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‘The price of admission: how America's ruling class buys its way into elite colleges – and who gets left outside the gates’; ‘Shelter: where Harvard meets the homeless’; ‘The social animal: the hidden sources of love, character, and achievement’; and ‘The empathic civilization: the race to global consciousness in a world in crisis’

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21568235.2011.588517

2156-8235

Eric Gilder,

Polish Historical and Cultural Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Opening by Ike Turner and Soko Richardson; song by Fogerty, John (Songwriter); Jondora Music, Fantasy Inc. (Publisher). 2. Seider Remarked, ‘the first half of this book sought to demonstrate that the Harvard students who volunteer at the Harvard square homeless shelter are in a unique developmental period [of their lives] that allows them to provide several types of support to homeless men and women that older, professional service workers cannot,’ a time marked by primarily by ‘passion and idealism’ in service of a worthy cause outside of themselves. 3. Available at http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ (accessed 7 May, 2011). 4. Seider notes that the major factor of young people initially choosing to serve at the shelter was often the example set by an influential older relative or peer. And that initial choice changed them – by the end of their time of working at the shelter, ‘specifically, 18 of the 22 students engaged in running the shelter expressed significant doubts about the veracity of the American dream’ (233), about the belief that everyone can ‘make it’ in the USA with hard work (which was often not their initial belief.) He adds, ‘While it may not sound as if these young adults are espousing particularly radical beliefs, it is important to recognize that their perspectives diverge substantially from the majority of their fellow Americans’ (233). But they were changed by the experience, questioning not only their earlier belief that everyone can succeed if given the chance, but, furthermore, ‘to question a dangerous corollary to the American dream – namely, that, in this land of opportunity, a homeless person must have done something wrong to deserve his or her homelessness’ (235–6). 5. See Brooks (2008) for an extended study of the origins and markers of this elite class and their motivations. This ‘new class’ combines in Brooks view the drives of the old bourgeoisie (for discipline, industriousness and prosperity-seeking) with those of the 1960s bohemians (for authenticity, spontaneity and creativity). 6. He outlines this larger motivation for taking on the topic thusly: In my day job I write about policy and politics. And over the past generations we have seen big policies yield disappointing results. Since 1983 we've reformed the education system again and again, yet more than a quarter of high-school students drop out, even though all rational incentives tell them not to. We've tried to close the gap between white and black achievement, but have failed. We've spent a generation enrolling more young people in college without understanding why so many don't graduate. One could go on: We've tried feebly to reduce widening inequality. We've tried to boost economic mobility. We've tried to stem the tide of children raised in single-parent homes. We've tried to reduce the polarization that marks our politics. We've tried to ameliorate the boom-and-bust cycle of our economies. In recent decades, the world has tried to export capitalism to Russia, plant democracy in the Middle East, and boost development in Africa. And the results of these efforts are mostly disappointing. The failures have been marked by a single feature: Reliance on an overly simplistic view of human nature. Many of these policies were based on the shallow social-science model of human behavior. Many of these policies were proposed by wonks who are comfortable only with traits and correlations that can be measured and quantified. They were passed through legislative committees that are as capable of speaking about the deep wellsprings of human action as they are of speaking in ancient Aramaic. They were executed by officials that have only the most superficial grasp of what is immovable and bent about human beings. So of course they failed. And they will continue to fail unless the new knowledge about our true makeup is integrated more fully into the world of public policy, unless the enchanted story is told along with the prosaic one. 7. In a previous book (Rifkin 2004), Rifkin argues that Western Europe was (then, if not now) a leading model of the coming ‘empathic civilization.’ 8. Adu, Helen Folasade (Songwriter); St. John, Ray (Songwriter); Peermusic (UK) Ltd. (Publisher).