be completely alien to anyone at the college I went to. But then again my college was in Canada... Maybe there's a cultural difference involved here?
There is definitely a major difference between the Canadian and American university experience. But the parent poster is still correct that the author of this post's experience is warped.
I don't know where he went to school; you may be right about the eliteness, but I'm almost positive he took business.
"In the US, where I attended college, nearly everyone starts undergrad in the same way: After graduating from high school at age 18. When they start school, few people have a clear sense of the career path they’ll set on; it’s rare to meet a person who has high confidence of what they’ll end up doing, and even rarer to see someone who actually follows that plan. Instead, people happily confess that they don’t know what they’ll do, and that they’ll figure it out by trying different classes and by joining clubs, sports teams, fraternities, and so on."
I attended college in the United States as well, at UT Austin, and although I have only peripheral experience with the business school, that seems much more true of business students than any other majors I interacted with. Almost universally, the students are young, and choose that school because it offers good jobs if they have no "clear sense of a career path". His further comments, such as "By construction, whatever distinctions any does have are usually earned through brutal, zero-sum competitions", only emphasize the impression.
In the STEM majors, you'd best hit the ground running, or you will spend some extra semesters catching up on things. [But, isn't "they’ll figure [what they'll do] out" one of the advantages of attending college?] On the other hand, there isn't anything "zero-sum competition" about it; do you know what they call the person who graduated from medical school in last place? "Doctor". Also, and moreso in other majors such as liberal arts, "[m]ost [students] are not super differentiated from each other" is simply false. Significant chunks of the students are older, from other countries, or just have otherwise odd backgrounds. (One of the guys I graduated with was getting twin degrees in CS and music; we didn't regard this as "zero-sum competitive dynamics", we just thought he was insane. Which he admitted himself.)
Also, after finishing the article, I'm just very confused. I can't find a definition of "mimetic contagion", or why he would think Reddit-like "memes" have anything to do with it. I also find comments like,
"No one has ever asked me how one should escape mimetic contagion on campus. Still here’s my answer: If one must go to college, I advise cultivating smaller social circles. Instead of going to class and preparing for exams, to go to the library and just read. Finally, not to join a fraternity or finance club, but to be part of a knitting circle or hiking group instead."
to be rather horrifying. He seems to be both complaining about and advising the kind of intellectual inbreeding that colleges are designed to avoid. Take the damn electives outside your major; explore the options while you still have some left.
Finally, I can't make head nor tails out of "[i]f one is a Girardian, then there is perhaps no greater catastrophe than the growing tendency of the American meritocracy to be incubated in elite colleges."
1. "American meritocracy"? Does such exist? Is that good or bad? If it's good, why is it a catastrophe?
2. "Growing tendency"? The "people running the country" have always come from the elite colleges and "hothouse environments".
3. When he says, "where tiny symbolic disputes seem like life and death struggles", is he unaware of the Southern tradition of honor?
And he says, "I think mimetic contagion is worst in US colleges. In Canada, people apply to major in certain subjects; if they earn admission, it’s not so easy to switch, so there’s less of this intellectual loitering that one finds on American campuses." So, apparently, closing off your options as early as possible is a good way to avoid "mimetic contagion"?
P.S.
"Thiel gets at the learning capacity of the latter when he makes a point about Aspergers in the Valley: “If you’re less sensitive to social cues, then you’re less likely to do the same thing as everyone else around you. If you’re interested in making things or programming computers, you’ll be less afraid to pursue these activities single-mindedly and thereby become incredibly good at them.”"
Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department" say Wernher von Braun
"In the US, where I attended college, nearly everyone starts undergrad in the same way: After graduating from high school at age 18. When they start school, few people have a clear sense of the career path they’ll set on; it’s rare to meet a person who has high confidence of what they’ll end up doing, and even rarer to see someone who actually follows that plan. Instead, people happily confess that they don’t know what they’ll do, and that they’ll figure it out by trying different classes and by joining clubs, sports teams, fraternities, and so on."
I attended college in the United States as well, at UT Austin, and although I have only peripheral experience with the business school, that seems much more true of business students than any other majors I interacted with. Almost universally, the students are young, and choose that school because it offers good jobs if they have no "clear sense of a career path". His further comments, such as "By construction, whatever distinctions any does have are usually earned through brutal, zero-sum competitions", only emphasize the impression.
In the STEM majors, you'd best hit the ground running, or you will spend some extra semesters catching up on things. [But, isn't "they’ll figure [what they'll do] out" one of the advantages of attending college?] On the other hand, there isn't anything "zero-sum competition" about it; do you know what they call the person who graduated from medical school in last place? "Doctor". Also, and moreso in other majors such as liberal arts, "[m]ost [students] are not super differentiated from each other" is simply false. Significant chunks of the students are older, from other countries, or just have otherwise odd backgrounds. (One of the guys I graduated with was getting twin degrees in CS and music; we didn't regard this as "zero-sum competitive dynamics", we just thought he was insane. Which he admitted himself.)
Also, after finishing the article, I'm just very confused. I can't find a definition of "mimetic contagion", or why he would think Reddit-like "memes" have anything to do with it. I also find comments like,
"No one has ever asked me how one should escape mimetic contagion on campus. Still here’s my answer: If one must go to college, I advise cultivating smaller social circles. Instead of going to class and preparing for exams, to go to the library and just read. Finally, not to join a fraternity or finance club, but to be part of a knitting circle or hiking group instead."
to be rather horrifying. He seems to be both complaining about and advising the kind of intellectual inbreeding that colleges are designed to avoid. Take the damn electives outside your major; explore the options while you still have some left.
Finally, I can't make head nor tails out of "[i]f one is a Girardian, then there is perhaps no greater catastrophe than the growing tendency of the American meritocracy to be incubated in elite colleges."
1. "American meritocracy"? Does such exist? Is that good or bad? If it's good, why is it a catastrophe?
2. "Growing tendency"? The "people running the country" have always come from the elite colleges and "hothouse environments".
3. When he says, "where tiny symbolic disputes seem like life and death struggles", is he unaware of the Southern tradition of honor?
And he says, "I think mimetic contagion is worst in US colleges. In Canada, people apply to major in certain subjects; if they earn admission, it’s not so easy to switch, so there’s less of this intellectual loitering that one finds on American campuses." So, apparently, closing off your options as early as possible is a good way to avoid "mimetic contagion"?
