review - privilege
"Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class"
By Ross Gregory Douthat
(Hyperion)
Not many people get to experience a midnight skinny-dip while cavorting with William F. Buckley on his yacht, but it’s much more likely to happen if you’re an Ivy Leaguer. That’s the impression that recent Harvard grad Ross Douthat gives in his first book.
Douthat’s anecdotes about his four years range from those about ‘typical’ college life (binge drinking, all-nighters, the rush to join fraternity-esque “social clubs,” and fumbling sexual exploits) to the outrageous (skinny dipping with Buckley, a student embezzler). But “Privilege” is no straight memoir, its goal to expose the hypocrisy of an institution whose foremost intent isn’t about providing the world’s best academics, as the glossy pamphlets mailed out to excelling high school students would lead one to believe. From grade inflation to so-called ‘diversity’ on Ivy campuses to the temporary allure of student liberalism to the “real business of Harvard…the pursuit of success”, the studious veneer of America’s most venerated institutions is stripped away to reveal the bare bones of the meritocracy underneath.
The narrative shifts from personal tale to social commentary and back again are adeptly handled, leaving the reader with an engaging and in depth picture of Ivy life as it is lived and offering reasons behind why it exists in its current incarnation. “Privilege” is not the memoir you’d expect to encounter from the average jaded Gen X/Y writer, who is more apt to chronicle their quarter-life with essays covering traveling the country or the hazards of moving back in with parents. For Harvardians and their Ivy-covered companions, there is no time for a year spent wandering the twists and turns of Route 66 with only a stray dog and beat up Volvo – after all, to do such a thing would mean time lost from the competitive ladder-climb that is their lives.
Even as Douthat claims to “cast a cold eye upon my generation of elites,” it is difficult to believe that someone who has so obviously benefited from his station in life can be a hard line cynic on all such matters. For every paragraph of scathing ‘expose’, there are two of fond memories. But for all of the book’s rhapsodic undertones, this intriguing peek into a world denied to all but a select few often leaves the rest of us glad that we’ve been left watching from the outside.
By Ross Gregory Douthat
(Hyperion)
Not many people get to experience a midnight skinny-dip while cavorting with William F. Buckley on his yacht, but it’s much more likely to happen if you’re an Ivy Leaguer. That’s the impression that recent Harvard grad Ross Douthat gives in his first book.
Douthat’s anecdotes about his four years range from those about ‘typical’ college life (binge drinking, all-nighters, the rush to join fraternity-esque “social clubs,” and fumbling sexual exploits) to the outrageous (skinny dipping with Buckley, a student embezzler). But “Privilege” is no straight memoir, its goal to expose the hypocrisy of an institution whose foremost intent isn’t about providing the world’s best academics, as the glossy pamphlets mailed out to excelling high school students would lead one to believe. From grade inflation to so-called ‘diversity’ on Ivy campuses to the temporary allure of student liberalism to the “real business of Harvard…the pursuit of success”, the studious veneer of America’s most venerated institutions is stripped away to reveal the bare bones of the meritocracy underneath.
The narrative shifts from personal tale to social commentary and back again are adeptly handled, leaving the reader with an engaging and in depth picture of Ivy life as it is lived and offering reasons behind why it exists in its current incarnation. “Privilege” is not the memoir you’d expect to encounter from the average jaded Gen X/Y writer, who is more apt to chronicle their quarter-life with essays covering traveling the country or the hazards of moving back in with parents. For Harvardians and their Ivy-covered companions, there is no time for a year spent wandering the twists and turns of Route 66 with only a stray dog and beat up Volvo – after all, to do such a thing would mean time lost from the competitive ladder-climb that is their lives.
Even as Douthat claims to “cast a cold eye upon my generation of elites,” it is difficult to believe that someone who has so obviously benefited from his station in life can be a hard line cynic on all such matters. For every paragraph of scathing ‘expose’, there are two of fond memories. But for all of the book’s rhapsodic undertones, this intriguing peek into a world denied to all but a select few often leaves the rest of us glad that we’ve been left watching from the outside.
posted by Ann at 8:50 AM
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