Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! Have I ever mentioned how Durham, NH, is, on a technical level, the most beautiful place in the world? Well, I mean, recently? This is said with a bit of joviality - wherever home is for you, that is inevitably the most beautiful place in the world. I’ve lived in many different places and I know everyone thinks their home is the most beautiful. But I have to argue, fall in New Hampshire is pretty competitive with any of the places you all happen to live. In a few more weeks, we will enter what I refer to as the long season of gray. All the leaves will be down and the trees will be bare and gray. When the winter brings snow, it breaks up the long season of gray. But then in the spring we continue the long period of gray (and mud) until the new leaves emerge - usually in mid-May. Every year I am struck that the lush green and the warmth lasts just long enough that you start to take it for granted. Then it seems, overnight (though it really takes about 6 weeks), it is gone. So pic above is from yesterday morning - I saw on Wednesday evening that we were due for a relatively warm (50’ish degree) morning - I went out for a sunrise paddle on the Oyster River, which runs through the heart of Durham, and is where most of my kayaking pictures are from. I went farther than I probably should have and was almost late for my 9:40 class as a result. Being on the water is good for the soul, no matter what time of year, but a fall paddle is such a treat with all the color.
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In addition to being able to go kayaking on a Thursday morning, one of the other privileges of having a professor’s schedule is I spent this morning finishing the book, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent at St. Paul’s School by Shamus Rahman Khan. Waking up to 32 degrees outside today, I lit a fire in the stove and settled in to my reading couch in the kitchen, and spent a couple of hours with Khan’s recounting of his ethnographic study of the school and how it prepares the children of the elite to enter into college and begin to embrace and enact their birthrights as members of the privileged class. Based on his account (he is both a sociologist and an alumnus of St. Paul’s), the school functions as an institutional mechanism for transferring elite behaviors across generations. I was struck by two things from the book: the first is the institutional position of elite boarding schools like St. Paul’s (we have Philips-Exeter just down the street from UNH that performs a similar function); and the second is what constitutes elite behavior in today’s society (the book was published in 2011, but I think it is still current - these things change at the pace of generations, not pop music).
If I could rank order the 50+ years of my life, the four years of high school would probably occupy four of the bottom five; definitely none of them would not rise above the bottom ten. I know not everyone had that experience, and high school for some people were the “wonder years”, but I think for most people it’s not. My wife often says, it is remarkable how when children need adults the most, we leave them to the tender mercy of their peers. I don’t know that the average kid comes out of St. Paul’s any less scarred than the typical high school, but the amount of opportunity and the resources that are lavished on the students is stunning, and while they may have scars, St. Paul’s convinces them they are masters of the universe. At one point Khan recites the luminaries that the students are exposed to in the year he was their as an ethnographer:
The campus serves as a revolving door for an extraordinary list of guests. Recent speakers have included authors Tobias Wolff and Rick Moody, singer-songwriter Patty Larkin, the academic Rondald Takaki, poet laureates Billy Collins and Robert Pinsky, poet Maya Angelou, musicians Yo Yo Ma and Midori, conductor Ben Zander, FBI director Robert Mueller, and politicians like John Kerry… (p. 184)
What high school gets one of these people to speak each year, never mind a laundry list of them? And they don’t just give a talk and then rush out the back door after they get their honorarium, they stick around and actually talk to the students - as if the students are worthy of their time. He goes on:
These speakers do not simply arrive for a speech and then leave. They almost always spend considerable time with students… Pinsky held poetry workshops and gave a couple of readings; Wolff taught several creative fiction and non-fiction courses; Yo Yo Ma held master classes. (p. 184)
That’s not to say that any of these students is not worthy of any one of these elite’s time, any less than any high school aged kid, but how many high school students get a chance to talk to anyone at this elite level and be taken seriously? Every adult genius was a pimply-faced high school kid at one point. (By the way, I am a total Billy Collins fan boy, and I have only ever seen him speak once in person, so this list totally makes me crazy.) And that is one of the key ways that schools like St. Paul’s transmit elite status to their students. The students treat a chance to talk about poetry with Billy Collins like it is any other Tuesday, and wouldn’t it be great if the old codger just shut up so we could go hang out in the courtyard and make googly eyes at each other? Because if the world’s most revered cultural icons are at your beck and call, and they are paid to act like what you have to say matters, you are going to feel like you are pretty important. (Of course, you might wind up the subject of one of Billy Collins’ poems about such moments. I’d never really thought that closely about the backstory of this poem, but now I have a very specific location.)