P.S.
"Thiel gets at the learning capacity of the latter when he makes a point about Aspergers in the Valley: “If you’re less sensitive to social cues, then you’re less likely to do the same thing as everyone else around you. If you’re interested in making things or programming computers, you’ll be less afraid to pursue these activities single-mindedly and thereby become incredibly good at them.”"
Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department" say Wernher von Braun
[deleted]
OP, like many people on HN when talking about college, is hilariously out of touch.
I don't think it's about being out of touch. Even among the most out of touch people at the most out of touch schools, college students just don't behave like he's describing. Could you imagine the stereotypical prep school kid claiming that they're better than you, more valuable or higher status, because they got higher grades in an introductory class?
It reads like he thinks college is an anime set in a competitive Tokyo high school. It doesn't at all reflect my experience at a t20 undergrad school. Most people were just busy having fun, getting laid, and maybe doing a little studying from time to time. Except the pre-med folks. They were doing a lot more of the latter and a lot less of the former.
Um, yes?
Kids compete at whatever they are good at, including the cohort who are good at academics. Jocks think weaklings are losers, and nerds think dumbdumbs are losers.
Not everyone does, but everyone knows one.
Kids compete at whatever they are good at, including the cohort who are good at academics. Jocks think weaklings are losers, and nerds think dumbdumbs are losers.
Not everyone does, but everyone knows one.
Sure.
But in most cases, that first semester of college beats that out of them.
But in most cases, that first semester of college beats that out of them.
From Girard's Wikipedia entry: "... [he] studied medieval history at the École des Chartes, Paris." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard
École Nationale des Chartes Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Nationale_des_Chart...
Grandes écoles (of which group "École Nationale des Chartes is a member) Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles
École Nationale des Chartes Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Nationale_des_Chart...
Grandes écoles (of which group "École Nationale des Chartes is a member) Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_%C3%A9coles
The article's author is not Girard himself.
Nowhere is it stated that it is.
Ok. So why are you bringing up where Girard went to college? It comes off like you are correcting a misperception in the parent post, since the parent post guesses at the author's alma mater. If that's not what you're referencing, what relevance at all does it have where Girard went to school?
It just occurs to me that I answered the wrong question: the comments that prompted mine were about where OP author Dan Wang went to college — NOT Girard.
My bad.
FWIW, Wang went to the University of Rochester in the U.S. Source: https://danwang.co/about/
My bad.
FWIW, Wang went to the University of Rochester in the U.S. Source: https://danwang.co/about/
I was watching one of the lectures on "Power Politics" that got upload to the Yale youtube recently. They cover this in one of the lectures. They show video of two monkeys in cages. One if given cucumber. It's content. Then the researcher gives the other monkey a grape. The monkey with the cucumber now throws out its cucumber, and rattles the cage when it doesn't get grapes. The Yale presenter as an interesting interpretation of it, that it's not a protest against inequality. The monkey is not enraged that the research has a bowl full of cucumbers and grapes, it's furious that another monkey in a cage just like it, is getting grapes instead of cucumbers.
https://youtu.be/q53DF6ySOZg?t=2341
https://youtu.be/q53DF6ySOZg?t=2341
>The Yale presenter as an interesting interpretation of it, that it's not a protest against inequality. The monkey is not enraged that the research has a bowl full of cucumbers and grapes, it's furious that another monkey in a cage just like it, is getting grapes instead of cucumbers.
Well, it's still inequality. It's just not ine-quantity.
Each gets something different -- whether we perceive them as equal market value is not probably relevant to the monkey.
Well, it's still inequality. It's just not ine-quantity.
Each gets something different -- whether we perceive them as equal market value is not probably relevant to the monkey.
What happens if you give them both grapes?
They will not work for cucumber any more?
this series is phenomenal
> it's not a protest against inequality. ...it's furious that another monkey in a cage just like it, is getting grapes instead of cucumbers.
Isn't that inequality? It sounds like if it's equal (both get grapes or both get cucumbers) everything is fine.
Isn't that inequality? It sounds like if it's equal (both get grapes or both get cucumbers) everything is fine.
The study's implications are far more nuanced than that. If it was about inequality, the monkeys would be outraged that the human researcher has so many cucumbers and grapes.
The study is implying that people/monkeys get agitated only when people/monkeys of their own perceived level/rank/group do better.
For example, you and your brother aren't be agitated because your dad has all the money. That inequality doesn't bother you. But if your dad gave you $10 and your brother $100, I'm sure you'd get upset.
Or if your company's payroll was leaked, you aren't upset that the founder of the company is making so much than you. But if you found out your fellow co-workers made more than you, you'd be pissed.
So the study is implying the inequality issue is more about people seeing other people their own level getting ahead rather than seeing the uber wealthy getting richer. I believe there are other studies in psychology with back this up. But whether you agree with the studies implications is up to you.
Another interesting note is that the people who are most upset at zuckerburg and the new tech billionaires are the elite wealthy whom they surpassed in wealth.
The study is implying that people/monkeys get agitated only when people/monkeys of their own perceived level/rank/group do better.
For example, you and your brother aren't be agitated because your dad has all the money. That inequality doesn't bother you. But if your dad gave you $10 and your brother $100, I'm sure you'd get upset.
Or if your company's payroll was leaked, you aren't upset that the founder of the company is making so much than you. But if you found out your fellow co-workers made more than you, you'd be pissed.
So the study is implying the inequality issue is more about people seeing other people their own level getting ahead rather than seeing the uber wealthy getting richer. I believe there are other studies in psychology with back this up. But whether you agree with the studies implications is up to you.
Another interesting note is that the people who are most upset at zuckerburg and the new tech billionaires are the elite wealthy whom they surpassed in wealth.
The researcher has much of both. But yes, if the monkey only compares itself with the other primate in a cage...
Sure, but that's the problem with inequality: we're not mad at birds because they can fly and we can't - we're too different. But we are naturally mad at other humans, who are 99.99% identical to us but who live vastly different lives through accidents of birth or sometimes business success.
It's the only protest against inequality that has any realistic chance of succeeding. A monkey isn't going to seize the means of grape production.
Put enough of them together in a room with typewriters and they just might.
You sure? They have opposable thumbs.
