Another Chapter in Serial Stupidity - Jonah Goldberg, Serial Idiot on Elitism

Jonah Goldberg is such a rich source of material although I write about him infrequently as I hate to give him and his delusions too much importance. Making the leap from his so-called expertise on affirmative action and all things racial, Goldberg ties those beliefs to elitism.  He takes issue with progressive concern over the teabags' rage against the elites who, according to him, want to "boss us around." From Media Matters, Jonah is quoted as saying:

"To date, I've seen not one instance of Tea Partiers denouncing engineers, physicists, cardiologists, accountants, biologist, archeologists or a thousand other professions who've emerged from elite schools. Because those people aren't bossing anybody around."

In Tuesday's Washington Post, Anne Applebaum writes about the teabaggers' "anti-elite" rage. Applebaum illuminates the growing resentment of the Ivy-League educated by teabags by saying:

"...Nowadays, successful Americans, however ridiculously lucky they have been, often smugly see themselves as "deserving." Meanwhile, the less successful are more likely to feel it's their own fault -- or to feel that others feel it's their fault -- even if they have simply been unlucky..."

To paraphrase Applebaum's point, when Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell and others call people elitist, they are usually referring to people they don't like, don't agree with, and who don't agree with them. I would add that after all, Alaska senate candidate Joe Miller is a Harvard graduate --an education that is about the most elite possible-- and he would be nowhere without the backing of Sarah Palin. O'Donnell is in trouble partially because of her claims --false-- that she is a graduate of Columbia graduate school. So, fairly good evidence of the validity of Applebaum's claim if teabags feel the need to claim an ivy-league education, true or not.

A point that is brought out in Applebaum's piece, is that the American dream that we are all raised with is the same one that is held against many of those who today most exemplify that dream. We are taught that we can be anything we want, do anything we want, and that we are limited only by our willingness to work hard. Unfortunately, I believe that this dream has caused more harm than good over time as conversely, it tells us that if we do not succeed, that it is our own fault --something that as a sociologist I can say is often not true. Yet, here we have a president who is the embodiment of the American dream, the true rags to riches story, yet considered by the right to be the most elite of the elite.


In his quite derisive piece, Goldberg begins by setting a tone that attacks Applebaum personally before he even starts his analysis of her argument. Referencing a stand she took on an unrelated issue, he conflates the two to suggest that since she has a (to him) inappropriate belief in one area, it carries over to all of her opinions. Goldberg says that use of the term "ivy league" is code for elitism (good to know) and that progressives have it backwards when they see complaints about progressive goals as attacks against the ivy-league elite. Huh? Both Goldberg and Will Collier who he quotes in his update state that Applebaum is clearly biased (she is a Yale graduate) and that her thesis is that only those with an ivy-league education are intelligent. I must say that after reading her piece several times as I write this, I fail to come to that conclusion and believe me, one of the things you must learn in any college education (full disclosure, I went to a state university), is to discover the thesis behind any piece of writing.

Goldberg says:

"For Applebaum, the fact that the elite graduated from top-tier schools is all the proof she needs that these people deserve to be in charge. Indeed, Applebaum — without a moment’s pause to cite any evidence — insists that universities have diversified without dropping standards at all. (But I don’t want to have an argument about quotas and all that, because it’s a distraction from my real objection)."

Then don't bring them (quotas) up. I am so tired of the continuing belief that affirmative action included quotas. It did not. In fact, quotas were illegal. I wrote a thesis on affirmative action and feel somewhat qualified to speak to the right's deliberate misrepresentation of the purpose behind affirmative action and its policies, and the truly ridiculous notion that one generation or less was sufficient to redress the inequities of 300 years. Anyway. I'm not finding where she says that only the "fact" that the elite graduated from "top-tier" schools makes them deserving of being in charge. And, you shouldn't demand that others include evidence in their work when you do not include it in yours.

What is truly bizarre, is that the teabags resent the educated, calling them elite, equating them with an ivy-league education when in fact, what they resent is the education, period. In the past, the ivy-leagues were available only to those with the proper pedigree regardless of SAT's, community service, or gradepoint average (think George W). As a result of affirmative action, it was the ivy-leagues who offered the most in response and thus created the most diverse alumni --people who came from all races and ethnicities, and social classes. The graduates of the ivy-leagues over the past 40 years are truly representative of the American dream that is so hard to reach for most.

Trying to explain what it is the teabags are angry about when they complain about elitism, Goldberg says of Applebaum: [emphasis added]

"She doesn’t seem to grasp, let alone acknowledge, that it’s only one subset of Ivy Leaguers that seems to bother anybody on the right: the lawyer-social engineers-journalist-activists they churn out by the boatload. No one begrudges kids who’ve made good from tough backgrounds. What bothers lots of Americans is when those kids then think they are entitled to cajole, nudge, command and denigrate the rest of America. To date, I’ve seen not one instance of Tea Partiers denouncing engineers, physicists, cardiologists, accountants, biologist, archeologists or a thousand other professions who’ve emerged from elite schools. Because those people aren’t bossing anybody around."