One of the things St. Paul’s does is convince it’s students that they are worthy of the privileges lavished upon them because they are special, by virtue of being St. Paul’s students: “These privileged students are made into elites by the interactions that consecrate them, by the consistent, generous feedings they receive of their own capacity and promise” (p. 162). This is what elite parents are paying for. The school doesn’t transmit entitlement to it’s students; it transmits worthiness. Students emerge from St. Paul’s convinced of their own meritocratic worthiness. Then through its institutional relationships with the Ivy and baby-Ivy schools, St. Paul’s ensures all of its students are placed in elite colleges.
So St. Paul’s (and Phillips-Exeter, and Groton, and Phillips Academy, and etc.,…) transmit to the next generation of elites that they are special and worthy, and then they ensure that this group get into elite colleges where they once again receive consecration as worthy of their privilege. But what does privilege actually look like? This was probably the most fascinating part of the book. Khan makes the argument that the characteristic of today’s elite is not entitlement but ease. St. Paul’s convinces its alumni that they are special not because of their family origin (entitlement), but because of who they are as individuals. The school (and others like it) convince adolescents that they are special and have earned their place through meritocratic sorting (and the elite colleges after high school finish the job). Now assuming you are not a product of one of these elite high schools, think back to when you were in junior high. How special were you? Somehow, St. Paul’s is able to discern which 13-year olds are future elites, and then brings them to the school and exposes them to all of the cultural greats listed above. I think it’s obvious that the answer is very few future great performers are clearly differentiated from their peers at 13. So you get into St. Paul’s because you are wealthy, or because you are part of their DEI initiatives, so that the wealthy kids can pretend like St. Paul’s really is a meritocracy and anyone can really get in there if they are good enough. Khan (himself mixed race) talks about some of the kids who are obviously tokens (kids of color, poor rural whites) and how their experience is different from the wealthy kids.
Khan asserts that the markers of elite status are no longer strictly family lineage and wealth. Think about shows like Downton Abbey or Bridgerton. These are romantic idealizations of an inherited elite status. Early in the book he makes a point of describing a boy who comes to St. Paul’s because he had a multi-generational family lineage at St. Paul’s and came from a very wealthy family, like someone raised at Downton. The boy’s presumption of belonging because of his inherited status was rejected by the other students. Instead of inherited status, St. Paul’s pretends to meritocratic selection. When elite status was conveyed by family lineage and wealth, the symbols of elite status were based on those things. Thus, shows of conspicuous consumption through jewelry and clothes and cars. But how does one demonstrate elite status if it is based on meritocratic selection? Shows of wealth alone do not do it. Instead, one must enact one’s meritocratic credentials. One does this by being at ease in all social situations.
Why does showing ease mark one as an elite in 2022? People who are meritocratic do not reject the non-elite based on their tastes. Elites can appreciate both Die Walkure and Waffle House. It is the non-elite who appreciate only Waffle House and not Die Walkure. Back in the day, elites “had a distinct culture that they isolated from others and used to distinguish themselves.” The liberal arts education was only available to you if you had enough wealth to take the time to read and study widely. Now the liberal arts are available at every public university, and frankly in every public library. You can download Duolingo and learn any of the classical languages along with their modern offspring. Anyone of moderate means can have a liberal education if they want it. Once upon a time, if you were not wealthy, you simply didn’t have the time or access, and so knowing Beowulf or being able to recite lines from Tintern Abbey could function as a distinction from the unwashed masses.
Since (almost) anyone can have a liberal education, the markers of being elite had to change - it had to evolve to stay out of reach of the masses. My reaction to this evolution is the same feeling I have when I see a couture fashion show - the things the runway models are wearing - a balloon stretched over their heads with live foxes strapped to their feet - is just incomprehensible. So how does the elite differentiate themselves in a world where knowledge was once a distinguishing factor, but now is completely democratized? Khan says,
They no longer define themselves by what they exclude, but rather their elite power now comes from including everything… The highbrow snob is almost dead. In its place is a cosmopolitan elite that freely consumes high and low culture, and everything in between. The new adolescent elite listen to classical and rap; they eat at fine restaurants and diners. They are at ease everywhere in the world. (p. 151)
Why would an expansion of elite tastes to include both highbrow and lowbrow culture mark the new elite? As an economist, I would say it is ultimately about the ability to consume. It takes wealth to consume. Normal people have to make choices between things to consume because consumption requires both money and time. But a truly wealthy person does not have to make those choices because they do not have normal limits on resources. Thus, having a taste for highbrow and lowbrow culture requires the time and resources to develop an appreciation for both. Only an elite can do both, even in modern society. Khan says,
They have the time and resources to explore broadly, cultivating not a class character but an individual one… From this perspective, the distinction between the elite and the marginalized is that it is now the marginalized whose tastes are limited; they are close-minded, they exclude anything that is unknown.