Has anyone else noticed a trend where people who tend to have an affinity for Peter Thiel tend to also profess having their mind blown by the ideas of Girard, specifically mimetic theory? It seemed like shortly after it became well known that Thiel liked Girard, many people who find his form of contrarianism as gospel suddenly migrated to viewing nearly everything through the prism of Girard. When Zero to One came out, it was certainly refreshing, but much of what Thiel does/states publicly aside from that comes across as if he's a rather dimwitted political hack. Not to mention that Girard's views on mimetic theory aren't that new to anyone who has kids and wants them to learn from others.
>Has anyone else noticed a trend where people who tend to have an affinity for Peter Thiel tend to also profess having their mind blown by the ideas of Girard, specifically mimetic theory?
Haven't noticed it, but then again I don't closely follow Thiel.
I do however have read Girard's work for 15 years now, and consider it important. Especially the "Things hidden since the foundations of the world" discussion (the title does not allude to some literal conspiracy theory - it's a quote from the New Testament, Matthew 13:35) made several things about the development of human societies, customs, political systems, and the role of religion and violence, click. (It's however a hefty tome 500+ pages iirc, in the form of a long disccusion/interview with 2 other academics).
>Not to mention that Girard's views on mimetic theory aren't that new to anyone who has kids and wants them to learn from others.
That doesn't dismiss Girard (or any thinker for that matter). When it comes to a thinker, what's important is not whether the surface idea or observation is new, but about how deep is is thought, and how much of its subtleties and variances they have covered.
Girard himself repeatedly gives tons of examples of his mimetic theory expressed in 3 millennia of texts, often not as a mere case of people expressing it without knowing it, but knowingly too.
Haven't noticed it, but then again I don't closely follow Thiel.
I do however have read Girard's work for 15 years now, and consider it important. Especially the "Things hidden since the foundations of the world" discussion (the title does not allude to some literal conspiracy theory - it's a quote from the New Testament, Matthew 13:35) made several things about the development of human societies, customs, political systems, and the role of religion and violence, click. (It's however a hefty tome 500+ pages iirc, in the form of a long disccusion/interview with 2 other academics).
>Not to mention that Girard's views on mimetic theory aren't that new to anyone who has kids and wants them to learn from others.
That doesn't dismiss Girard (or any thinker for that matter). When it comes to a thinker, what's important is not whether the surface idea or observation is new, but about how deep is is thought, and how much of its subtleties and variances they have covered.
Girard himself repeatedly gives tons of examples of his mimetic theory expressed in 3 millennia of texts, often not as a mere case of people expressing it without knowing it, but knowingly too.
I had the reverse happen, where, once I knew of Thiel’s affinity and support for his work, I became far more disinterested.
I’ve read most of Girard’s books and while I think they’re a good critique of both desire and the formation of religions, it has a great deal of shortcomings because of Girard’s retreat into theology. Instead of really tackling the problems his work raises, he simply sets it aside with something to the affect of “be a Christian,” (while nowhere acknowledging how modern Christianity has been weaponized to spread the kind of contagion and scapegoating his work sought to expose.)
I do think an understanding of Girard’s philosophy is necessary to understand Thiel’s political project. But I think he’s actually taken a quite dark lesson from Girard, allying himself with a new, scapegoating sacrificial order to attain further economic and political power.
I’ve read most of Girard’s books and while I think they’re a good critique of both desire and the formation of religions, it has a great deal of shortcomings because of Girard’s retreat into theology. Instead of really tackling the problems his work raises, he simply sets it aside with something to the affect of “be a Christian,” (while nowhere acknowledging how modern Christianity has been weaponized to spread the kind of contagion and scapegoating his work sought to expose.)
I do think an understanding of Girard’s philosophy is necessary to understand Thiel’s political project. But I think he’s actually taken a quite dark lesson from Girard, allying himself with a new, scapegoating sacrificial order to attain further economic and political power.
I'm actually not clear on Thiel's intent with his 'political project' or how it relates to Girard. Is it that Thiel believes Trump is an ideal scapegoat to break the cycle of violence in US politics? Or does he see Trump as the false scapegoat and is supporting him since he thinks it's a good long run bet comparable to Jesus? It's hard to cut through and in my view makes Thiel look wholly unserious given that he obtained New Zealand citizenship after the election and stated that there's a 50% chance Trump could be a disaster.
I think the people who get their mind blown by Girard never read any other literary theory. Yes, my 10x Rockstar Ninja friend, Girard is from the literature department! Horror! But wait, what other mind blowing insights on life might those English majors know that you don't? Uh oh!
Who else is there to read? They didn't do to much literary theory in my engineering courses :-). I am finding lately the humanities do have something to offer after all.
I suppose it's highly personal, but I'd say Carl Jung is pretty good. Also Schopenhauer, Tillich, Niebuhr, Emerson, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, St. Augustine, Will Durant, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche.. Plato and Socrates are usually good starting points in the 'Western tradition'.
I dunno, Aristotle seems kind of important. Or if you must have someone more recent, Alasdair MacIntyre.
I confess I didn't get much out of my forays into Girard. It seems to mostly be amateur primatology. It's entirely possible I didn't try hard enough, or whatever Thiel got out of it, he got out of it in person rather than from the books. It's also possible Girard is overrated by Thiel fanboy types.
I confess I didn't get much out of my forays into Girard. It seems to mostly be amateur primatology. It's entirely possible I didn't try hard enough, or whatever Thiel got out of it, he got out of it in person rather than from the books. It's also possible Girard is overrated by Thiel fanboy types.
I will say, it's very convenient for a billionaire to have an alternative theory to class struggle to promulgate.
I don't think it helps the rest of us quite so much to view society through his preferred lens, though.
I don't think it helps the rest of us quite so much to view society through his preferred lens, though.
The basic problem is colleges aren't producing people who are sufficiently distant/different from the people who don't go, and many of the ones who graduate have a seething hatred for those who didn't, because the education they sincerely believed would elevate them so that they could never ever be confused for the non-group - did not.
These days you need to complete a top PhD before you can really either carry off the conceit or afford the magnanimity that the views of less educated people are not a threat to your social station.
STEM doesn't have this as much because if you don't have the maths, you really aren't part of the conversation and so there's no risk to your social status in fraternizing with the less-educated. Or as we cringingly (if not sickeningly) refer to them, "the left behind."
I'm of the view that the culture war is primarily an example of this "Girardian Terror," where in our good intentions we used the college system to create a whole new class of precarious and economically cornered ideologues equipped with nothing but resentment, and we're about to unleash them into our institutions.
