
The Problem at Yale Is Not Free Speech - jseliger
https://palladiummag.com/2019/08/05/the-real-problem-at-yale-is-not-free-speech
======
alexandercrohde
I find this piece fascinating. To honor it I offer a tl; dr

1\. Author recounts experiences of people lying about their class/wealth at
Yale, often feigning _less_ wealth.

2\. Explains behavior 1 as style, safety, loss-of-perspective, and avoiding
social responsibility

3\. Retells several incidents where a vocal minority of students at Yale
picked and won battles over verbiage (e.g. emails, Calhoun, "Master of
college").

4\. Interprets the battles in 3 as at best insignificant and at worst a
distraction from real problems of class disparity in America. Contrasts these
protests against Vietnam protests.

5\. Proposes "American Elites" have no idea what they stand for anymore, are
shirking their responsibility, and have no capability to be self-critical for
fear of losing belonging in the in-group.

6\. Rejects these Yale social movements: "This ideology is filled with
inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological
rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the
theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system,
an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling."

7\. Interprets the "inconsistent" Yale protests as an unproductive way for
students to avoid guilt of their privilege and distance themselves from
failing "legacy institutions."

8\. Holds the Yale administration accountable for siding against a "vacuous"
student cause instead of their own faculty. Demands more from "an institution
older than the Republic"

9\. Asks what it means if "Yale dies" and why this matters. Proposes it speaks
to a more universal problem.

[All that said, I recommend reading the whole thing if you can find the time.
This distillation has only a fraction of the value of the whole piece. Many
tangential points are very interesting.]

~~~
bsder
> 4\. Interprets the battles in 3 as at best insignificant and at worst a
> distraction from real problems of class disparity in America. Contrasts
> these protests against Vietnam protests.

I tend to agree. I view the "tempest in a teapot" protests that go after some
academic functionary in the same light as I view most of the animal rights
protesters--deeply hypocritical.

You don't see these college students go after someone with actual power just
like you don't see the animal rights advocates throw paint on Hell's Angels
for wearing leather.

Protest is good--until you you might actually face consequences for your
protest. Sorry, protest without consequences isn't a real protest.

If the Yale students want to protest, we have an oversupply of things that
need to be protested--feel free to join us. But, these might upset people with
real power, they might get arrested, they might wind up with a criminal record
like the plebeians and that might upset their getting that cushy Goldman-Sachs
position in a couple years.

~~~
galimaufry
> You don't see these college students go after someone with actual power just
> like you don't see the animal rights advocates throw paint on Hell's Angels
> for wearing leather.

This is a strange example of inconsequential protest, as the movement against
furs was highly successful.

~~~
parsimo2010
You’re kind of illustrating GP’s point. Throwing paint on a fashionista
wearing fur poses very little risk- compare the risk to a Hell’s Angels biker
who might literally kill you. And furs were always expensive which kept the
quantity relatively low- compare the number of fur animals killed to the
number that are killed for their hides to make car interiors, house furniture,
clothing, and more.

If the fur protesters want to make a big impact they should protest leather,
but you don’t see that. Instead they took their smaller symbolic victory
because the meaningful fight is too hard and too risky.

~~~
coryrc
No one raises and kills cows for the leather; the leather is a byproduct.

~~~
parsimo2010
The leather is a product, not a byproduct, just not the sole product. I fail
to see the logic that killing a mink for its fur is wrong, but killing a cow
is okay because we get meat along with the leather. You can also make
arguments about how it’s okay because cows are raised specifically to be
killed, but the fact remains that we kill orders of magnitude more cows than
we ever have minks. My previous argument stands unchanged about how protesting
mink is a small victory and most animal rights protesters stopped short of
going for a big one.

Btw, I’m not an animal rights protester, I eat meat and have leather
furniture. I’m just backing up the top level argument that Yale students
aren’t protesting the big stuff.

