I’m not sure what I’ve done to cause Robert Stacy McCain to call me a “wretched leftist scumbag,” and I don’t share his disdain for “elite institutions of higher education.” I think there are some problems with our elite universities, but I mainly hold them in high regard. I have tremendous respect for both their student bodies and their faculties. Mr. McCain nonetheless has some good points, some of which I agree with completely and others only partially. I agree, for example, that it’s hard to be “the poorest person at Yale” and that this isn’t something you necessarily should want for your child. I agree that trying to get your kids into the Ivies can easily become a form of parental abuse. I partially agree that Ivy culture can tend towards elitist and snobbish attitudes that you shouldn’t encourage in your children.
But the thing is, McCain is actually opposed to the values these institutions try to instill. This is why he brings up Marxism and Women’s Studies majors. He’s not objecting to the elitism so much…
I have no problem with rich people sending their overprivileged kids to elite schools. My problem is with middle-class parents who think they’re doing their kids a favor by spending money they can’t afford to send their kids to schools that teach them to emulate the fashionable attitudes of the decadent rich.
…as he’s objecting to the do-gooder liberal education these kids are getting. Rich kids who care about social justice or climate change are decadent.
Mr. McCain argues that his objections go beyond “vulgar populism,” but I don’t think they really do. He looks down on these kids and the education they are receiving both because he senses that they think they are better than him and because he thinks they are being taught liberal values.
McCain’s populism comes from his hostility to snobbish elites, but his vulgarity comes from his hostility to liberal values, including the stuff we like to call “facts.”
Now, we can have a discussion about noblesse oblige, but the fundamental thing here is that McCain really doesn’t have a problem with the noblesse, it’s just that he thinks there should be no oblige.
Or maybe the noblesse are annoyingly arrogant, but taxing them is Marxist, so Ivy League professors should be put up against the wall.