This decade is going to be a trip. :)
These days you need to complete a top PhD before you can really either carry off the conceit or afford the magnanimity that the views of less educated people are not a threat to your social station.
STEM doesn't have this as much because if you don't have the maths, you really aren't part of the conversation and so there's no risk to your social status in fraternizing with the less-educated. Or as we cringingly (if not sickeningly) refer to them, "the left behind."
I'm of the view that the culture war is primarily an example of this "Girardian Terror," where in our good intentions we used the college system to create a whole new class of precarious and economically cornered ideologues equipped with nothing but resentment, and we're about to unleash them into our institutions.
This decade is going to be a trip. :)
You forgot to mention that many of the ones who didn't go have a seething hatred for those who did, possibly because they don't see sufficient difference.
Not sure that's a thing, as hard to imagine anyone caring about an undergrad, no? If you have a trade or competence in any domain, it seems hard to believe any significant number of people are preoccupied by this, as opposed to say, the contrasting anxiety about uneducated rednecks driving policy, etc. The graduates of state colleges seem like unlikely villains to anyone.
However, I would give you the reactionary view of campus politics, but even that seems separate and not 1:1 to the status anxiety of people who thought university would make them palpably elite.
However, I would give you the reactionary view of campus politics, but even that seems separate and not 1:1 to the status anxiety of people who thought university would make them palpably elite.
Have you ever heard of the cliche of the high school football star whose career peaked his senior year and has been going down hill since? It happens. People who were the top of their social circles, but are not now, at times begin to resent anyone who can be a scapegoat. It doesn't help that those who left for a state school both have wider experience and an overly inflated sense of how wide their experience is.
And, be honest, having a degree does open doors that are closed otherwise. A welder may make more money than a junior suit just out of college, but may forget that fact when he's working on a pipe outside in 40°F weather.
And, be honest, having a degree does open doors that are closed otherwise. A welder may make more money than a junior suit just out of college, but may forget that fact when he's working on a pipe outside in 40°F weather.
The graduates of state colleges end up being the ones who get out of the dying towns in the areas being left behind. They move to a thriving city often out of state and in doing so become the "elites" that are so hated by those left behind.
While reciprocal, it does assume a class concsiousness I don't see in small towns. I'd argue they'd need higher education to appreciate fully how fucked they are. Their upside is running a business or marrying into a family that does, and while the pretenses of city people are absolutely a bogeyman, it's not defining to their identity. The small town conservatives I know dont talk about politics, they talk about business, hunting, hobbies and macro economic trends that impact their lives like interest rates and commodity prices. Complaining about "the libs," is considered whining. They're not defined or unite as a community based on their opposition to something. They're tolerant, not liberal, value freedom based on the necessary rules, and admittedly, see elites who lack traditional virtues as illigitimate but temporary. It's a bit complex to be dismissed as hatred.
"The small town conservatives I know dont talk about politics, they talk about business, hunting, hobbies and macro economic trends that impact their lives like interest rates and commodity prices."
A good friend talks about those. And he likes to go on long rants about the evils illegal immigrants. Pointing out that the lack of those workers would put a number of his best friends out of business doesn't help.
You're right, it's complex.
A good friend talks about those. And he likes to go on long rants about the evils illegal immigrants. Pointing out that the lack of those workers would put a number of his best friends out of business doesn't help.
You're right, it's complex.
Except that it is increasingly possible to tell grads from non-grads. If all you are concerned with is coding, there isnt much different. But of you look for writing ability, communication capacity, and cultural knowledge, those with only highschool or a few years of online junk really do stand out, not in a good way.
I think this is a good point, but I'm not entirely sure that these skills distinguishes grads from non-grads. I think grads are much more likely to possess these skills for sure, but I would guess that a large percentage of grads don't possess these skills either (at least in my experience).
I don't intend this as a criticism, but rather just an observation, that someone could see writing ability and communication capacity and cultural knowledge and assume a grad, and thus make these types of observations a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I don't intend this as a criticism, but rather just an observation, that someone could see writing ability and communication capacity and cultural knowledge and assume a grad, and thus make these types of observations a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> I think grads are much more likely to possess these skills for sure, but I would guess that a large percentage of grads don't possess these skills either (at least in my experience).
I agree with this assessment. Even some top-tier CS programs seem to routinely graduate students with poor writing skills and sub-par cultural awareness.
I always recommend to interns that they take some writing-intensive courses, and possibly even pick up a minor in a writing-intensive field like English or Philosophy. And then not just take the course, but also use what they learned to write about things free time they way they (should be) writing code outside of their CS courses.
I think a lot of the strong disagreement in HN re: the value of college basically boils down to the huge amount of variety in the college experience.
Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student.
A good litmus test for whether someone is wasting college might be to ask the question: what did you read/build/do this semester outside of your courses that used stuff you learned in your curses during the last year or so?
The less impressive the answer to that question, the more likely it is the student should maybe think about leaving college until they're ready to fully engage.
(Obviously, that litmus test only makes sense for full-time undergraduate students... for working students, it might be something more like "how are you using what you're learning in your day job".)
I agree with this assessment. Even some top-tier CS programs seem to routinely graduate students with poor writing skills and sub-par cultural awareness.
I always recommend to interns that they take some writing-intensive courses, and possibly even pick up a minor in a writing-intensive field like English or Philosophy. And then not just take the course, but also use what they learned to write about things free time they way they (should be) writing code outside of their CS courses.
I think a lot of the strong disagreement in HN re: the value of college basically boils down to the huge amount of variety in the college experience.
Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student.
A good litmus test for whether someone is wasting college might be to ask the question: what did you read/build/do this semester outside of your courses that used stuff you learned in your curses during the last year or so?
The less impressive the answer to that question, the more likely it is the student should maybe think about leaving college until they're ready to fully engage.
(Obviously, that litmus test only makes sense for full-time undergraduate students... for working students, it might be something more like "how are you using what you're learning in your day job".)
"Surprisingly, this variety has less to do with the quality of the institution and more to do with the quality/preparedness of the student."
Possibly. But there is an enormous range of institutional quality, from diverse, not necessarily elite or even large, schools to the ones existing almost entirely to absorb GI bill and scholarship funding and maybe provide job training.
