Replies

Colleges try to sell on ‘intangibles’ like a ‘roledex factor’.

Us ‘little people’ think that Harvard grads somehow ‘stick together’; somehow if I’m a Harvard alum and I really need something, I can just pick up the phone and one of my Harvard chums will open doors for me simply because we went to the same school.

Jamie Dimon is the only Harvard alum amongst the top 10 Fortune 500 CEO’s. Mike Duke, of Walmart, is a GA Tech alum. Rex W. Tillerson is CEO of Exxon-Mobil; he has a BS in Civil Engineering from U of Texas-Austin. What rolodex do the other 9 CEO’s use ? How did they get “let in” to the CEO “club” ? Did not their non-Harvard degree sentence them to a life of being “on the outside looking in” ?

From usnews.com...

“Of the 500 CEOs in question, 174 have M.B.A.s and 59 have law degrees. Nearly 200 of the CEOs have no graduate-level degree. Nineteen of the 500 CEOs attained no college degree, and many were college dropouts turned visionaries in the technology sector, like Oracle Corp.’s top executive and now billionaire Lawrence J. Ellison. A few retail executives also worked their way to the corner office by way of humble beginnings on the sales floor, like James A. Skinner of McDonald’s, who started as a restaurant manager, and Brian J. Dunn of Best Buy Co., who was once a store associate. “

link is here: http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2011/01/03/where-the-fortune-500-ceos-went-to-college

Harvard markets to the wealthy; they accept the super-intelligent of the non-wealthy where those students have it in their mind to ‘join the club of the rich and powerful’, or have it in their mind that Harvard is the pinnacle of intellectual training. Ergo, most Harvard grads are bought into the idea of elitism. This, coupled with the prestige of the degree, produces a set of alumni with a propensity for success in terms of money or influence, which continues the brand mindset in the minds of all us poor outsiders.

Of course, the numbers don’t bare out the proposition that Harvard graduates in particular ‘run the world’ any more than other colleges, as evidenced by the sheer number of leaders in the world and the number who actually graduated from Harvard.

The list of Harvard alums recently or currently in Congress sports Pat Toomey, but then goes on to a thoroughly unimpressive group, right down to William J. Jefferson, Alan Grayson, Barney Frank and Charles Schumer. Seems like Harvard’s true leadership is in spawning corrupt politicians bereft of morality.

The scariest proposition about Harvard is truly it’s tendency, certainly born of it’s tendency towards arrogance and elitism, to train future leaders who are intellectually immersed in totalitarian quack viewpoints and agendas. Very often young intellectuals throughout the centuries misconstrue the writings of earlier intellectuals and they themselves provide an intellectual basis for all sorts of evils. I can’t help but think of Malthusianism and all of it’s derivitaves; theories that are obviously oversimplified and flawed have been contorted into the viewpoints of many of today’s influential and powerful people whereby they seem determined to wipe out humanity for it’s own good through governmental control, forced population control and a basic alignment with communalism. Michael Bloomberg springs to mind; a graduate of both Johns Hopkins and Harvard. While he privately enjoys what the NY Times refers to as “positively baronial” tastes in his homes, he publicly asserts that the American public should submit to relinquishing all of their personal firearms and be forced to abstain from salt.

IMHO, if I study the classics under a tutor who is actually seeking to change my worldview while “teaching” me, I’d really not rather have their running mouth interrupting my reading. Though the elitist schools would have us think that they have a monopoly on learning, I’ve finally come to realize that they do not - for one who seeks to learn, there are countless books and teachers they can avail themselves of. And their other old ploy, their promise of joining an elite club guaranteeing income and influence, is likewise an empty promise made to future “useful graduates”.