~~~
mnky9800n
Not to mention cows are a major contribution to global warming.

~~~
goatinaboat
So are datacenters. And cows were here first.

------
nyxxie
I think the author is ascribing too much intent to a simple economy of shame
that’s omnipresent in all classes; if people find out you have more than they
do, they hate you.

The author herself appears to be biased by this. She believes that the “rich
elites” have a great burden of responsibility towards the world, which she
justifies with shaky zero sum logic that suggests that because they have more,
they necessarily took it from those who have less (her bulky villager
metaphor). She might not be openly jealous, but she still seems to believe
that her rich peers must somehow earn this wealth (an undefined and likely
impossible undertaking), and writes about them with condescension when she
sees they do not meet her burden.

The kind of “rich elite” that attends Yale—that is to say a child who has
access to vast sums of wealth they themselves did not amass—is an otherwise
normal person who simply wants to live a happy life. Some end up president,
some end up “gypsies”, but as the observes all of them have learned that in
order to pursue these goals unmolested they have to put on the cloak of being
less privileged than those around them. If they don’t, they’ll drown in a sea
of hate from those of lesser means than them.

Thats it. There’s no mystery here, just a bunch of kids trying to avoid being
systematically bullied for circumstances outside of their control.

~~~
joe_the_user
I went to college in the Bay Area and to a small private college with
significant portion of very wealthy. Some in the private college concealed
their wealth, some didn't. The thing is, most middle or above folks with an
once of sophistication can sense the trust fund kid a mile away - most working
class can sense something too, just maybe don't know the middle-class from the
trust funders. I'm shocked the author was shocked to discover someone, at
_Yale_ , who spent their time in self-absorbed, non-survival-oriented activity
was very wealthy. I guess some at the Ivy League spend their time learning to
act wealthy without realizing that's what they're doing (I think the 2% of
actually poor who get into the Ivy Leagues tend to be "hard working rules
followers", who by this tend to not notice the obvious about people).

But given the real wealthy folks signal who they are, whether they like it or
not, all day long, the situation makes your point about "they have to conceal
it to be treated as human" ring totally false. Nah, they can't conceal it, not
to very many, and most know it.

I've met some who didn't know but they were sad and I assume there are others
who go in for much deeper cover but that's a small minority.

~~~
gnicholas
> _the thing is, most middle or above folks with an once of sophistication can
> sense the trust fund kid a mile away_

My experience has been the same as the author's. My college classmates (at
Swarthmore) and I were repeatedly surprised when we learned that our friends
were trust fund kids. I remember junior year we found out that one kid was
super wealthy because he bought a last-minute cross-country plane ticket,
first class. Even his roommates, who had lived with him for years, had no clue
he was wealthy.

Another time, I learned that a girl was wealthy because she bought an iPod
($400 in 2004!) on a whim. I'd previously thought she was upper-middle class
because she drove a Honda CR-V and didn't have any other trappings of wealth.

~~~
goatinaboat
Both of those examples are put-it-on-a-card-and-worry-about-it-later territory
for even normal, middle-class people. Super-wealthy is buying a yacht on a
whim.

~~~
gnicholas
First class round-trip tickets across the US? Thats a thousand bucks. And $400
for a music player? Those are not normal expenditures for middle-class
20-year-olds (in 2007, before MP3 players were ubiquitous and inexpensive).

Regardless, I’m not saying these are only ever purchased by the ultra-wealthy.
I’m saying this was the first sign anyone had that these kids had any money
whatsoever. It turned out both have trust funds and are extraordinarily
wealthy.

~~~
goatinaboat
That particular example resonated with me. I'm not super-rich, far from it, I
certainly wasn't even earning much in that time-frame. And I did a similar
thing because it was the last ticket left and I had to get to a funeral. There
must have been other clues that lead to the conclusion that they were trust
fund kids!

~~~
ikeyany
The last ticket left was a first class ticket?

~~~
goatinaboat
Yes. It was about $2000. But what was I going to do, just not be there? Took
me a bit of work to pay it off but I would have regretted not going so much
more.

------
DenisM
The articles contends the rich kids at Yale pretend to be poor to shirk the
elite responsibilities, which then leads to deterioration of the elites. I
find it doubtful that the kids have thought it through that far. A couple of
more likely explanations come to mind:

\- Rebellious teenagers always want to establish independence from their
parents. Giving up part of the money takes you part of the way there.

