Letter From the Editor—041207
Christopher Hitchens is no stranger to pointing the finger, as he so eloquently demonstrated to a hostile and heckling television audience last year. So it should come as little surprise that the controversial writer and pundit would come out so vociferously against “You.”
The essay, published this week for Slate, does not merely take aesthetic offense to that dreadful Time cover, though its onanistic patting on the back certainly manifests the offense. The ’80s “me” generation, argues Hitchens, has displaced into “you”: me, essentially, but with charitable pretensions of reciprocity. Hitchens traces the invidious pronoun through the empty subjectivity of choice structure within limitations: from emptily encouraging Rite Aid buttons to limited room service breakfast menus to depression medication (one might empathize on this last).
What could be more about “you” (but really about “me”) than an Ivy League education?
It’s nauseatingly self-referential and every April, as mimbos prematurely wriggle about the lawns, a hand-selected troupe of soon to be—if not already—narcissists wring their grubby little hands around their acceptance envelopes.
School pride (or arbitrary group pride) is nothing new: “The class of 20xx is the brightest and most accomplished ever”; “The Knicks are #1”; “The German spirit is the most expressive”; etc. ad inf. What is relatively new is that the media (disproportionately Ivy League graduates) acts as a reaffirming press machine for the powerful, institutional university.
As per usual, the New York Times leads the pack of the most self-satisfied. There’s the statistical onslaught of “A Great Year for Ivy League Colleges, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them” (April 4, 2007), striking panic into the hearts of parents, and gilding those of the accepted and alumni. Four days later, “High Anxiety of Getting Into College” (April 8, 2007) aspires to expose, but reads as myth. “The pressure is literally making children sick,” an admissions officer from MIT says, and the reporter agrees.
What’s more, not only are recently admitted college students intelligent and high achieving, but they’re quirky and neurotic, too! Everyone (that’s you!) is a grown-up Little Miss Sunshine. And more of you are socially acceptable: not just students at Stanford or Duke or Tufts, but, according to the Times, Williams and Wesleyan are OK, too.
And if you’re anything like the wunderkinder of the New York Times articles, even if college doesn’t take you, it’s not you who missed out. Your destiny awaits.
It’s even worse close to home. In “CC Leads in Admissions Selectivity” (April 5, 2007; sorry Spectator) it’s claimed that Columbia was “at the forefront of record low acceptance rates”—as if that means anything. Only 8.9 percent got in—that’s you!
The Harvard Crimson got in on the festivities, too, saying, “You now have a better chance of surviving a particularly fatal strain of the Ebola virus than getting into Harvard College.” (April 2, 2007). I dare not speak it, but Yale’s admissions levels actually rose. The Yale Daily News’ assessment of the situation, alarmingly titled “Admission rate rises,” (March 30, 2007) is a painstaking demonstration of dashed hopes and explaining away. Something went awry in New Haven. Thirty more people were admitted into Yale undergrad…
Now that you’ve matriculated at an elite institution, feel entitled to Gchat during lecture. Don’t trouble yourself to read your assignments for the Core. In fact, for most majors you don’t even have to write a thesis! What’s important is that “you” decide and “you” have choices. According to the Columbia University Web site, there are 95 majors and 27 libraries—one for every personality type!
Just be happy with your choices. And what could be more self-satisfied than the smirky whiffs of marijuana smoke that fill dormitory halls? A regular dosage of anaesthetic—but don’t worry, you need it!
In a month, most students of the arts or humanities will graduate to a fancy diploma and an entry-level position. Choose from a pre-selected of impersonal, unsatisfying occupations. You, stop complaining and You, do your work.