There's an old joke. It's about pedantry, but it illustrates my point.
A man comes home to find his wife in flagrante delicto with a college professor of English. The man shouts, aghast, "Mildred! I'm surprised!" The professor stops his activity and replies, "No, sir. I am surprised. You are merely astonished."
See, the joke is about the difference between "surprise" (being startled or caught unawares) and "astonishment (being presented with unusual circumstances)."
In a way, this college admissions scandal is shocking, distrurbing, rage-inducing, what-have-you...but it's not surprising or astonishing. If you have been living in a bubble where you did NOT know the wealthy live lives under a different set of rules, laws, and codes of behavior, then I don't know what to tell you. "Wake up and smell the coffee," I suppose. Or "Tune in to sanity FM" maybe. What makes this scandal so...scandalous is that it lays bare some of the unspoken assumptions we have about wealth and privilege. It's seeing an outtake from The Bachelor where the cast reshoots a "spontaneous" intimate moment for better staging. It's watching a celebrity put on his toupee. It's Toto pulling back the emerald curtain to reveal the huckster behind the wizard. We always knew--or should have known--he was there, but when the little dog reveals him to us, we are nevertheless shocked.
And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe revealing a truth that we always knew but didn't want to acknowledge can lead to change. We can't ignore the inequity of college admissions anymore--before this scandal broke, we could kid ourselves with the notion that college admission is merit-based. We knew it wasn't, not really, but now we can't ignore it anymore. Maybe that's good. Maybe we'll use this scandal as the trigger to actually effect change--change that has long been overdue.
There's also a curious bit of positive news in the scandal--at least, as I see it. These wealthy families (and the unkindest cut of all seems to me to be the reports that they were not the upper echelons of wealth--if they had been, they would have flat-out bought a library or building in direct exchange for their child attending the school. See Kushner) were trying to purchase something. They were trying to purchase a college diploma for their child. Why? The Los Angeles Times did a big story on that, and their conclusion was it was about status. The status that a "prestigious" degree confers. But what exactly is that prestige? What was the nature of the prestige these deluded parents were trying to buy? They were trying to buy legitimacy--the world in which they live (simple wealth, a la Jay Gatsby) is hollow, devoid of any real achievement save the accumulation of money. They were Charles Foster Kane traveling to Europe to buy artwork and hence buy culture itself. These parents wanted their children to be seen as something more than merely offspring of wealth, and they chose to try and buy the legitimacy a college degree confers.
Yes, of course they went about this utterly improperly, and yes, of course they missed the point of an education. Obviously, an education isn't for the prestige it offers--an education is for personal enrichment and growth. Yes, of course these parents couldn't see that. But in an age of anti-intellectualism (and make no mistake, these parents were not intellectuals) there's a strange kind of comfort knowing these parents were at least aware that the appearance of education, the appearance of intelligence is valuable. In a bizarre sort of way, it's good to know someone still values education.
Even if the whole thing is astonishing.
Be seeing you!
A man comes home to find his wife in flagrante delicto with a college professor of English. The man shouts, aghast, "Mildred! I'm surprised!" The professor stops his activity and replies, "No, sir. I am surprised. You are merely astonished."
See, the joke is about the difference between "surprise" (being startled or caught unawares) and "astonishment (being presented with unusual circumstances)."
In a way, this college admissions scandal is shocking, distrurbing, rage-inducing, what-have-you...but it's not surprising or astonishing. If you have been living in a bubble where you did NOT know the wealthy live lives under a different set of rules, laws, and codes of behavior, then I don't know what to tell you. "Wake up and smell the coffee," I suppose. Or "Tune in to sanity FM" maybe. What makes this scandal so...scandalous is that it lays bare some of the unspoken assumptions we have about wealth and privilege. It's seeing an outtake from The Bachelor where the cast reshoots a "spontaneous" intimate moment for better staging. It's watching a celebrity put on his toupee. It's Toto pulling back the emerald curtain to reveal the huckster behind the wizard. We always knew--or should have known--he was there, but when the little dog reveals him to us, we are nevertheless shocked.
And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe revealing a truth that we always knew but didn't want to acknowledge can lead to change. We can't ignore the inequity of college admissions anymore--before this scandal broke, we could kid ourselves with the notion that college admission is merit-based. We knew it wasn't, not really, but now we can't ignore it anymore. Maybe that's good. Maybe we'll use this scandal as the trigger to actually effect change--change that has long been overdue.
There's also a curious bit of positive news in the scandal--at least, as I see it. These wealthy families (and the unkindest cut of all seems to me to be the reports that they were not the upper echelons of wealth--if they had been, they would have flat-out bought a library or building in direct exchange for their child attending the school. See Kushner) were trying to purchase something. They were trying to purchase a college diploma for their child. Why? The Los Angeles Times did a big story on that, and their conclusion was it was about status. The status that a "prestigious" degree confers. But what exactly is that prestige? What was the nature of the prestige these deluded parents were trying to buy? They were trying to buy legitimacy--the world in which they live (simple wealth, a la Jay Gatsby) is hollow, devoid of any real achievement save the accumulation of money. They were Charles Foster Kane traveling to Europe to buy artwork and hence buy culture itself. These parents wanted their children to be seen as something more than merely offspring of wealth, and they chose to try and buy the legitimacy a college degree confers.
Yes, of course they went about this utterly improperly, and yes, of course they missed the point of an education. Obviously, an education isn't for the prestige it offers--an education is for personal enrichment and growth. Yes, of course these parents couldn't see that. But in an age of anti-intellectualism (and make no mistake, these parents were not intellectuals) there's a strange kind of comfort knowing these parents were at least aware that the appearance of education, the appearance of intelligence is valuable. In a bizarre sort of way, it's good to know someone still values education.
Even if the whole thing is astonishing.
Be seeing you!
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