Neurotic indeed. The author was born in 1964 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Deresiewicz), which makes him the same age as me. Thus we probably attended Yale as undergraduates at the same time. Yet I recognize absolutely none of the dynamics that he describes. It is never quite clear what he is narrating from his own remembered student experience versus what he is surmising from observing Lit students around him.
Now, I didn't attend an elite prep school (quite the converse), nor did I remain in the academy after graduating (no loss for the academy, given my GPA...). So perhaps I received a subtherapeutic dose of whatever has saddled him with such despair. But I have no problem communicating with my fellow rural firefighters, a merry mix of garbagemen, carpenters, surveyors, innkeepers, pastors, snowplow repairmen, and the occasional stray programmer. I can take commands from an irrigation pipe salesman or a backhoe operator. They can do things I can't do, while I can do things they can't do; there is mutual respect. Occasionally they tease me for employing a sixty-four dollar word when a ninety-eight cent word would do, but we maintain communication, and we value our differences.
Certainly, my experience as as member of the pampered elite must have been very different from his. Am I the outlier, or is he?
Now, I didn't attend an elite prep school (quite the converse), nor did I remain in the academy after graduating (no loss for the academy, given my GPA...). So perhaps I received a subtherapeutic dose of whatever has saddled him with such despair. But I have no problem communicating with my fellow rural firefighters, a merry mix of garbagemen, carpenters, surveyors, innkeepers, pastors, snowplow repairmen, and the occasional stray programmer. I can take commands from an irrigation pipe salesman or a backhoe operator. They can do things I can't do, while I can do things they can't do; there is mutual respect. Occasionally they tease me for employing a sixty-four dollar word when a ninety-eight cent word would do, but we maintain communication, and we value our differences.
Certainly, my experience as as member of the pampered elite must have been very different from his. Am I the outlier, or is he?