Possibly. But there is an enormous range of institutional quality, from diverse, not necessarily elite or even large, schools to the ones existing almost entirely to absorb GI bill and scholarship funding and maybe provide job training.
Much depends on which degrees and knowledge we are talking about. Anyone with a STEM degree knows the metric system. Anyone with a law degree can string sentences together into something useful. But a political science undergrad...a few years doing coding bootcamps .... these are not assurances of anything.
Great writers and orators are born, not made. In just the same sense as musicians and artists.
Naturally all of the above hone their skills with practice, but the great ones started from a different baseline.
Naturally all of the above hone their skills with practice, but the great ones started from a different baseline.
How can we tell the difference between great writers who are born, great writers who end up on the edge of the Bell curve through random decisions during childhood, and great writers who are deliberately raised to greatness?
Taking you literally, I can't see any reason why greatness should be determined solely at birth.
Taking you literally, I can't see any reason why greatness should be determined solely at birth.
Did those Great writers learn writing in the womb? Which language are they good at writing in and how did they learn that?
Yeah, but I don't need great writers.
I need people who I can trust to given presentations to clients, executives, or directors of other divisions of the business.
I need people who can communicate clearly in writing with clients/stakeholders.
I need people who can write good commit logs, comments, and technical documentation for other engineers.
In the extremely limit, I need people who can write a white paper or research paper.
I'm not looking for the next Dickens or Fitzgerald.
I need people who I can trust to given presentations to clients, executives, or directors of other divisions of the business.
I need people who can communicate clearly in writing with clients/stakeholders.
I need people who can write good commit logs, comments, and technical documentation for other engineers.
In the extremely limit, I need people who can write a white paper or research paper.
I'm not looking for the next Dickens or Fitzgerald.
Kind of selection bias, though. A lot of getting into college is dependent on already being an OK writer. I was pretty good when I got in, studied Econ, and was pretty ok when I got out, without much effort. I ended up with a job where I literally wrote analytical papers for 5 years, straight out of school. That job did a lot more for my writing than college did. I figure I wrote more in my first 2 years of my job than all of high school and college combined.
Before one takes the ideas of Rene Girard as seriously as I did, for quite a few years, it might help to read a careful critique[0].
[0] https://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/deceit-desire-and-literatur...
[0] https://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/deceit-desire-and-literatur...
That was a great refutation.
Allow me to add one piece: Girard comes close to refuting himself. Why? Because, if Girard is correct, then why do people believe Girard? Not because he is correct, but only because they are memetically infected by some model. And why did that model believe it? Same reason. Nobody believes it (or anything) on the basis of the actual truthfulness of the idea.
And then, where did Girard get it? Not from a careful examination of the evidence, but because he was memetically infected by some model. So it's not original, and it's not based on evidence.
So if it's true, it destroys our ability to know whether anything is actually true, including itself. That is pretty strong grounds to not believe it, in my book.
Allow me to add one piece: Girard comes close to refuting himself. Why? Because, if Girard is correct, then why do people believe Girard? Not because he is correct, but only because they are memetically infected by some model. And why did that model believe it? Same reason. Nobody believes it (or anything) on the basis of the actual truthfulness of the idea.
And then, where did Girard get it? Not from a careful examination of the evidence, but because he was memetically infected by some model. So it's not original, and it's not based on evidence.
So if it's true, it destroys our ability to know whether anything is actually true, including itself. That is pretty strong grounds to not believe it, in my book.
Thanks for the link. For people thinking about reading it, try! It’s clear and engaging, even funny.
Putting on my academic disagreement/junior philosopher/political theorist hat:
Ouch.
"Is it really true that all violence is a by-product of mimetic rivalry? Here’s the kind of situation Girard is asking us to imagine. Two men, Jimmy and Joey, stand beside a lake on a hot day. Jimmy decides to go for a swim. Joey, who would never have had this idea in his life, immediately decides to do likewise. Inevitably, this causes a death struggle between the two men as they fight over the lake."
...
"Perhaps nowhere is this phenomenon—the resistance to contagion—more apparent than in the high chair at dinnertime. “Nothing is more mimetic,” declares Girard, “than the desire of a child.”[30] One wonders, has he ever met a child?[31] Has he ever tried to feed one a brussels sprout? “Yum yum,” we say, absurdly hoping that our desire for healthy food will carry over mimetically. “Blech,” says the child, unceremoniously spitting it out. You can’t get a child to want to eat brussels sprouts, because this kind of desire depends on liking, and children just don’t like brussels sprouts. They do not get all their desires from parents (even in such a wonderfully closed environment, with so little outside stimulus)."
...
"Let’s sum up: it is perfectly possible to form desires in the absence of a model (the pica sufferer’s yearning for dirt); it is perfectly possible, conversely, for others’ desires to leave us cold (the child’s stubborn disinclination toward brussels sprouts); the fact that we sometimes act on recommendations from admired friends and experts proves nothing, since we are entirely capable of ignoring them (Kill Bill 2, no thank you);[33] and the fact that there are always multiple potential models (brother Aron, brother David) strongly suggests that those potential models are not doing the choosing for us. In short, there is no basis at all to the central premise of Girardianism: that “human beings have no desires of their own,” that there is never a reason (objective or subjective) for wanting something rather than something else, that spontaneous impulses are an illusion, that autonomy is impossible."
...
"I’ve heard literary scholars say with a straight face that we wouldn’t have noticed mimetic desire in Stendhal had it not been for Girard; this is like saying we wouldn’t have noticed war in the Iliad, Christianity in Dostoevsky, memory in Proust, or adultery in Madame Bovary without the help of critics. It’s right there on the surface, as the central theme of Stendhal’s writing."
...
"When you pay attention, it is astonishing just how frequently he gets it wrong about the texts he is reading, just how relentlessly he continues pummeling square pegs into round holes. “It is not an exaggeration,” he claims at one point, “to say that, in all of the characters of Remembrance of Things Past, love is strictly subordinated to jealousy, to the presence of the rival.”[44] Allow me to propose a friendly amendment: it is an exaggeration to say that. Notoriously, the parents of Proust’s narrator—hardly insignificant figures—are entirely immune to jealousy. Even Charles Swann, who becomes a fanatically jealous lover, does not begin this way,[45] and the narrator is quite categorical that the new jealousy, far from constituting the essence of his passion, in fact represents a denaturing of that passion.[46] That’s why, when Swann ceases being jealous, he is nonetheless able to remain in love.[47]"
One wonders if Thiel and anyone else who professes to like Girard has noticed stages 3 and 4. (I don't know anything about Girard, but those two do seem to follow rather well stages 1 and 2, which are apparently valid judging by the original article.)
