Also son of an immigrant, went to Amherst, and upvoted the grandparent post.
The type of entrenched power base that I believe he's talking about works at a cultural level, which means it's mostly subconscious. I found the "elites" that I went to school with generally weren't overtly snobby - there were one or two douchebags, but in general they were looked down upon by the rest of the student body, and for the most part people could forget about who had money and who didn't.
But I came out of Amherst a different person than when I went in, and I've noticed that I think differently than HN or Reddit posters who didn't go to college or went to a state school. And I think that a lot of that is because I picked up the cultural values of going to an elite college, and now have a lot more skin in the game of preserving the existing system.
Assuming that you are like most HN contributors and want to become successful one day, how would you go about it? What does success mean to you? A good, high-paying job at a company that gives you a lot of freedom to work in what you want? A company that gets lots of users and nets you a few tens of millions when you sell it? A tenured professorship at a major research university?
Now step outside of your cultural values and consider all the other things that people might consider successful. A world where everybody's equal and nobody needs to worry about the basic necessities of life. Glory on the battlefield and domination over one's enemies. Physical strength and goods well built.
Why is it that we value money and knowledge, but not valor or compassion? Why did Athens win over Sparta, when historically Sparta won?
One of the neat things about studying sociology and anthropology is learning how to frame observed behavior from different viewpoints. People usually don't become powerful by winning on the battlefield; they become powerful by shifting the battlefield onto areas where they're naturally strong. So naturally, people who are wealthy and smart want to shift society's value system to reward money and knowledge. If another group was in power - say, the 8th grade bullies who used to beat me up - they would probably want a society that rewarded brawn and ruthlessness.
The university system is a way to effect that shift. It works by identifying youngsters who might otherwise challenge the status quo, and then giving them the means and the opportunity to succeed within the status quo. Once they get out of it, they have little incentive to tear down the system, because the system works for them. Why risk destroying a good thing?
1. How to greet, stand, dress, and speak in a way that reassures social elites that you are like them and can be trusted.
2. How to mingle with elites without being intimidated.
3. How elites' system of friendship and obligation works -- how to ask for favors, grant favors, and make friends and connections with the elite.
4. What elites value, i.e., how to make yourself useful to them so you can enter into reciprocal relationships with them.
5. How particular systems work that are dominated by the elite. For example, if you go to Harvard, you'll probably pick up a little bit about how the financial industry works, just because that knowledge is in the air there and is of interest to many Harvard students. If you go to Pretty Good State U, you'll get a lot less second-hand knowledge of the financial system and fewer classmates who have a serious or even casual interest in it. I had a girlfriend whose parents were social workers, so I learned a little about that just from listening to her talk. If her parents had been investment bankers or diplomats, I would have learned about that instead. (As it happens, any of those would have been irrelevant to my own interests, so no harm done.)
You won't just get those skills; you'll also get a head start on using them. You'll have the opportunity to meet people with valuable connections and people who will become extremely valuable connections in the future. It might be kind of minor league; you might just call someone up and say, "Hey, I'm looking for an internship in finance, but I don't know where or how to apply. Do you think your dad can tell me what kinds of places to apply to and what they like to hear from applicants?" That isn't exactly Instant Entry Into The Corridors of Power but if your classmate's dad is an executive at Citibank you'll get slightly better advice than you'd get from the career guidance counselor at Pretty Good State U.
The type of entrenched power base that I believe he's talking about works at a cultural level, which means it's mostly subconscious. I found the "elites" that I went to school with generally weren't overtly snobby - there were one or two douchebags, but in general they were looked down upon by the rest of the student body, and for the most part people could forget about who had money and who didn't.
But I came out of Amherst a different person than when I went in, and I've noticed that I think differently than HN or Reddit posters who didn't go to college or went to a state school. And I think that a lot of that is because I picked up the cultural values of going to an elite college, and now have a lot more skin in the game of preserving the existing system.
Assuming that you are like most HN contributors and want to become successful one day, how would you go about it? What does success mean to you? A good, high-paying job at a company that gives you a lot of freedom to work in what you want? A company that gets lots of users and nets you a few tens of millions when you sell it? A tenured professorship at a major research university?
Now step outside of your cultural values and consider all the other things that people might consider successful. A world where everybody's equal and nobody needs to worry about the basic necessities of life. Glory on the battlefield and domination over one's enemies. Physical strength and goods well built.
Why is it that we value money and knowledge, but not valor or compassion? Why did Athens win over Sparta, when historically Sparta won?
One of the neat things about studying sociology and anthropology is learning how to frame observed behavior from different viewpoints. People usually don't become powerful by winning on the battlefield; they become powerful by shifting the battlefield onto areas where they're naturally strong. So naturally, people who are wealthy and smart want to shift society's value system to reward money and knowledge. If another group was in power - say, the 8th grade bullies who used to beat me up - they would probably want a society that rewarded brawn and ruthlessness.
The university system is a way to effect that shift. It works by identifying youngsters who might otherwise challenge the status quo, and then giving them the means and the opportunity to succeed within the status quo. Once they get out of it, they have little incentive to tear down the system, because the system works for them. Why risk destroying a good thing?