Guest Post by Ben Hunt
The Compassionate Man
A compassionate man once caught a turtle. He wanted to make it into soup, but unwilling to be accused of taking life, he boiled a panful of water and, placing a rod over the pan, said to the turtle, “If you can get across the pan, I will set you free.”
The turtle was in no doubt as to the intentions of the man. But he did not want to die. So, summoning up all his will, he accomplished the impossible.
“Well done!” said the compassionate man. “But please … try it again!”
Cheng Shi (c. 1150 AD)
In 12th century China, you had to be a bit more circumspect in your criticism of the Nudging State and the Nudging Oligarchy. But it was the same struggle and the same resistance 1,000 years ago, just as it will be 1,000 years from now. Same answer, too: Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose.
Welcome to the Epsilon Theory pack, Cheng Shi.
Pretty soon, there’s not gonna be any Jew or Aryan or Hindu or Muslim or Mexican or Blacks. There’s just gonna be the rich and the fucked, and our grandson is already one of the fucked.
— Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy), Shameless, Season 6: Pimp’s Paradise
William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman love their daughters. William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman would do anything for their daughters. William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman get the joke. William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman are rich.
The problem for William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman is that they aren’t rich enough.
There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard. His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted.
— former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, as related to Daniel Golden.
Charles Kushner loves his son. Charles Kushner would do anything for his son. Charles Kushner gets the joke. Charles Kushner is rich.
Charles Kushner is rich enough. For this crime, at least.
When I say that William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman and Charles Kushner get the joke, what do I mean?
I mean that they understand that there is one and only one way to ensure that your children are card-carrying members of Team Elite, and that is to enroll them in a prestige university.
Is it the only way to make sure your children are in the club? No. But it is the surest way.
Is it just or good that this is the modern social meaning of higher education, that prestige universities are the dominant credentialing mechanism of mass society in the 21st century? No. But it IS nonetheless.
Will anything about this scandal diminish the credentialing mechanism of prestige universities? Will anything about this scandal change behavior in any way, shape or form? LOL.
The federal government has alleged that USC is a victim in a scheme perpetrated against the university [by five employees]. At this time, we have no reason to believe that Admissions employees or senior administrators were aware of the scheme or took part in any wrongdoing — and we believe the government concurs in that assessment. The government has repeatedly informed us that it views USC as a victim and that these employees purposefully deceived USC.
— 3/12/19 letter to the USC Community by Wanda Austin, Interim President
C’mon, people, get with the program! Don’t you understand that the universities are the real victims here?
This has all happened before.
For more than ONE THOUSAND YEARS, Team Elite status in China was determined by performance on scholastic tests administered by the Ministry of Rites.
These tests varied in difficulty and type, depending on the post and the seniority of the position. For example, a cleric might need to memorize 9,000 ideographic characters. A junior magistrate might need to write a set of acceptable Eight-Legged Essays on policy or philosophic issues (“break open the topic”, “receive the topic”, “begin discussion”, “initial leg”, “middle leg”, “later leg”, “final leg”, “conclusion”). A senior magistrate might need to write a brilliant essay, as judged by a panel of still more senior magistrates.
The Ministry of Rites would administer and score the various tests once every three years, at provincial testing centers for the junior credentialing of younger applicants (juren), large metropolitan testing centers for mid-level credentialing (gongshi), and at the palace campus itself for the most senior credentialing for national administrative posts (jinshi).
Oh, those quaint Chinese folks, way back in ancient times! A Ministry of Rites, you say? Like a Ministry of Silly Walks? Haha, how very droll!
So let me get this straight … these young men would study a certain curriculum for three years, six if they partied a bit too much or needed a year or two “to find themselves”, and then write some prescribed essays and memorize some useless symbols in order to become a Recommended Man (juren)? Why even that phrase, “Recommended Man” … it sounds so silly, doesn’t it? And then these “Recommended Men” would get prestigious, well-compensated administrative jobs in the province from other “Recommended Men”, just because they had passed the same test?
And wait … you’re telling me that if they took an even more prestigious test from an even more prestigious scholastic curriculum, they would be in an even more elite club of national administrators, where they would interview each other and hire each other and run the country? And everyone just went along with this?
Crazy, right?
For more than ONE THOUSAND YEARS, scholastic examinations were the dominant credentialing mechanism of Chinese mass society.
For more than ONE THOUSAND YEARS, the one and only way to ensure that your sons would be card-carrying members of Team Elite in Imperial China was to make sure that they passed the juren-level test administered by the Ministry of Rites.