\- It's hard to be friends with people much poorer than you are - they may not
accept you, and you may have hard time adjusting your spending patterns
creating various embarrassments. Pretending to be poorer significantly
increases the number of people you can be friends with.

As to the deterioration of the elites, I believe that our country lacks raison
d'etre, and absent a clear mission people to turn to scrutinizing wealth
indicators, culture wars, and such to decide why they get up in the morning.
The US used to defend freedom from the Soviets and that was a pretty solid
mission in the mind of the missionaries, then it coasted for a while, then
tried to fight the terrorism which frankly was never the proper scale of a
mission, and now it's just adrift.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Hopefully the fight turns to sucking carbon out of the air and creating a
sustainable future.

~~~
Jill_the_Pill
Fossil Free Yale kids are making a good effort, not mentioned in the article.

[https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/12/08/ypd-
arrests-48-peo...](https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/12/08/ypd-
arrests-48-people-at-divestment-sit-in/)

------
marcus_holmes
I went to an English boarding school long enough ago for the intent of that
system to still be to train the officer class of the British Empire. But not
so long ago that it was actually practical for any of us to realistically be
colonial administrators.

This piece reminds me of that education. We were in the middle of the feminist
and multi-cultural ideological revolutions. Being culturally aware; not
insisting that British culture is superior to everyone else's, was both
socially mandatory and against the dominant narrative of the school's
educational message. It made for interesting confrontations between the
institution and the students and staff

Britain had lost its empire, and the institutions that were set up to
administer that empire, and train the administrators of that empire, were
failing. Are still failing; though the UK's latest PM is an archetypal product
of that system, he is being parodied for it rather than respected for it.

I wonder if America is going through the same thing? For decades the USA has
been utterly, unshakably confident that its values, its culture, are superior
to the everyone else's. Now... not so much?

~~~
jgalt212
> unshakably confident that its values, its culture, are superior to the
> everyone else's. Now... not so much?

I feel the same way about American values that Churchill felt about democracy.

~~~
marcus_holmes
I would agree with you. Well, except for the guns and religion bits of it.

------
xxxpupugo
Yeah, self victimization is trendy right now. People are desperate seeking to
find micro oppression from their life experiences and wear them like
accessories, while in fact they are top privileged.

I would say that is just the new 'rich kids get boring' stories in our post-
modern/post-truth world, and the fashion right now is to dress/act as their
imagined oppressed.

Cruel pleasure indeed.

------
Ismair
Economic inequality is at its highest level since 1928 and is about to
increase even more due to automation, this climate of victimization/identity
politics is being increasingly forced at a higher level by corporations, a
simple way to build goodwill in the public opinion and feel that they are in
the right.

~~~
NaturalGlass
This comment kinda baffles me, mostly cause of the implication that "identity
politics" progressives don't talk about economic inequality enough. Not sure
where exactly that is the case, except maybe in pop feminism that wants more
black women of color to be billionaires. But that kind of thinking is widely
criticized by the left too.

~~~
mieseratte
In my experience they do not take it into consideration at all. I’ve been told
far too many times by silver-spoon identity-politic progressives that I don’t
get a say because of racial and gender privilege, with no regard for any
economic struggle.

You’ll have to forgive me for daring to ask if renaming buildings of alumni
who held what are now regressive views is the hill to die on. Of course it’s a
black-and-white right or wrong, so if you ask a question you’re just
excommunicado.

~~~
gedy
This has been my experience as well. My favorite was being "schooled" by a
woman who had grown up overseas: with servants who'd wait at her feet, private
prep schools, US top private college paid in full by parents, etc. Then
telling me how privileged I was. Growing up lower class American definitely
did not see a lot of privileges..

