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Troubling Questions
I don't really have anything to say about The New York Observer's look at Ross Douthat, "the latest example of a relatively new and somewhat alarming breed: the Ivy-educated instapundit" except to note that there is nothing alarming whatsoever about Ivy-educated instapundits (I refer, of course, not to myself but such greats as Brad Plumer, Sam Rosenfeld, and Matt Continetti). The only alarming thing is that we don't all have book deals featuring "a $120,000 advance." It is utterly vital for the future of the nation that people receive as large a proportion of their information as possible from a closed loop of clever, very young people who don't really know what we're talking about. It's what the terrorists fear most.
March 3, 2005 | Permalink
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» An alarming breed? from Asymmetrical Information
Let me just second Matthew Yglesias here. There is nothing the world needs more than "ivy-educated Instapundits". It's regrettable that we're not getting more of them from really top-flight schools like Penn, but frankly, when the need is as dire as th... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 3, 2005 12:57:33 PM
» The privileges of privilege from Word Munger
Jane Galt pointed me to this Matt Yglesias post about this New York Observer article about Ross Gregory Douthat, the young Atlantic Monthly prodigy and author of a memoir about his privileged years at Harvard, aptly entitled Privilege.
I haven't re... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 4, 2005 11:34:10 AM
Comments
Isn't Reynolds himself an Ivy kid, at least for law school?
And Atrios, for grad school? And Josh Marshall, actually?
Posted by: ews | Mar 3, 2005 10:40:32 AM
What? He got a $120,000 advance? That's such bullshit.
Posted by: JP | Mar 3, 2005 10:45:54 AM
Ah, but have you read Harvard Rules?
Posted by: Abby | Mar 3, 2005 10:50:14 AM
Hell, throw in Brad DeLong and half the folks at Crooked Timber while you're at it.
Actually, the article confirmed what I suspected about Douthat - he was a slacker student of Mansfield (i.e., a politics major who didn't really study that hard). If he'd been a really good student, Mansfield would have sent him to study with Tarcov at University of Chicago. Since he was a shitty student, Mansfield disposed of him in the appropriate manner - either go to law school or work for National Review.
Posted by: burritoboy | Mar 3, 2005 10:59:26 AM
I wholeheartedly agree.
BTW, Anyone else read the fawning Times Magazine piece on the young Foer?
Posted by: praktike | Mar 3, 2005 11:12:32 AM
"there is nothing alarming whatsoever about Ivy-educated instapundits"
Except that they are crowding out the Oxbridge-educated instapundits.* This is a bad thing.
*Actually, in the UK, a hunking great big chunk of the media are from Oxbridge (even in the tabloid press like "the Sun", but the BBC is virtually an Oxbridge college. Contrast with US media, which is more of a local effort and treated more like a craft. Maybe the success of blogging is people's hunger for elite opinion from those born to rule?
Posted by: Urinated State of America | Mar 3, 2005 11:20:19 AM
Wow, what an asshat! That gives his silly comments about metaphysics and ethics some context. He was channeling Mansfield, with all his silly Straussian ressentiment about not being taken seriously by real philosophers. It is also rich that he is condemns his Harvard peers for lacking intellectual seriousness and being careerists, and then he turns around and gets a big advance to write a profoundly unserious book.
As for you Matt, in order to get that kind of book contract at your age, you need to write a self-consciously *youthful* book, preferably about your experiences and what they say about your generation. That doesn't seem like your bag, at least not your journalistic one.
Posted by: pjs | Mar 3, 2005 11:21:23 AM
compare, if you will, the ivy credentials of the folks people have already listed with the "credentials" of the no-talent ass clowns at blogs like The Corner, LGF, etc. what a joke that those people think they operate at the same level...
Posted by: anon | Mar 3, 2005 11:25:15 AM
I thought Instapundit (Yale Law '85) was an Ivy-educated Instapundit.
Posted by: Sven | Mar 3, 2005 11:30:10 AM
The most important part of this is the money available to young conservative intellectuals. High-school students have tough decisions to make, and without offering advice, I can only say I have never regretted choosing sex and drugs over fame and fortune. Okay, maybe a little.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Mar 3, 2005 11:33:19 AM
Speaking of elite young pundit/reporters, confessore's got a story. Now rockin' the marine beat, it would seem.
Posted by: praktike | Mar 3, 2005 11:41:10 AM
TAPPED is pretty Ivy-fied, isn't it? There's also Garance, in addition to Sam and MY. Is J-Dub also from one of the hallowed halls?
Posted by: Haggai | Mar 3, 2005 12:12:41 PM
As long as we restrict the gold rush to young Ivy-educated pundits we're in the clear. The Power Line guys are polluting my latest copy of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, but they're old (class of '71, pre-coeducation and loving it).
Posted by: diddy | Mar 3, 2005 12:14:49 PM
The Atlantic story about how lax Harvard was was such a fraud. Douthat admitted to haveing been a slacker, and **The Atlantic hired him.**
The month before they published a different story by a different Ivy League slacker (Walter Kirn).
The Atlantic rewards people for slacking, so they slack. They couldn't have published something by one of the hard-working students. That would have taken them off-message.
That's conservative individual responsibility for you! Kirn and Douthat slack, and Harvard is to blame. (There's nothing new here -- this is just the old "Gentleman's C", except that now it's a B and goes to the spawn of new-money and even commoner families, and not just to the finer sort of person.)
The Atlantic could have made a valid point if they had published something from a talented, ambitious Ivy undergrad (or two) who went there hoping for a challenge, but didn't get it. I doubt that there are many such people.
Michael Kelly is dead, but his nastiness lives on.
Posted by: John Emerson | Mar 3, 2005 12:18:28 PM
PJS,
Yes, precisely: Douthat is channeling second-hand Straussian complaints. Not that there aren't a lot of decent-enough Straussians out there (hell, I studied with a few of them), but Mansfield wants to be known as a philosopher, when he's probably not.
A lot of the Young Republican crowd does this stuff: condemn fellow students for not being serious and too careerist etc etc etc. Then, when you ask them what they're doing after graduation, they tell you about how they're working for Daddy's firm, or on Wall Street, etc. - i.e. the exact same things everyone else is doing.
Posted by: burritoboy | Mar 3, 2005 12:21:27 PM
Never mind the previous post, I'm just jealous that I couldn't get into an Ivy League School.
Posted by: John Emerson | Mar 3, 2005 12:23:06 PM
Zizka, I worry about you sometimes.
Posted by: praktike | Mar 3, 2005 12:35:26 PM
"As long as we restrict the gold rush to young Ivy-educated pundits we're in the clear. The Power Line guys are polluting my latest copy of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, but they're old (class of '71, pre-coeducation and loving it).
Posted by: diddy | March 3, 2005 12:14 PM"
Diddy, I haven't checked closely my latest copy (hard to keep up with things when your writing your dissertation), but we alum's of the Greatest College Ever ('92 here!)
have the Powerline tripe on our alumni mage? Ugh!
Of course, if I had chosen not to go into the hard sciences and take an easy major, I could have been writing crap for big $$$, too... oh well...
Posted by: MikeyC | Mar 3, 2005 12:36:33 PM
Can anybody think of a good book that has ever been written by someone who is primarily an op ed writer. Can't we come up with a name besides "book" to designate these kinds of things?
Posted by: catfish | Mar 3, 2005 12:57:54 PM
I'll defend Kirn: His article was all about slacking and social class (at PRINCETON), but at the very end he vows to pull his socks up. And he has since accomplished stuff--writing real novels 'n'at. He's not a fresh out of the Ivies guy like Douthat, who if he slacked at Harvard hasn't had time to make up for it since. (Though perhaps his editorship of the Salient counts as non-slacking, like some guy's editorship of the Independent certainly does.)
Posted by: Matt Weiner | Mar 3, 2005 1:06:53 PM
If you aren't referring to yourself you should probably be using 'they' instead of 'we' :)
Posted by: duane | Mar 3, 2005 1:31:18 PM
Hm, you'll note that my post was pro-Ivy League for a change. My stalker might have noticed that. My earlier anti-Ivy statements remain on the table, however.
If I had gone to an Ivy League school, I would have been more successful without working so hard, so yes, I'm jealous.
Praktike, there are good reasons to worry.
Posted by: John Emerson | Mar 3, 2005 2:25:12 PM
Yeah -- Garance, Dubner, and I are all from Harvard. Sam went to Columbia (as did Harold Meyerson). Our editor, Mike Tomasky, went to the University of West Virginia, however.
Posted by: Matthew Yglesias | Mar 3, 2005 2:51:21 PM
"Our editor, Mike Tomasky, went to the University of West Virginia, however."
We have to give those from the lower castes a token post, otherwise the plebians would get restless.
Posted by: Urinated State of America | Mar 3, 2005 6:58:25 PM
Remember, we're also taking over sports, particularly baseball front offices (Epstein, DePodesta, etc.). Now, who wants to toss me a $120,000 advance for a football book?
Posted by: Aaron Schatz | Mar 4, 2005 10:43:05 AM