Were there bribery scandals associated with the Ministry of Rites, where maybe a rich entertainer in a provincial capital was caught paying good money to have an impostor take the test for her daughter his son or have the test judged leniently? Of course! And those bribery scandals were punished mercilessly, usually by public shaming public execution of that hypothetical rich entertainer in a provincial capital.
Were there bribery non-scandals associated with the Ministry of Rites, where maybe an ultra-rich oligarch in a provincial capital underwrote the expense of a fancy new scholarship program Ministry building where his son would subsequently attend college be posted? Of course! And those bribery non-scandals were punished not at all, because to do THAT would mean that Harvard the Ministry of Rites was a perpetrator of this sham rather than a victim.
Why does a credentialing system exist in mass society? Why is higher education the dominant credentialing system in a rich and stable mass society like Imperial China or the United States today?
Because then and now, it is a highly effective Pecking Order Lie.
It is the promise of meritocratic social mobility in a world carefully designed to limit meritocratic social mobility when it threatens the State and Oligarchy.
Look, it’s not entirely a lie. Of course it’s not, because all Pecking Order Lies must wear the clothes of Truth. Our system of prestige university credentialing (and Imperial China’s, too) IS a tool for social mobility. It co-opts a steady stream of highly competent prole children into the Outer Party, to use Orwell’s typology. It satisfies Inner Party parents by providing legal avenues for keeping their kids in the club. It satisfies prole and Outer Party parents by providing the occasional show trial of Outer Party parents who cheat the system.
Best yet, no one has to pay real money for all this. Limitless funding is available for parents to pay for their children’s education, which means that there is no limit to tuition levels, which means that there is no limit to what universities can spend to join the prestige credentialing ranks.
Oh, little Jimmy is going to 20-Years-Ago-This-Was-A-Second-Rate-University? I hear really good things about that school. Congratulations!
Thanks! We’re all very pleased. Everyone except my bank account, that is. Hahaha!
It’s true, everyone is VERY pleased by the current system.
Prestige university credentialing is a steam valve \whispers\ just like elections.
It is the Compassionate Man’s offer to the Turtle.
It is the Deity’s treatment of the Good Man.
The Deity and the Good Man
In the temple by the roadside of a village there was a wooden image of a deity. A man passing by found a ditch across his path, so he pulled down the image and placed it over the ditch as a bridge. Another passer-by saw the figure on the ground and, feeling sorry for it, restored it to its place. But the image took umbrage because he had offered no sacrifice to it, and so placed a curse on him, causing him to suffer a bad headache.
The spirits of the kingdom of the underworld were puzzled. “You let the one who trod on you go free, but punished the one who helped you up. Why?”
“You don’t understand,” said the deity. “It is so easy to bully a good man.”
Xiao Zan (c. 1580 AD)
Our deities today are the Nudging State and the Nudging Oligarchy. We worship them as surely as any Chinese villager worshiped some nature totem, and they bully us as surely and as incessantly, too.
So in the time-honored tradition of the bullied everywhere, we Good People cheer when Bad People like all of these parents caught up in the College Admissions scandal are “caught”, because it satisfies, even if just for a moment, our sense of justice.
It is right that we have this feeling, and it is right that they are punished.
But it is not enough.
We must see our system of higher education with Clear Eyes.
Our social system of higher education is just that – a social system. It is not a meritocratic social mobility conveyor belt. Or rather, it is that, AND it is ALSO the primary credentialing system that supports the State and the Oligarchy. It is neither good nor bad. It simply IS.
And what it IS has never been more important for any young person’s career.
It’s the second bullet in the three-part advice I give every young person I know, including my own children. There’s a fourth instruction, too, the most important of them all, which you can find along with these bullets in “Oh hell, Martha, go ahead and burn yourself if you want to“.
- Build your intellectual capital. I’ve known so many people in my life who have enormous intellectual horsepower, but who were in such a ferocious hurry to get somewhere that they never built their intellectual capital. So when they got to wherever they were hurrying … they had nothing to say beyond the narrow confines of their day job. And they knew it. It’s one of the most disappointing outcomes in life – to be very successful in your chosen field, but to find it AND yourself to be oddly empty. Can you catch up? Can you be a late-in-life learner? Sure. But just like losing 20 pounds on a diet gets exponentially harder the older you get, so does adding meaningfully to your intellectual capital. Build it NOW.
- Get your passport stamped. We live in a world of credentials. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m just saying that it IS. The most important credential you can have today is some sort of degree from an elite university. It doesn’t matter if it’s an undergraduate or graduate degree, and I’m not going to argue with anyone about whether a school is “elite” or not. The second most important credential for a young person is a 2+ year stint with an elite institution in an elite city. Again, don’t @ me. There are work-arounds and effective substitutes for both of these credentialing mechanisms. But your path will be immeasurably easier if you get your Team Elite passport stamped NOW.