------
neilv
One thing that struck me from the piece (what I could read, before switching
to skimming) was the implicit acceptance of the outsized power of Yale people.
It sounded like the concern was that they acknowledge and wield this power
well. I didn't see a question of whether they should have this power.

~~~
rossdavidh
No doubt they should not, but that would be a different topic, one which has
been (and will continue to be) abundantly addressed, in this era and every
other. Yet, there is always a ruling class, and their children don't always
act this way. So, it is a worthy topic to consider: why this way, and why now?

To the question of "why does the ruling elite have so much power?", one could
answer, "it was ever thus", which is hardly satisfying but is true. But to the
question, "why do the children of the ruling elite pretend they are the
oppressed?", such an answer is manifestly untrue. So, there is a question
there that needs answering, which doesn't already have centuries of answers
written.

~~~
neilv
I've seen "it was ever thus" serve as a rationalization. I'd have liked to see
an acknowledgement of the question of rightness of power; otherwise, I think
it just reinforces the default. Even (in so many words): "perhaps it's neither
fair nor optimal for society that you have so much power over others, but,
given that you do [then all the stuff about responsibility]"

------
clairity
i was rooting for some weighty insight but was disappointed by a lack of
perspective and coherence. the author writes at length about what yale, and
the problem, isn't and much less about about the consequences and potential
avenues to shape them. she seems to lack enough life experience to put her
critiques into a wider context that's relevant much beyond yale. for instance,
the ivy league is viewed through the lens of 3 schools: harvard, yale and
princeton, which suggests she's wholly internalized the elitist tunnel vision
she decries and can't see beyond.

as far as i can tell, she's saying administrators, students and faculty are at
odds, particularly around what it means to have privilege and how to properly
account for it (resulting in deadlock & status quo). beyond that, it's hard to
tell.

despite the harsh critique, i'm interested to see where this goes. more
research and exploratory writing on the subject should help, as she clearly
has something she wants to say.

~~~
samdunham
Interestingly, I found parallels for what she was describing in much of
society these days. The comics, games, movies, anime, etc... industries are
all going through this same sort of thing. And if you look at the skeletal
structure of what she describes going on at Yale, it's mirrored almost
perfectly in those spheres.

~~~
DenisM
Can you elaborate? How do games, for example, display this?

------
Tycho
In Christianity, you admit that you are flawed and wicked, but you can repent
by accepting Christ as your lord and saviour, and by helping the poor and
needy, and then carry on with your business, providing you publicly pour scorn
on the unrepentant.

In Woke Studies, you admit that you are white and privileged, but you can
repent by accepting Diversity as your lord and saviour, and then carry on with
your business, providing you publicly pour scorn on the poor and needy white
people who don't share your wokeness.

------
mensetmanusman
Fascinating exploration.

It seems the ‘eternal adolescence’ of the modern mind is effecting class
dynamics.

At MIT I remember being told that we were expected to be the best in the world
at a particular technical subject. I remember a mixed feeling of awe and
trepidation at being told of the responsibility we held to society.

I hope the elite can improve and practice sacrificial leadership for the
betterment of all.

------
ikeboy
>But this low number of 2% surprised me because when I was at Yale, everybody
kept talking about how broke they were.

>“Want to go out for brunch?” “I can’t—I’m so broke.” This was a common line.

Seems like a huge stretch to assume this is a lie. The 2% figure is for the
bottom quintile. The same source says the median family income for Yale
students is 192k. That's perfectly consistent with a student who's taking on a
heavy debt load to not have much disposable income. The family could have
several kids, perhaps be paying partial tuition for 2 kids and have basically
no money to give their kid aside from the minimum for food and board.

~~~
Jill_the_Pill
My second child is starting at Yale this fall, and yes, the tuition struggle
is real (trying to do it with no debt). My son has 3 summer jobs, and my
daughter is moving off campus to save money. We might make that median this
year, but only because I just took on a second job. They won't be posing when
they can't go out for brunch -- not when that damned meal plan already took $9
for breakfast.

------
inflatableDodo
You should see what happens when these people leave university and continue
the charade in a variety of broken down diesels. A lot of the worst behaviour
I have ever seen by people in travelling communities has been from the
expensively educated children of the exceedingly rich, pretending to be
gypsies.

