Hacker News Reader

Comment by blackbagboys | Hacker News Reader

The underlying point is that these professional-class distinctions are cast in moralistic tones and serve as an ideological justification for denigrating and ignoring the material needs of the bourgeois's class enemies. This is most clearly seen in the case of college admissions.

Of course, most bourgeois aggressively refuse to accept the idea that there is anything political about their consumption choices at all, or that they even have 'class enemies', because they refuse to acknowledge that they occupy and actively maintain a privileged position in a fundamentally unjust and exploitative system.

View on HN

College admissions is overwhelmingly biased towards the "class enemies" you're describing. The problem is there are not enough underrepresented minorities who are qualified for universities in proportion to their presence in the general population. Consequently, Asian and Jewish students are discriminated against in college admissions, partly because their cultures buy into the upper class ideals that are denigrated in this article.

This post is a perfect example of this mechanism in action. It takes as a given that the criteria for university acceptance are fair, objective, attainable - 'meritocratic'. The only explanation for underrepresentation is that the under-represented are simply inferior.

Note especially the conflation of 'minorities' with 'poor people'; this lets those members of the bourgeois who miss out on their exact institution of choice (and might have to attend UC Santa Cruz instead of Stanford, the horror) reconcile their own sense of self-worth with the class myth that failure to get admission to college denotes inferiority: they did meet all the fair, objective, meritocratic criteria, but the university gave their rightful slot to an undeserving black / hispanic person instead.

For the college question I think the bill and Melinda gates scholars (gmsp.org) is pretty compelling. They funded African American students who are now going into colleges. When you compare their scores / qualifications with their unfounded peers it suggests that kids who “know” they are going to college do better, and are more qualified for college than kids who did not think they would go. This appears to be true regardless of race or social class.

Yes, I take that as strong evidence in favor of demanding that society make higher education free and available for anyone who wants it.

How could I argue that university admissions are fair and objective, while simultaneously arguing that certain races are discriminated against in the admissions process?

Yes, that's the point. University admissions are a ridiculous sham, the primary purpose of which is to justify the political power and wealth of the elite professional class. But not every member of the elite professional class gets to go to Harvard. The fuss about how whites and Asians are REALLY the ones being discriminated is a mechanism by which yuppie resentment is directed away from the system and towards racial minorities; it keeps people from questioning the fundamental utility and purpose of ultra-exclusive, ultra-wealthy, 'prestigious' universities.

I really don't think there's as much of a conspiracy as you're implying. People want the best for their kids and upper class people are going to give their kids every opportunity they can to succeed. That means helping them prepare for exams like the SAT. Doing extracurricular activities to stand out, etc.

There are very few people actively trying to prevent lower class people from getting into the upper class, but it's competitive to be in the upper class and there are only so many spots. You don't get to be prestigious by letting everyone in.

The plus side is that if you are from a lower class background and somehow overcome your environment, the admissions committees are tripping over themselves to let you in.

Yes, again, that's the point. The entire paradigm exists to justify the unjust concentration of power and wealth in a small upper class. It doesn't require an active conspiracy, it just requires people to accept that there is something objectively 'right' or naturally ordained about this state of affairs, as you apparently do.

Can you please stop using HN for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for, and worse, destroys what it is for.

I don't necessarily disagree with your points but it doesn't matter. It's a medium-is-the-message thing: when the medium is ideological rhetoric, the message is the death of this forum. What the ideology actually is is secondary.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There is no 'battle' here, and all political discussion is inherently ideological, so either the site should ban all political articles or you should specify which ideologies are acceptable.

The bourgeois are highly incentivized to convince everyone else that Wealth Signaling and Virtue Signaling are the same activities. Everything and every lifestyle choice sold to you as “virtuous”, “good for you” or “good for your kids” is, un-coincidentally, expensive.

One of the differences of American society is that it was created with the idea that all people were "equal" unlike Victorian society which had an actual aristocracy, and therefore, explicit classes. The perspective that there are no classes is an inherently American perspective.

Of course, the left perspective is specifically that this is an illusion, people are divided into economic classes and capital is what discriminates instead of birth right. That's the point of this article, that even though capitalism pretends all people are equal, it creates a society where they are not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com