- Train your voice. And use it. Again, it’s one of the most disappointing outcomes in life – to know that you’re a creative person, to have something Important that’s going to burn you up inside if you don’t share it with the world … but to lack the words or the music or the art to do so. In my experience, the unhappiest people in the world are mute creatives. To paraphrase Langston Hughes, sometimes they shrivel. Sometimes they fester. And sometimes they explode. Every creative person should start a blog to express and develop their art. Do not distribute it. Do not publicize it. Do not play the ego-driven Game of You. Erase it all every six months if that’s what you need to do, because odds are you have nothing interesting to say! But start training your voice NOW, because one day you will.
We must support our children with Full Hearts.
There are two components to Full Hearted action.
- to promote Reciprocity, by which I mean potentially cooperative gameplay.
- to promote Identity, by which I mean an autonomy of mind.
Or if you prefer, the core tenets of Full Hearted action are to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and to know thyself. Not exactly new ideas, but if they were good enough for Jesus and Socrates …
Acting for Reciprocity in the college admissions game is pretty simple. We play by the rules. Yes, we know that it’s a system, and a somewhat rigged system at that, where its meritocratic elements are in full play when it’s convenient for the Compassionate Man, and absent when it’s not. But cheating the system is the short-sighted play, even if we can get away with it. Why? Because once we start down the path of treating others instrumentally – especially when we start treating our own children and other children instrumentally – we can never walk that back. Never. And that path ALWAYS ends in tears. Or worse.
Acting for Identity in the college admissions game is a little more complex, because it’s not our identity we are promoting here, but our children’s identity. What does it mean to act for another’s identity? It means we listen to their “I am”, and we support THAT.
I was having lunch with Siegfried and he was telling this story about dating a woman. I guess he saw a quizzical look on my face and he said in his German accent with his coiffed hair, “I am not gay. I am not straight. I am Siegfried.” I think that’s the only real truth I’ve ever heard.
― Penn Jillette, interview by David Marchese for Vulture (August 14, 2018)
“I am not gay. I am not straight. I am Siegfried.”
Penn’s right. It’s the only real truth I’ve ever heard, too. This is what it means to promote the identity and autonomy of mind of our children … that when they say “I am”, we listen and we support THAT.
Whatever their “I am” might be.
However much their “I am” connects or does not connect with the credentialing of higher education. However much their “I am” might embarrass us in front of our friends or fail to live up to our beliefs about how smart or how beautiful or how accomplished or how meritorious our children are.
Because all of those emotions are ego, they are the baggage of the flaws in our OWN identity. They have NOTHING to do with the identity of our child.
Sure, these emotions come out of love. William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman love their children. Charles Kushner loves his children.
Loving our children is not enough.
A quote from Pecking Order, because I can’t say it better than this.
No matter how much money we have or don’t have, we can reject the idea that we can be Someone Who Matters to the World and instead embrace the idea that we must be Someone Who Matters to the Pack. Now maybe your pack IS the world. Probably not, but maybe. If it is, then be bold and matter to the world. But more likely it’s your family. More likely it’s your friends. More likely it’s your partners and employees. More likely it’s your church. More likely it’s your school. More likely it’s your country. It’s damn sure not your political party. It’s damn sure not an oligarch.
Our children are the most important members of our pack. Always and in all ways. More than any other human, we must treat our children as autonomous ends-in-themselves, not as a means-to-an-end. Not to any end. Certainly not to the ends that serve our egos.
Just do THAT, and you will be amazed at how the college admissions process works out just fine. Because you will see it clearly for what it is. And you will act full heartedly throughout.
Yours in service to the pack. – Ben
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Great & timely article. Yeah, it made me feel a little sorry for that particular caught up in scandal Hollywood power couple Filliam H. Muffman!
Speaking of the initial schoolgrounds of both the outer party & the inner party in just one neighborhood in Los Angeles, this particular well-rated public elementary school has started the tradition of having the school kids on every Wednesday wear some university-branded school gear from where either of their parents went to college.
Can you believe that?? Why should kids in kindergarten through even 6th grade have any concern about college?? Talk about an f’d up system that exists and deploys itself to this level!!
In reality higher education often mirrors real life: some students (many????) cruise through as if it is all a social experience while others study, work hard, and graduate with pride. Real Life: grifers/politicians/bull shitters calling the shots while the nose to the grindstone workers carry the day.