~~~
tossAfterUsing
the woke-est girl i ever met was from the ivy league, the daughter of state
department parents. she'd been 'traveling' for a year, and just returned to
the bay area... to sleep on a filthy couch in the warehouse where i was living
with a handful of other folks.

except for the dreadlocks, filth, and b.o., she was as white as the driven
snow. she lectured me for 40 minutes. when i told her i was raised by a single
mother, went hungry sometimes as a kid, and paid my way through college she
helped me understand that i needed "sit down and shut up" to hear other
people's oppression

at this time, i don't remember her burner-name. i do remember she was cute,
and i had a bit of a crush on her until that day. the experience comes to mind
every time somebody asks me "why in god's name?!" would i leave the bay area
for texas

~~~
frankc
It's like the Pulp song Common People. The moral is that you will never have
the same experience as common people because you dont have the same
existential dread.

------
glangdale
The Problem at Yale, based on the length of this essay, seems to be Too Much
Speech. This is an extended complaint about annoying people one might have
brunched with at a few elite institutions, dressed up as cultural analysis.

I am minded of McAdoo on President Harding: “His speeches left the impression
of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea;
sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought
and bear it triumphantly as a prisoner in their midst, until it died of
servitude and overwork.”

In a shock development, university students dress down, pretend to be poorer
than they are, and get into conflicts with administrators over things (often
pointless things); clearly something that has Never Ever Happened Before.

There are nuggets of good sense here, but the overall message is a scrambled
mess. Apparently what's going wrong in the world can be largely attributed to
liberal elites patting themselves on the back while trying to do good, or
something. I'm sure this plays well in certain circles.

In a world where we have gazillionaire plutocrats actively working 24/7 to
fuck other people over (the Koch brothers and the Sacklers spring to mind) I'm
not losing too much sleep over this micro-diagnosis about how some kinda-
liberal rich people in a tiny slice of American academia pissed off the author
and should be spending their lives differently.

~~~
Barrin92
fully agreed. the piece exists in some weird space where it suffers from the
exact sort of superiority / inferiority role playing anxiety that it's
supposed to be about which makes it difficult to draw anything from it.

------
profunctor
Interesting piece although I don't think they represent the point of view of
the agitators fairly, for example the author writes: " you ask supporters,
_they will tell you the cost does not matter so much, because this is about
creating an ideal world_. Of course the professor should be fired—how dare she
stand against the minority student organizations? Of course it’s okay that the
Yelp reviews were published—she should never have written them. Of course
names should be changed if they hint at or honor the wrong ideology. What does
preserving _history matter if history is racist?_ "

What does honouring someone who is extremely pro-slavery even for their time
have to do with preserving history? That history still exists whether they
have a building named after them or not. And I don't think you will honestly
find many people who believe that the ends justify the means no matter what,
although you will of course find some people who believe anything. So I think
the "ideal world" bit is also somewhat a strawman and a mischaracterisation of
people who are anti-racist or whatever.

I do however agree that a lot of this stuff doesn't really help those who need
it most. The rich kids paying a 2% wealth tax funnelled into social welfare
and education for the working class would do more, as would having Yale
include more working and lower-middle class student. But it's easy for me to
say as a white guy that having many buildings named after pro-slavery
politicians is not really doing any harm. Maybe we should ask those who would
be more effected.

~~~
aschmid
I thought the exact same thing, the "Calhoun incident" mentioned completely
takes away from the rest of the examples showing that Yale is acquiescing to
unreasonable demands. Not wanting to live in a building celebrating a
violently pro-slavery historical figure is not at all unreasonable, and is not
erasing history. Being anti-slavery and anti-racism isn't some "politically
correct fad of the day" that nobody can keep up with.

------
finolex1
This article strikes me as extraploating a select few experiences to make far
reaching conclusions. 99% of the people at yale are not children of
billionaires or statesmen. They are children of doctors, lawyers, programmers,
etc. who are wealthy but not wealthy enough to live off their inheritance
indefinitely. People attend classes, do research, play sports, or put up
performances - in short what's been going on for decades at virtually every
college. Maybe there's a larger structural inequality problem in society, but
it seems far fetched to point to her anecdotal experiences with rich kids as
the cause.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Do you have a source for the claim that 99% of attendees of Yale don't have
enough money to live off their inheritance indefinitely?

------
jseliger
This mostly makes Yale sound like an extremely unpleasant place to be.