Ouch.
"Is it really true that all violence is a by-product of mimetic rivalry? Here’s the kind of situation Girard is asking us to imagine. Two men, Jimmy and Joey, stand beside a lake on a hot day. Jimmy decides to go for a swim. Joey, who would never have had this idea in his life, immediately decides to do likewise. Inevitably, this causes a death struggle between the two men as they fight over the lake."
...
"Perhaps nowhere is this phenomenon—the resistance to contagion—more apparent than in the high chair at dinnertime. “Nothing is more mimetic,” declares Girard, “than the desire of a child.”[30] One wonders, has he ever met a child?[31] Has he ever tried to feed one a brussels sprout? “Yum yum,” we say, absurdly hoping that our desire for healthy food will carry over mimetically. “Blech,” says the child, unceremoniously spitting it out. You can’t get a child to want to eat brussels sprouts, because this kind of desire depends on liking, and children just don’t like brussels sprouts. They do not get all their desires from parents (even in such a wonderfully closed environment, with so little outside stimulus)."
...
"Let’s sum up: it is perfectly possible to form desires in the absence of a model (the pica sufferer’s yearning for dirt); it is perfectly possible, conversely, for others’ desires to leave us cold (the child’s stubborn disinclination toward brussels sprouts); the fact that we sometimes act on recommendations from admired friends and experts proves nothing, since we are entirely capable of ignoring them (Kill Bill 2, no thank you);[33] and the fact that there are always multiple potential models (brother Aron, brother David) strongly suggests that those potential models are not doing the choosing for us. In short, there is no basis at all to the central premise of Girardianism: that “human beings have no desires of their own,” that there is never a reason (objective or subjective) for wanting something rather than something else, that spontaneous impulses are an illusion, that autonomy is impossible."
...
"I’ve heard literary scholars say with a straight face that we wouldn’t have noticed mimetic desire in Stendhal had it not been for Girard; this is like saying we wouldn’t have noticed war in the Iliad, Christianity in Dostoevsky, memory in Proust, or adultery in Madame Bovary without the help of critics. It’s right there on the surface, as the central theme of Stendhal’s writing."
...
"When you pay attention, it is astonishing just how frequently he gets it wrong about the texts he is reading, just how relentlessly he continues pummeling square pegs into round holes. “It is not an exaggeration,” he claims at one point, “to say that, in all of the characters of Remembrance of Things Past, love is strictly subordinated to jealousy, to the presence of the rival.”[44] Allow me to propose a friendly amendment: it is an exaggeration to say that. Notoriously, the parents of Proust’s narrator—hardly insignificant figures—are entirely immune to jealousy. Even Charles Swann, who becomes a fanatically jealous lover, does not begin this way,[45] and the narrator is quite categorical that the new jealousy, far from constituting the essence of his passion, in fact represents a denaturing of that passion.[46] That’s why, when Swann ceases being jealous, he is nonetheless able to remain in love.[47]"
One wonders if Thiel and anyone else who professes to like Girard has noticed stages 3 and 4. (I don't know anything about Girard, but those two do seem to follow rather well stages 1 and 2, which are apparently valid judging by the original article.)
Try as I might, I could not escape the feeling that this article was simply pretentious gibberish. It seems to largely draw its facts from vague 'torn from the headlines' ideas about colleges (which are, as any reading of Big Thinkpieces About The Decline of Practically Everything, uniformly full of snowflakes hysterical about triggers etc. etc.).
If I was interested in a psychological depiction of what it's like to be a pretentious business major with a keen interest in analyzing Game of Thrones and kissing Peter Thiel's ass, I think this might have a good deal of merit.
If I was interested in a psychological depiction of what it's like to be a pretentious business major with a keen interest in analyzing Game of Thrones and kissing Peter Thiel's ass, I think this might have a good deal of merit.
Yes, it seems that preponderance of snowflakes are the journalists writing such articles and the squeaky wheels on twitter.
It looks like part of Girard's ideas is that when life purpose and sense of value is based on social comparisons, and actual differences are very small, people become very prone to thinking the worst of others. The idea is that these conditions make it hard to assume good intent and avoid assuming malice. And that harm follows the resulting judgments of evil and injustice.
This is what people say about academia, that the politics is most vicious because the stakes are smallest.
> Most 18-year-olds are not super differentiated from each other.
I wonder if this is just elitism looking down on the great unwashed masses. I confess that my own initial reaction was to agree with the claim, then start composing a comment about how I was different from the others. But I, as much as anyone else, need to be careful not to stereotype a whole group of people.
I wonder if this is just elitism looking down on the great unwashed masses. I confess that my own initial reaction was to agree with the claim, then start composing a comment about how I was different from the others. But I, as much as anyone else, need to be careful not to stereotype a whole group of people.
People here are really taking offense to the characterization of 18 y/o this way since the first thought is to see where they fit in this model of reality. But the author isn't speaking about individuals but aggregates; on the average, the 18 y/o American kid is most likely unsure about what they want to do in their lives, and are thrust into an extremely competitive zero-sum environment of college. All the author is saying is that this isn't representative of the real world, but people that go through this trauma might continue to think this way into adulthood, leading to a toxic culture and paradigm of the world.
Girard would nod mmm-hmm at trying to find differences among people who went to college together. If you zoom out to look at the whole wide range of people around the world -- truckers, subsistence farmers, politicians, assembly line workers, homemakers -- people who went to the same college in the US are clustered very close together.
One reason that Girardian conflict is attractive is that the differences aren't big enough to ensure different destinies. Rivals in college can put each other down, CS geeks insulting math geeks, knowing that their likely outcomes in life are broadly similar. Putting down, say, a subsistence farmer, who does have a different destiny, would seem quite cruel.
Girardian conflict doesn't feel like elitism. Marxist conflict does.
One reason that Girardian conflict is attractive is that the differences aren't big enough to ensure different destinies. Rivals in college can put each other down, CS geeks insulting math geeks, knowing that their likely outcomes in life are broadly similar. Putting down, say, a subsistence farmer, who does have a different destiny, would seem quite cruel.