This last is so breathtaking I almost don't know where to begin. "No one begrudges kids who've made good from tough backgrounds." Umm. Okay. Unless you're President Obama or a Democrat.

He goes on to say:

"...it is the agenda of a very specific and very self-styled elite, not the existence of an elite that is pissing so many people off. Some of the angriest and most dedicated people I meet at Tea Party events are quite wealthy and successful, often with shiny educations equal to Applebaum’s. What infuriates them is that they see a country that once determined merit in the market place or in civil society, becoming a country where what counts as merit is determined by government directly, or indirectly."

What does that mean? Merit was determined "in the market place or in civil society." When? Okay. I understand the market place, but civil society? I guess he's saying that if you exhibit the correct values (conservative perhaps?) then you have merit? And where does he get that merit is determined by government directly or indirectly? What does that mean? And what does he mean by "what counts as merit?" Perhaps Jonah doesn't understand definitions. Merit:

• Noun - something that deserves a reward, or the the fact of deserving
• Verb - deserve
• Adjective - based on (ie a raise)

Pretty clear to me. Of course, this idea is one of the primary distinctions between Democrats and Republicans, including teabags. Republicans equate success with money in the bank and morality with church attendance and how much they tithe. Democrats equate success with personal fulfillment and satisfaction and morality with how one makes choices when no one else is looking. Granted, hugely generalized, but you are unlikely to find someone with the later values in the Republican Party or vice versa. Look at this campaign. The 1st Amendment was designed to protect the media from government so that we the people may have the information we need in order to make good decisions about who to elect to represent us, the theory then being that those running for office (and holding office) have an obligation to provide that information. Right? Now, we have teabags who refuse to talk to the media unless they can solicit funds and control the questions. A true return to our Constitutional roots as demanded by the teabags would be a requirement that they stop running away from the media and actually present their policy ideas. Radical concept, I know.

Anyway. Jonah is an interesting character and believes himself to be an expert on affirmative action and has written extensively on that subject. Trying to style himself as an academic type, Goldberg is the author of the oxymoronically titled "Liberal Fascism" and weighed in during the Sotomayor hearings. His "expertise" on affirmative action was highly valued by the extremist right as they used the very program designed to help her and others succeed, to attempt to disallow that success. His comments on affirmative action parroted the continuing Republican mantra of reverse discrimination that hurts those poor, white men. You can read more about it here.

A few days after his intrusion into the Sotomayor affair, Goldberg, suddenly an expert on foreign affairs and the middle east, wrote about what President Obama should do about the situation taking place at that time in Iran (this was during the protests during the summer of 2009). As I pointed out at the time, Goldberg holds a prime position on my serial idiots list.

What are the teabags really doing? In blaming the elitists who are trying to "boss us around" and equating anyone with an ivy-league education as an elitist, they are refusing to acknowledge those who are the embodiment of the American dream if that dream culminates in progressive ideals. Sure there are elites, and there are elites who are graduates of ivy-league schools. But what is truly the definition of an elite? Personally, I believe it is someone who is admitted to an ivy-league school because of their family background and maintains their place despite near failing grades (George W) or believes that because of what they have they are somehow special.

Teabags are really attacking progressive ideals, and equate elitism with being told what to do. They are angry with a government interfering in their lives and telling them what to do and conflate those in government who hold ideas and make policy decisions they don't like with those with a good education because we now have a president they don't like who went to an ivy-league school. My question? A government that wants to move into my bedroom, doctor's office, and re-write scientific texts to match a minority point of view is far more intrusive than a government that is there to provide for the public welfare. I reject, again, Goldberg's premise and his and the teabags continuing attempts to build strawmen (see Fallacies above) rather than address the actual issues.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.
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Jonah Goldberg, Another Serial Idiot. This Time On Affirmative Action

From an article he wrote in 2006, the expert in all things affirmative action, Jonah Goldberg, says of affirmative action:
[...]

"The greater irony is that it is far from clear that diversity is good for black students either." ... "Black students admitted to universities above their skill level often do poorly and fail to graduate in high numbers. UCLA law professor Richard Sander found that nearly half of black law students reside in the bottom ten percent of their law-school classes. If they went to schools one notch down, they might do far better."

[...]