~~~
StudentStuff
Any place where people LARP and hide themselves behind masks of their own
design all day can be caustic, Yale is far from being an outlier.

~~~
pmarreck
I'm fairly certain that some group of people LARP at all the Ivy Leagues. I
think we all wear masks, though.

------
WalterBright
The article is interesting and worthwhile, but the author believes she has
upper class students all figured out and is a little too condescending towards
them.

------
PaulHoule
I remember teaching a physics section at Cornell that had an Indonesian prince
who was always attended by somebody who I think was a bodyguard.

He struck me as a pretty nice guy.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
This struck a chord, and not as an Ivy League student, but as somebody working
at a FAANG: the same continual narrowing of the space of what is permissible
to say out loud and same witch-hunts for people who say Wrong things are
happening here too.

~~~
verall
I think in the workplace it is different though, whereas universities have
been progressive environments and places for debate for many years, at
companies, people just want to get work done. I don't want work somewhere
where I _ever_ have to hear off-color jokes about women or minorities. I am
lucky I work somewhere I have not heard those things. People should be
permitted to say those things outloud, but not okay at work. Not as a joke.
Take it home or to a bar or to golf buddies or something.

------
buboard
If yale is really being pushed around this much and apparently shows zero
spine, why is it still considered the place for future leaders? It's far more
likely they ll be taught leadership-like qualities in MOOCs these days.

------
Ericson2314
I have many reservations about the rest, but the first point about guilty rich
kids deserves to be more widely known.

Forget "upper middle class", let's ban "middle class" from the discourse. It's
1/2 anachronism 1/2 compromise between guilty rich and aspirational poor.

------
hos234
This reads like a prologue to the Cambridge 5 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Spies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Spies)

There too an empire was in decline.

------
povertyworld
Couldn't read past the first section. I'm still feeling guilty for spending
$15 getting food from a restaurant last night.

------
Nasrudith
It appears that they are oblivious to just how problematic a culture of
poseurdom is and that itself explains the dysfunctions of the old-guard elite
of all sorts. It isn't that they are privileged but that they outright spend
their time lying to put up appearances instead of actual substance. It might
be reverse pathological causology admittedly - that pathological bullshitters
get into power not that those positioned for power are trained to be
pathological bullshitters.

------
tfowler
I would have rather wasted my time reading a Skull & Bones expose.

------
ZeroGravitas
I'm fascinated by this sub-genre of "political correctness has gone too far"
on campus. Parts of this could have come from a script to generate these.

In particular the bit about how some elderly academic was a liberal, and
therefore anyone who disagreed with them must be some dangerous extremist.

Always seems more likely that as a youth they would have been similarly
distant from a "reasonable" moderate of a similar age.

A couple of years ago the big trope was that this this was the new face of
fascist authoritarianism, that republicans were reasonable moderates and
people trying to push veganism, or fight climate change or whatever were crazy
extremists. The rise of Trump seems to have muted that a little and rendered
most of it ridiculous in hindsight. (Well, it was ridiculous at the time too,
but got carried by the same media that would then support Trump).

------
senderista
Yale certainly failed to teach the author how to write.

------
viburnum
The problem is that Yale exists at all

~~~
gaze
You seem to be the one person on HN with consistently the right take.

------
tengbretson
Good grief, get to the point!

~~~
sonthonax
When was the last time you read something longer than a tweet?

~~~
tengbretson
Length has literally nothing to do with it. It's a matter of give and take,
and politeness. If there's thirty minutes of content I'm happy to commit my
thirty minutes of reading.

If you have five minutes of content in thirty minutes of text you're just
being rude.

~~~
jvagner
I want to think it's about "show, don't tell" but I gave up on this article,
too..

------
geitir
This is precisely why we have capitalism

------
sunstone
Brevity is the soul of wit.

~~~
PunchTornado
did anyone read the whole article? At first I was interested, read a few
scrolls, but when I saw that she goes on and on I just couldn't finish it.

------
pmarreck
The Yale campus may be pretty, but immediately outside, a far less impressive
New Haven beckons...