Girardian conflict doesn't feel like elitism. Marxist conflict does.
Excerpt:
"René Girard’s most famous student did not take the threat of mimetic contagion lightly when he ran a company. When Peter Thiel was the CEO of PayPal, he tried to minimize mimetic contagion, possibly because the company was hiring a bunch of kids who’ve been socialized in elite colleges. Keith Rabois has recounted that as a manager,
Thiel allowed everyone to work on one thing and one thing only.
Rabois couches in terms of ridding distractions, but it’s clear that this is good Girardian practice. People will not feel mimetic envy if they cannot look at the work of others.
And:
"Thiel’s comments on management more generally are worth reading. The Girardian themes are clear if one looks for them: “If you were a sociopathic boss who wanted to create trouble for your employees, the formula you would follow would be to tell two people to do the exact same thing. That’s a guaranteed formula for creating conflict. If you’re not a sociopath, you want to be very careful to avoid this.”"
"René Girard’s most famous student did not take the threat of mimetic contagion lightly when he ran a company. When Peter Thiel was the CEO of PayPal, he tried to minimize mimetic contagion, possibly because the company was hiring a bunch of kids who’ve been socialized in elite colleges. Keith Rabois has recounted that as a manager,
Thiel allowed everyone to work on one thing and one thing only.
Rabois couches in terms of ridding distractions, but it’s clear that this is good Girardian practice. People will not feel mimetic envy if they cannot look at the work of others.
And:
"Thiel’s comments on management more generally are worth reading. The Girardian themes are clear if one looks for them: “If you were a sociopathic boss who wanted to create trouble for your employees, the formula you would follow would be to tell two people to do the exact same thing. That’s a guaranteed formula for creating conflict. If you’re not a sociopath, you want to be very careful to avoid this.”"
Wow! was my college experience weird? The only thing that felt like a "zero sum" competition for me was dating (and that, only if you restricted yourself to the engineering school. The whole university had a gender ratio of something like 3:1.) Most interactions I had with people where pleasant. One of the first interactions I remember was comparing Mandelbrot viewers with another person that taught themselves to program in their teens. Neither was "better" IMO: his was faster but required a specific Nvidia card, mine was slower but could run on nearly anything including my e-ink kindle. Most of my other friendships where like this, we built things and did things together and that doesn't take anything away from anyone. My learning math doesn't make you worse at it and your understanding of chemistry won't make me worse at it. I think people tend to naturally turn things into zero sum competitions when they really don't need to be.
I think the author is right though, it's true zero sum competitions that make enemies and the only person I've ever thought of as an enemy was a "friend" that my ex constantly visited at night before breaking up with me.
I think the author is right though, it's true zero sum competitions that make enemies and the only person I've ever thought of as an enemy was a "friend" that my ex constantly visited at night before breaking up with me.
Could it be that dating was the only situation where you experienced the feeling of being on the losing side?
But the only way to lose in the situations in the first paragraph is by just not doing anything! Literally show up and do something and you make everything better for everyone including yourself!
Dating is not actually a zero-sum game either; the issue here is more about perceptions than things necessarily being so.
If you are heterosexual in a non 1:1 balanced environment, then romantic partners are a rivalrous good.
Sure, if the count is just of how many people are dating, but any such model grossly oversimplifies the complexity of human relationships - though, for the subset of people who approach dating with this mindset, it might be accurate. This could also be said for a number of other 'games' mentioned in the article.
"Fleabag" offers wonderful commentary on this subject (among many others).
When I went to Purdue, all my math classes and most of my CS classes were pretty much zero sum in that they would make the tests super hard so that the average would be like a 60% and then they would bell curve everyone's grade around the average. Combining the bell curve with the fact that you need a C or higher to pass the class resulted in some students out of each class having to retake it just to continue on with their major.
I myself had to retake 3 classes and I have been advising a worried parent whose son is currently at Purdue majoring in CS because he is now having to retake a 4th class and he is only a junior.
I myself had to retake 3 classes and I have been advising a worried parent whose son is currently at Purdue majoring in CS because he is now having to retake a 4th class and he is only a junior.
That seems fine. Students who learn quickly move up quickly. Students who learn slowly take more time to learn the material (and set the curve next time). It's bad to push ahead to higher level courses while still not understanding fundamentals.
In my experience fraternities and Chinese students would hoard previous semester exams and resources within their in-group. This heavily skewed the curve and solidified a sense of me versus them
This sounds horrifying to me! Is it common at other schools for cs undergrad or other stem, that people in the heart of a major have to take a few classes over? I have never heard of this. I'm not saying you are a terrible student (I'm thinking the opposite, to survive that, you or the OP must have a lot of will power and resilience!) it just sounds like a very, very difficult major; what if you don't pass something well enough the second time?
I went to a far less prestigious school that you've never heard of. There were some people not passing classes in my cs major, but it was rare, almost unheard of after the first year. After I got to grad school I realized in comparison my undergrad wasn't that challenging. If I had failed a class or even gotten a C in undergrad it would have been pretty devastating. I was the top student in the dept (not bragging, I'm sure at mit or another great school I would have been far from the top ;-)).
When I went to grad school to get my phd (at a much better school) it was much more challenging, and I wasn't at the top like I was in undergrad. People did struggle a lot more than at my undergrad school. I was still a good student, I thought. But I also didn't see the undergrads retaking classes where it was a semi-common thing.
I went to a far less prestigious school that you've never heard of. There were some people not passing classes in my cs major, but it was rare, almost unheard of after the first year. After I got to grad school I realized in comparison my undergrad wasn't that challenging. If I had failed a class or even gotten a C in undergrad it would have been pretty devastating. I was the top student in the dept (not bragging, I'm sure at mit or another great school I would have been far from the top ;-)).
When I went to grad school to get my phd (at a much better school) it was much more challenging, and I wasn't at the top like I was in undergrad. People did struggle a lot more than at my undergrad school. I was still a good student, I thought. But I also didn't see the undergrads retaking classes where it was a semi-common thing.
To me this illustrates that your CS undergrad school wasn't very good [1].
In my experience (CS at CMU), it's the undergrad years that are the most brutal and require the most (assuming you strive for excellence and not just passing).
I've had friends and coworkers who went to MIT, Caltech and Stanford pretty much agree with this. Those of us who continued to graduate and postgraduate studies, have (generally) found the "mental effort" - not time investment - far reduced.