To the ordinary people, Khan imagines the elites saying, “It is your own closed-mindedness, your own choices to not take advantage of this new open world, your own lack of interest that explain your position and not durable inequities.” It is here I depart from Khan to a degree - I do think this world is more open and available, and I do think there are people who could choose to use their time to appreciate more and choose not to. But! I think he is very much on to something. As the cost of having a liberal education fell, the elites had to find a new way to enact their entitlement. Being cosmopolitan is expensive in terms of generating sufficient life experiences. Thus the unachievable thing for the ordinary person is always going to be the thing that marks an elite.
Why does being at ease operationalize the new elite? As an economist, again I am always looking for why this is socially optimal. All human societies are ruled by an elite. A liberal democratic, capitalist society requires its members to voluntarily engage. When society was hierarchical, where the working class were treated as slightly more useful than animals by the elite, an ancien regime that commanded obedience could work. But now, with modern production, we need workers who want to work. We need workers who feel appreciated and respected. Look back to George W. Bush and Barack Obama: depending on their political persuasion, these were two presidents with whom almost any American would have felt comfortable having a beer with (at least one of them). But they were most definitely elites. The new elites have to be able to speak to the lower classes, not just command them. Thus the new elites have to have a taste for the NFL and NASCAR, as well as opera and polo. If one is to command society, it is not sufficient to simply command from a distance, one must be able to walk among the commanded, and appreciate what the commanded appreciate. But at the same time, there has to be a barrier between those in command and the commanded. The barrier is ease. Only the elite can navigate both worlds.
Institutions like St. Paul’s help perpetuate the elites in our society. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, so long as it works. From Khan’s research, elite culture has evolved to match the meritocratic nature of our current society. It may be an illusion, but it is a useful illusion.
I recommend the book.
So with that, willing good for all of you, I present you with the links!
Read
What: Shamus Khan, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School
Why: This is the book that I am discussing in the above essay. Do check it out if you are interested in issues of equity and diversity.
**
What: Aeon, How elite education promotes diversity without difference
https://aeon.co/essays/how-elite-education-promotes-diversity-without-difference
Why: There are challenges to society, even with elite who are at ease. If you come out of a place like St. Paul’s, you naturally assume everyone is either like you, or has chosen not to be. From the article:
If we are concerned with creating a representative elite, we shouldn’t just look at the racial or economic background of its future members, but also at their educational experiences. If, for example, we want to foster policy discussions that include a broad range of perspectives, we must do better than turning to a room full of Ivy League or Oxbridge graduates. Instead, fill that room with graduates from places such as CCNY or the University of Hull. These students are much more likely to have educational experiences that can contribute different insights for a more representative elite.
**
Watch
What: Learn Liberty, Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich: An Anti-Robin Hood Story (3 min)
Why: A short video that explains the wealth-creating power of property rights, and how it encourages wealth creation for average people, not just elites.
Listen
What: Health Leader Forge, Dr. Jeffrey Fetter, MD, Chief Medical Officer, New Hampshire State Hospital (90 min)
https://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2022/10/dr-jeffrey-fetter-md-chief-medical.html
Why: My latest Health Leader Forge interview is with Dr. Jeffrey Fetter. I met Dr. Fetter when he was a student in UNH’s physician leadership program. He is board-certified physician in both internal medicine and psychiatry, which is quite unique. He has had a fascinating career working in both the state prison system as well as in the state’s secure psychiatric hospital. In some ways, he is very old school - being a broad spectrum physician. But he is a unique in having dedicated most of his professional life to care for some of the most fragile people in our state. We also talk about what it was like to lead a critical part of the healthcare infrastructure during COVID. Check it out!
**
What: The Foreign Affairs Interview, Alone in Beijing: A View From the Embassy (45min)
Why: Back in the dark ages - about 2002 - I remember telling my hospital commander how excited I was that CSPAN existed because anyone could flip on their TV and see our elite conducting the formal business of our nation. Transparency, I argued, is always good for democracy. I take it much more for granted today that I should be able to tune in at any point to formal government work, or even have access at will to our leaders. But yet every now and then I pinch myself. Like after listening to this interview with Ambassador Nick Burns, the US Ambassador to China. When in relevant history could the average citizen listen to an interview with the US ambassador to perhaps the most important country in the world outside of the US itself, at will? We live in miraculous times. And this is a very interesting interview. Burns is never off point, but it is still interesting.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso