That Bright, Dying Star, the American WASP | Hacker News Reader

That Bright, Dying Star, the American WASP

online.wsj.com

23 pointsgrellas12 comments

I'm reminded of a scene from The Good Shepherd:

Joseph Palmi (Joe Pesci): Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?

Edward Wilson (Matt Damon): The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.

For me that exchange captures a lot of both the good and the bad of the old WASP establishment. On the one hand, it perfectly illustrates the "prejudice and insularity" that have led to its decline. On the other hand, it shows what we have lost - an aristocratic leadership class who really believed in the "noble lie" as understood by Plato. Our elites these days only seem to be in it for themselves and their transnational friends.

It also illustrates how it was open season for a long time (roughly from the late 60s into the 80s) to attack WASPism in popular culture without fear of being labeled a bigot. Indeed it was a way of establishing credentials as not bigotted.

I do not wish to state an opinion on whether the old WASP establishment was prejudiced and insular. I just want to point out that we are just as ignorant about the question after reading a snippet of dialog from a movie as we were before reading the snippet. If it were a quote from book that claimed to be factual, different story.

Nice of them to at no point define what the fuck WASP means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestant

I had no idea what it meant either.

The star is now so dim people don't even know what WASP means anymore...

It did, but towards the end.

In "The Protestant Establishment," Mr. Baltzell pointed to the prejudice and insularity of the elite as the eventual causes of its decline. "A crisis has developed in modern America largely because of the White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment's unwillingness, or inability, to share and improve its upper-class traditions by continuously absorbing talented and distinguished members of minority groups into its privileged ranks."

Now watch the slow but steady slide of the US into third world status.

Actually, I think all the talent infusion from non-WASP places will be what saves us. Even with all the faults of our immigration program, H1B problems, etc, we are still getting a very healthy dosage of best foreign talent, which are starting businesses, leading research, creating value, etc.

(full disclosure - non-WASP immigrant to the US myself, came here at 16)

yes, I agree! when you think about it, letting in highly educated people into the U.S. is a form of foreign aid, except it's directed towards to the U.S. The other countries use their resources and capital to educate the individuals, and America reaps the benefit from their knowledge!

First, that doesn't happen all the time. Another very common scenario is when foreign students come to America, get the best education they can get in American universities, and go back home.

And second, what's wrong with that scenario? I believe everyone has a right to pursue a better life for themselves. If other countries would make better conditions for their best people, they wouldn't leave.

I don't think that's fair. Although I do think America has been built up thanks to the "Protestant work ethic", there are other peoples with just as high a work ethic, who unfortunately haven't been able to exercise it because their countries have been in flux over the last few centuries. Think of the Chinese, and what they have managed to accomplish over just the last few decades in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shenzhen, etc.

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