[1] Mark Tarver has written a great essay on this: http://www.marktarver.com/professor.html
In my experience (CS at CMU), it's the undergrad years that are the most brutal and require the most (assuming you strive for excellence and not just passing).
I've had friends and coworkers who went to MIT, Caltech and Stanford pretty much agree with this. Those of us who continued to graduate and postgraduate studies, have (generally) found the "mental effort" - not time investment - far reduced.
[1] Mark Tarver has written a great essay on this: http://www.marktarver.com/professor.html
Thanks for the reply. I'll never know that experience you describe, somehow I made it this far ;-)
This is true. The hardest people on the poor, who are in favor of cutting welfare, are the almost poor. Which is why they shouldn’t be listened to and why leaders need to lead.
Another motivating aspect is that it’s “easier” to attack and defeat a nearly equal rival than it is to defeat a much stronger enemy. For example, people attack the weaker and poorer than themselves much more readily than they attack their actual common enemy: the very rich. Instead, most people are bitterly divided-and-conquered, ensconced in their separate, partisan echo-chambers, accomplishing nothing. This is not to say adversarial partisanship doesn’t have its place: two or more strong parties function as countervailing powers to prevent either from gaining an upper hand. These days however, when corruption is too extreme and too hedged, the major parties become different flavors of tools of the rich.
Furthermore, when the established order appears weak or imploding, people tend to move more naturally to the extremes of right and left, seeking utopian solutions and populist demagogues.
What’s this means is that Marx was, inconveniently, correct about reality of concentrated wealth and greed’s externalities but subsequent splintering factions that developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries weren’t necessarily correct about the prescriptions. These days people must realize that “a house divided cannot stand” and that vampiric billionaires have bought most governments and mass media to such an extent that they are extincting species at an incredible rate, doubling-down on climate change and causing a widening gulf of inequality that hasn’t been seen in a century. People who are relatively comfortable or are in destructive industries will do everything to reinforce their cognitive dissonance and destroy those who challenge them with inconvenient reality.
Another motivating aspect is that it’s “easier” to attack and defeat a nearly equal rival than it is to defeat a much stronger enemy. For example, people attack the weaker and poorer than themselves much more readily than they attack their actual common enemy: the very rich. Instead, most people are bitterly divided-and-conquered, ensconced in their separate, partisan echo-chambers, accomplishing nothing. This is not to say adversarial partisanship doesn’t have its place: two or more strong parties function as countervailing powers to prevent either from gaining an upper hand. These days however, when corruption is too extreme and too hedged, the major parties become different flavors of tools of the rich.
Furthermore, when the established order appears weak or imploding, people tend to move more naturally to the extremes of right and left, seeking utopian solutions and populist demagogues.
What’s this means is that Marx was, inconveniently, correct about reality of concentrated wealth and greed’s externalities but subsequent splintering factions that developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries weren’t necessarily correct about the prescriptions. These days people must realize that “a house divided cannot stand” and that vampiric billionaires have bought most governments and mass media to such an extent that they are extincting species at an incredible rate, doubling-down on climate change and causing a widening gulf of inequality that hasn’t been seen in a century. People who are relatively comfortable or are in destructive industries will do everything to reinforce their cognitive dissonance and destroy those who challenge them with inconvenient reality.
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
I was going to say there are a lot more religious groups than c or j, your joke goes back to the interesting thesis here. I call it keeping up with the "Joneses".
It's definitely something I see in the world, in my own behavior at times. But it's not my only motivation in life. I have things I like to do that no one else around me does, internal motivation. I'm hopefully not doing them in some subconscious comparison to others that exist a 1,000 miles away. My interest in certain unproved math. problems, or space research, or porn, or skiing or cats or whatever - I can have my own desires. I don't buy it that intrinsically I am unlikely to have no uniqueness.
It's definitely something I see in the world, in my own behavior at times. But it's not my only motivation in life. I have things I like to do that no one else around me does, internal motivation. I'm hopefully not doing them in some subconscious comparison to others that exist a 1,000 miles away. My interest in certain unproved math. problems, or space research, or porn, or skiing or cats or whatever - I can have my own desires. I don't buy it that intrinsically I am unlikely to have no uniqueness.
Its more a dark joke about the large number of protestant splinter groups that founded most of the colonies.
Some left the UK and the Netherlands as those countries where to liberal in terms of freedom of religion.
Some left the UK and the Netherlands as those countries where to liberal in terms of freedom of religion.
Girard makes all the same mistakes as Freud, but his cult followers don't know that, because they don't read! They don't think! They are less conscious than they imagine themselves to be. They're setting up a ghoulish little charade - hopefully it doesn't go anywhere.
Please don’t generalize and dehumanize entire groups of people like this even if you disagree with them on a fundamental world view.
How did I dehumanize them?
By saying they don't read and don't think. Telling yourself things like that about any group of people makes it easier and easier to disregard them as fellow humans entirely.
> nearly everyone starts undergrad in the same way: After graduating from high school at age 18
> It’s hard to construct a more perfect incubator for mimetic contagion than the American college campus. Most 18-year-olds are not super differentiated from each other.
> Everyone starts out by taking the same intro classes
I'm not sure where this author went to college, but outside of a major city like London or NYC, you'd be hard pressed to find a more experientially diverse place (in America, at least) even amongst freshmen. Sure, there is class self-selection, but this seems like a really naive statement at best, and propaganda at worst. There were dorms specifically for married students, and the state gave tuition breaks to people older than 30. The only way you'd meet people who'd taken your classes is if you hung out in your department socially. There were many colleges in the university and hundreds of undergraduate courses: if you wanted to meet people who had no idea about what you were studying you just had to go to a different dining hall at a different time.
To be honest it seems like this person is observing that, in a large group small sub-groups will form based on all sorts of criteria like geographical closeness and experiential background, and within those groups "memes" will spread efficiently the more similar people are? This doesn't seem novel or the basis on to which to extrapolate that somehow the result is negative or in any way new in society.
Anyway,
> Finally, not to join a fraternity or finance club, but to be part of a knitting circle or hiking group instead.
now that is some advice I can get behind.
EDIT: After finishing the article it strikes me that this person may have gone to a school that would be in the set he describes as "elite." I think this might have warped his worldview because they're the only places where people can unironically imagine America as a "meritocracy" as described.