Rethink.

• This article on the “disadvantages of an elite education” is very good and highly recommended (h/t PTN). I do regret bashing the author as arrogant, which I have done before. He wrote an article wondering why we don’t study literature anymore, and I wanted to say “look in the mirror,” given that he is unabashedly liberal and didn’t see the connection between identity politics that result in cultural studies and his own politics. I’m thinking now that anyone who really cares about making things better is going to come off that way, though. It would have been easier for him to say that the graduates coming from the Ivies aren’t “the leaders of tomorrow” and held hard and fast to that line – but if he did that, he’d have been dishonest with himself. Hypocrisy is the price of honesty, and it is a small price to pay if one can tell the truth.
  
• I hate The New Republic – if you perpetuate a lie that could have destroyed people’s careers and try to smear people willing to grant that you made an honest mistake, the least that should happen is you lose your job and hide in shame for the rest of your life. Instead, I’m sure they got richer and fatter because of the “controversy.” In any case – their art critic has just written one of the most moving and powerful critiques of the contemporary art scene that I’ve seen yet. Highly, highly recommended.
• Ario muses on genre and welcomes discussion.
• Lori’s story about napping and art is accompanied by a poem that is quite good.
• Go visit Bryn’s blog and wonder about the problems of reality TV, talent and fame.
• Kristine Lowe’s little story about how certain people in the UK think they own the blogosphere is yet another fitting chapter in the “attitudes of elites” book.

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