Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
Whaddya want, more COMMONERS in the world?

Whaddya want, more COMMONERS in the world?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 12:29 am by Elizabeth Scalia

Whaddya want, more COMMONERS in the world? 2015-03-13T00:29:47+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

He has been writing an important series on culture, class and the decline of marriage on his blog, but Ross Douthat’s latest column in the New York Times is getting a lot of attention, as it is a rather thoughtful look at the propensity of Ivy-League alums to seek out Ivy-League mates, and how it affects the nation:

Of course Ivy League schools double as dating services. Of course members of elites — yes, gender egalitarians, the males as well as the females — have strong incentives to marry one another, or at the very least find a spouse from within the wider meritocratic circle. What better way to double down on our pre-existing advantages? What better way to minimize, in our descendants, the chances of the dread phenomenon known as “regression to the mean”?

That this “assortative mating,” in which the best-educated Americans increasingly marry one another, also ends up perpetuating existing inequalities seems blindingly obvious, which is no doubt why it’s considered embarrassing and reactionary to talk about it too overtly. We all know what we’re supposed to do — our mothers don’t have to come out and say it!

I think Douthat is mostly right about the meritocracy resembling the British peerage, who strove to admit no persons of dubious consequence into their circles. To some extent, our American upper classes are le bon ton, forever bound to Almack’s, dancing in step, both metaphorically and literally; perpetuating the marriage mart to ensure that either class and/or property — preferably both — are preserved or enlarged. Ivies are part of that.

Then again, my non-Ivy son is dating an Ivy alum who doesn’t personify the mold Douthat describes here:

The “holistic” approach to admissions. . .has two major consequences: It enforces what looks suspiciously like de facto discrimination against Asian applicants with high SAT scores, while disadvantaging talented kids — often white and working class and geographically dispersed — who don’t grow up in elite enclaves with parents and friends who understand the system. The result is an upper class that looks superficially like America, but mostly reproduces the previous generation’s elite.

Still, it is demonstrably true that there are mechanisms in place to keep the privileged ensconced within their high hedges while promoting “a form of student-body “diversity” that’s mostly cosmetic, designed to flatter multicultural sensibilities without threatening existing hierarchies all that much.”

This is of-a-piece with the fact that those politicians and mediafolk who loudly promote public schools and decry vouchers for urban youths trapped in terrible schools are the very same folks who send their children to private, exclusive schools where diversity is “celebrated”, but only amongst the correct sorts of families — monied, powerful and protected, often by armed guards. If comments highlighted at this Gawker article (Warning:Language) are indicative, the upper-crustish don’t particularly like being exposed having to rub elbows with the rougher elements.

“[Why would an] English major share his/her love of literature with an uneducated bank teller… a math professor with a beautician?”

Good heavens! What could ones such as us possibly have to say to, erm…persons such as they?” Had sad. I knew an 18 year-old bank teller who read Proust on her breaks. Oh, wait. That was me.

I could see where a math professor might like very much to date the woman who cuts hair, owns a stable that corrals horses and oh yeah, loves to cook, if only he would first deign to speak to such a lowly creature!

The elitism is also of a piece with this extraordinarily Margaret-Sanger-esque rant from this angry and uppity woman destroying pro-life material on the campus of Ohio State University while demanding to know, “You want an overpopulated Earth? “You want to keep paying taxes for babies that are born to crackheads?…You really want a population of people that were born on drugs? That are born into welfare? You want to keep paying for that shit?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bf2dLupo3w

Her response to those graphic images, which I don’t particularly like to see used (and I’m not going to get into yet another argument about that, so save your breath for your porridge) is to argue that there are inferior sorts of people who ought not to be born, because they are a drain on the larger society and are a diluting threat to the “better” classes. That’s right out of Margaret Sanger’s playbook.

Sanger, of course, is the eugenicist (beloved of Katie Couric, and her ilk), who declared, (among other things):

We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

And…

All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.

And…

Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

This seems like very illiberal thinking, to me. It also seems to reduce people to mere things. So it may be sinful thinking, too.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit suggests that our ruling classes are not particularly bright.

Culture of Life/Death

Previous Post

April 8, 2013

Beer Makes Wonderfully Fluffy Vegan Muffins!

Next Post

April 8, 2013 Housekeeping Note!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Paul tell the Thessalonians to do without ceasing?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Study the word Pray Rejoice Give thanks