"But all this misses the point. Today’s diversity doctrine was contrived as a means of making racial preferences permanent. After all, affirmative action was intended as a temporary remedy for the tragic mistreatment of blacks. But as affirmative action drifted into racial preferences, it became constitutionally suspect because racial preferences are by definition discriminatory. If I give extra credit to Joe because he’s black, I’m making things just that much harder for Tom because he’s white." [emphasis added

The problem with graduating numbers and success levels, is not the fact that students are admitted above their skill level (good lord, look at George W!), but rather because of the lack of support once they get there. Tutoring, pre-admit summer programs, and mentoring available at many, many institutions are essential not just for affirmative action admits, but also for all non-traditional students and are often seen for foreign students, older returning students, and disabled students. Kind of curious then that you don't see it for students of color.

And then, of course, is the issue of temporary. What exactly is that supposed to mean? Ten years? Twenty? Who decides when we have reached parity? Is it possible that it might take two or three generations of less than stellar graduates before we have graduation levels of minority students equal to that of white males? When we have employment levels equal to that of white males? Entry (and graduation) into law and medical schools equal to that of white males? After all, the Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964 and enforcement didn't begin until the feminist movement realized that they could use the act to push some of their issues, so we're talking the 1970's before anything even began to happen. For true affirmative action to work, you need at least fifty years, which we'll never see now, especially as those persons such as Judge Sotomayor who have succeeded as a a result of affirmative action are pushed back because of affirmative action.

And if things are a little harder for Tom for awhile? So what? This is a problem because? Maybe white men should have to work a little harder for awhile to understand what people of color and women have endured for hundreds of years. Just sayin'. Because this kind of thinking seems to predominate among successful, upper-class white males.

In a web conversation on June 10, 2009, still the self-styled expert on affirmative action - the topic of the moment because of the upcoming Sotomayor confirmation hearings, Jonah Goldberg is asked why discussions of race as a basis of college admissions are wrong when legacy admissions based on wealth are not? His answer?

"People say, 'well, why should we be neutral on race when people aren't neutral about whose family gave more money to a school and all the rest?' And there's a longer answer, but a short answer is simply that, you know, we fought a civil war over race. We amended the constitution a couple of times because of race. We had the civil rights act because of race. Seems to me that race is different, and that we've learned from bitter experience with lots of dead people that government getting in the business of picking winners and losers by race is a bad way to go." [emphasis added]

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Jonah ... I hate (truly I do) to bring this up, especially as I was one of the original 5 or 6 members of the original NPR forum thread "Clinton: Move On" from which the founders of MoveOn broke off and founded, well, MoveOn dot org. But, I digress again. Anyhoo. Jonah. Remember Monica? And her friend Linda Tripp? Of the infamous late night phone calls that Linda recorded? Well, Linda handed those tapes over to her friend Lucianne Goldberg, Jonah's mother who permitted then 29-year old Jonah to listen to them with her. Jonah wrote about 6,000 words about the tapes, sold it to the NY Times (who cut it to a 900 word blurb) and his career was born. Jonah was a has-been at 29, working as vice-president for his mother's minuscule publishing company. He had gone to Europe after college planning to "...be a starving fiction writer, but failed on both scores." Seeing a chance to stretch his 15-minutes of fame, he made the rounds of the talk shows attacking President Clinton, reportedly saying that he found being on television "seductive," until he got a job at the National Review spouting conservative talking points, which he has held onto ever since.

So, you see why I hate to even mention his name. But, he's inserted his name into the conversation as a self-styled expert on affirmative action when in actuality, he parrots talking points that he neither understands or probably, believes (until the Lewinski scandal, his best friend was "Reagan's favorite Democrat" and a Clinton supporter - he's just all about the main chance). He is afraid, as are many white men, that the things that they have, that they have not earned, will be taken away from them. So, such programs as affirmative action, designed not to take anything away from anybody but to lift others up to parity, scare the hell out of them.

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Social Capital & Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action is no longer legal—it is, in fact a dirty word, but it has reared its head as a result of the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She has called herself an “affirmative action baby” saying that she would not have gotten into Princeton or Yale with her less than stellar scores without affirmative action. Regardless, her judicial history has been superior: whether you agree with her decisions or not, her reversal rate is one of the lowest. We all know that many of us don’t begin to come into our own until college or beyond, and that test scores—particularly for minorities 20 and 30 years ago—are not a good indicator of future performance.

I wrote a thesis a number of years ago on affirmative action so feel somewhat qualified to write on the subject. As a sociologist, I look at it as an issue of social capital. We each have a certain amount. Our social capital is accumulated from our socioeconomic strata, our geography, our own circumstances within our community and family, our intelligence, and a number of other factors that combine to produce opportunity and how we respond to that opportunity.

Imagine a white, upper middle-class, east coast white male. Mom went to Vassar, as did the other women in her family—her mother and grandmother, aunts, and sisters. Dad has a law degree from Harvard and is a partner in a top law firm. This young man will more likely than not, have music lessons, go to summer camp, belong to country clubs where he will associate with other (white) boys just like himself. At puberty, he will receive dance lessons and attend cotillion where he will learn to dance with (white) girls and have social events tailored to his age and social class.