My kids, when they finished college had better grounding, skills, and moxie than people like Chelsea who spends her Friday nights at a gathering of radicals only to find she is getting her ass chewed out. Maybe she should have stayed home and cared for her children and baked them some cookies.
Get rid of the power of government to pick winners and losers, steal trillions, destroy the economy, hand out trillions, etc. and the problem of the “elite” goes away and the power of the citizen/consumer is restored.
This guy sounds oddly familiar.
That is neither good nor bad.
In other words get rid of the Federal reserve !
On the intersecting topics of deities, seeing the “getting your passport stamped” gameboard with clear eyes, training your voice and using it, plus supporting our children with full hearts, I remembered this short musical meditation on just such things:
…I just recently found the whole quote on which the “musical meditation” from above was based:
“People under the age of 20 have this massive hole in their soul. And they have built their personalities around cynicism. Cynicism means, simply, aping or putting into an ironic form, mocking, existing institutions, instead of building institutions of your own.
What I’ve discovered is that because these people have such a deep need for something to believe in. Someone like me or you who can come along and show these people that there is a meaning to life, that there are things worth believing in, that there are things worth being passionate about, they respond immediately.
I’ve been searching the Gods all my life and now I know them, the Gods inside of us. Or I feel I do.
Now, we’re either going to have the new Adolf Hitler’s coming along, who know how to manipulate this need, and do it with the new nationalisms and the new tribalism’s, and the new hate groups, or we’re going to have a you or a me, who will come along and pour a positive message, a positive sense of something to believe in, a positive crusade for emotionality.
The only messiahs who exist are as human beings. We human beings are all basically cockroaches at heart. That is to say, we’re insecure when we’re alone by ourselves, we have all kinds of self-doubts, we have our depressions, and we have all kinds of reasons to believe that we’re nobody at all. But it’s the ‘nobodys-at-all’ who become the Isaiahs of the world, it’s the ‘nobodys-at-all’ who become the Einstein’s of the world, it’s the ‘nobodys-at-all’ who become the Jesus Christ’s of the world.
It’s up to human beings to be the messiahs. We’re the only ones who are there to do it. And we have to do it. We have to do it. Because if we don’t do it, someone with an equal belief and passion to ours, who believes that the way to achieve things is through the old animal way – built into our limbic system, built into the lower parts of our brain, who knows that the best way to unite people is by uniting them in hatred against an outside group; and uniting them in mass murder.
We have to come along before that person comes along. We have to fill that void, and we have to fill it with positivity. It’s about digging into the elemental passions. All of this plays a part in trying to give to the new generation a movement that’s based on something extraordinarily passionate. That you can powerfully believe in. That you can use to advance humanity tremendously, absolutely tremendously, but that excises, deliberately, the God of War.
When you find the Gods inside yourself, you’ll find the God of War. You’ll find the God of bloodlust. You’ll find the God of genocide. And he will be one of the most powerful passions in you. And you have to knife him out of existence. You have to freeze him in his own private Hell, and make your positive Gods the Gods that take you over.
And by ‘the Gods that take you over’ I mean you have to find those passions that are so much more powerful than you, than anything you’ve been allowed to express in your life, and making those things the things you work on. In other words, not putting off until you’re 40 or 50 the things you feel passionate about at the age of 15 and 16 – but going directly to those things, and trying to implement them when you’re 20.
Pass ‘Go’. Forget the 200 dollars. Go directly to Park Place. And put your life there, on the line, with all the emotion and power and passion and insight in you.
And f#ck the God of War.”
– Howard Bloom
“We human beings are all basically cockroaches at heart. That is to say, we’re insecure when we’re alone by ourselves, we have all kinds of self-doubts, we have our depressions, and we have all kinds of reasons to believe that we’re nobody at all.”
I hate to break this to you Howard, but that is not a shared experience. That’s so sad and dismal I feel sorry for you. And that said there’s no way in hell I’m taking your advice on how to fix the world.
Just saying.
Can someone summarize this article in a sentence or two?
Sure:
” Pretty people are assholes; don’t ever trust them. My writing skills provide a comfortable income since I get paid by the word”.
Clear ’nuff?
Meh. The people caught in this scandal are the ones either not rich enough (they’re all not poor) or too cheap to do things the “proper” way.
Complaining about credentialing is idiotic. Any system used is going to get gamed; the question isn’t about gaming but whether ultimately the outcome is reasonably good.
That’s the real problem here – not the fringers/cheapskates using the “side” way but the ones using the actual back door, plus the mentality of the 1% (overall, certainly not all but clearly as a class).