He will play tennis, learn to sail, and will vacation in London and Paris. He’ll go to prep school, not public school, and after graduation, will attend Harvard as a legacy admit if his grades aren’t quite good enough to get him in on his own. He’ll join a fraternity—the same one his father and grandfather belonged to—and will get drunk on weekends and his father’s law firm will get him out of any legal trouble he gets into (boys will be boys after all) and pay for the abortions of the girls who get pregnant at the fraternity parties they unwisely attend.

The social capital this young man has is enormous. Both parents are college graduates so he has a large vocabulary from being exposed to educated conversation in the home. He probably had a nanny or au pair and likely was exposed to a second language (probably French) from infancy. He was probably limited in his exposure to television and if he watched, it was probably “educational” television only. His home was full of books and his parents probably subscribed to several magazines.

His schools were private, with high-caliber faculty and small teacher/student ratios and fully equipped language and science labs. With wealthy parents and the ability to travel, he was exposed to peoples and cultures that should have given him a wider perspective. However, he was also likely sheltered from contact with anyone different from himself by virtue of his wealth. Doors were opened for him as he began his career as he always knew how to dress, how to act, who to talk to, and how to talk to them. All of these factors add up to enormous social capital. This young man earned none of it.

Imagine a young girl of color. Her parents are immigrants with 5th grade educations in their home country. This young girl is raised by a single mother who works 3 jobs to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. This young girl is responsible for caring for her younger brother while mom is at work. Mom’s English is poor so she is often called on to serve as a liaison for Mom with various social service agencies, landlords, school officials, and etc.

Because Mom is poorly educated and has little English, the only work she can find is doing minimum-wage, back-breaking labor jobs—laundry, cleaning, and dishwashing. There are no relatives nearby to help with finances or babysitting. When Mom is sick, she works anyway or they go without food. She is unable to help with homework and because she has to baby-sit, this young girl often misses school. If she needs help with schoolwork, she is unable to take advantage of after-school programs that offer homework assistance. There is no television in the home and her English vocabulary is limited as she was raised with English as a second language. Her English is accent-free and she is bilingual, but this will not become an advantage until well into adulthood.

When she starts school, it will be in an inner-city school with run-down facilities, old books and equipment. Teachers are underpaid and the teacher/student ratio exceeds state standards. Teachers are inexperienced as it is difficult to get good teachers to teach in the inner city. There will be no prep school for this girl. School will be difficult as she tries to study while caring for a child, while malnourished, while tired. If she is able to go to college, it will be only if there are scholarships and student loans available, and if her grades are good enough. Without affirmative action, the likelihood of winning a scholarship is remote and there are many factors to overcome. She will have to get extremely good grades, find some way to become “well-rounded” and do community service, sports, and attract positive attention from teachers and someone in the community— preferably someone white and successful.

This girl has zero social capital. She is at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. She will be behind her peers when she begins school as she will not have the advantage of vocabulary, reading, or much understanding of the wider culture or social interactions (no television, no books, no magazines, no travel, no outings to cultural events). She will be unlikely to get much support for higher education as it is not a family tradition. At home, there is no tradition of homework, no understanding of proper rest in order to learn (and no way to provide it in any case).

When it’s time to apply to college, there will be no one to help, to open doors, or to help avoid the pitfalls and get her out of any trouble there may be (and help her avoid those fraternity parties). No one will help her get a job, pull any strings, or fight for her when she is discriminated against because of the color of her skin or the poverty of her life. This girl will face double barriers as she faces the discrimination of her color, and her sex, which is still very much a factor in our twenty-first century society.

So, affirmative action is unfair to whites? I don’t think so. It was always only designed to level the playing field. Saying that college entrance and employment should be based on merit only ignores the fact that too many of us have started from way, way behind. To say that affirmative action worked and that we’re all good is wrong. To hear the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck say that affirmative action hurts white men is laughable in the extreme. White men have had the power and control for hundreds of years, and still do.

My favorite example of why we still need affirmative action is this. Imagine a basketball game. Team A is playing Team B. Team A gets 5 players on the floor, 2 points per basket, and 2 points per foul. Team B gets 4 players, 1 point per basket, and no points per foul. At the half, Team A has 76 points, and Team B has 40. The officials talk and say, “This doesn’t seem quite fair. Let’s change the rules so that it’s equal. So, at the start of the second half, they announce that both teams get 5 players, 2 points per basket, and 2 points per foul. But, Team A still has 76 points and Team B still has 40. That’s why we need affirmative action. You don’t give someone that much of a head start and say it’s all good.

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