Ouch. Painfully true.

Sounds like you did your time in consulting. Or Florence.

Perhaps you haven’t yet had the privilege of working with management consultants.

“That being said, if I had to choose a doctor, it would be a Harvard or Yale Medical School graduate.”

Mmmmm…. if you had to choose a specialist, perhaps. But only perhaps – bear in mind the useful criticism that Dr. Dean Ornish has of those same specialists who routinely recommend profitable stents and other invasive procedures over non-profitable but more effective lifestyle changes to treat heart disease.

And bear in mind that the US health care system, in the capable hands of those Yale and Medical school grads, is one of the worst in the developed world. We spend more than anyone else on end-of-life issues, and we have the worst results. Not to mention Infant mortality rates in our cities that appall the Balkan states… and even China.

Let’s face it, Min, those Harvard and Yale docs exist largely (and I won’t include everyone) to support a system that’s profoundly broken. But their “intellectual insularity” (your term) doesn’t allow them to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Perhaps they’re too busy congratulating themselves on their credentials.

“The Ivy Leaguers would be quite willing to engage with Diogenes, to listen and perhaps to debate.”

Ivy Leaguers like Condi, Wolfowitz, McNamara, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner…. when has that happened? who are you kidding?

“It is lesser intellectual lights who find a need to resort to ad hominem and character assassination.”

Hmmm…. lessser intellectual lights resorting to ad hominem and character assassination? I can’t even count the number of Ivy League politicians who have resorted to ad hominem (attacks) and character assassination.

I think if you still have such a high opinion of the Ivy League, you really need to get out more and consort with the dirty plebes.

Is it impossible for you to consider that, having invested in that particular education, you need to protect the investment by constantly trumpeting its virtues? Instead of acknowledging what the Ivy League has become?

Most grow out of it, but it is a problem for a few, I expect. I think that the problem is worse in the medical profession. Of the few intellectual pricks that I have met as an adult, most have been medical doctors. That being said, if I had to choose a doctor, it would be a Harvard or Yale Medical School graduate.

“Is it possible that the carte blanche given to people with the ivy league stamp has resulted in the very crisis that this blog is devoted to covering?”

I think that a major problem is intellectual insularity. Both major parties suffer from that. The Dems are perhaps more wedded to the Ivy Leaguers, I don’t know. But the pols surround themselves with advisors of the same mind set.

“We have no Diogenes in America, but if we did, you can rest assured that what I have affectionately come to refer to as the “Ivy League Nitwit League” would be busy asserting that he was a mere public masturbator, rather than someone who asked relevant questions about society.”

Here I would disagree, based upon my experience. The Ivy Leaguers would be quite willing to engage with Diogenes, to listen and perhaps to debate. It is lesser intellectual lights who find a need to resort to ad hominem and character assassination. One reason that I would prefer a Harvard or Yale M. D. is that she or he would not take any questions from me as a challenge, but would welcome them. :)

Having said that, do you think there might be an inherent problem in the assumption that going to those schools made you, as your friend implied, a god? Or do you still believe that, winking emoticon aside?

Is it possible that the carte blanche given to people with the ivy league stamp has resulted in the very crisis that this blog is devoted to covering?

We have no Diogenes in America, but if we did, you can rest assured that what I have affectionately come to refer to as the “Ivy League Nitwit League” would be busy asserting that he was a mere public masturbator, rather than someone who asked relevant questions about society.

I expect that they achieved demi-god status (in their eyes) soon after arrival at Harvard, or perhaps earlier. I come from a small town and a classmate of mine and I were the first to go to the Ivy League in living memory. During Christmas vacation of our freshman year he came up to me and asked, “How does it feel to be a god?” ;)

“On the other hand, management consultants have far less power and can do far less damage.”

We should perhaps be grateful for that. I have never witnessed a group of people who so believed they walked on water.

Most of that, I thought, was actually the fault of the institutional structure of the firms. It seemed to be one of the “perks” of all the training they put the consultants through – you are OUR little product that we sell, so you have to believe in how relentlessly “developed’ you are.

Young consultants came out of that training believing even more that a 3.8 at Harvard and some winning internships had catapulted them to demi-god status. And unlike banking, they never competed with anyone in the firm who hadn’t come out of the Ivy League. So they never had the opportunity to lose to another class.

Even doctors I worked with did not manage to convey the same smug sense of superiority – and M.D.’s had, in many ways, earned it through the years of grubby labor and hands-on work with the poor.

As for the skills you need to succeed in management consulting – I don’t mean this as snark but as observation – A lot of the “science” of consulting was inventive interpretations of good old Peter Drucker projected onto a graph which was then sliced into powerpoint presentation. It had nothing to do with the business they were consulting; everything to do with what the consultants could sell. If you don’t believe me, just read the books management consultant gurus publish – laughable.

Thus, the fable version of the Siege of Athens: Young Athenians preparing to defend the city have to sit through a series of sales pitches from various craftsmen (consultants) for the “most essential” piece of equipment, which is always the piece of equipment that particular craftsman sells. It is during one of these sales sessions that the invading army breaks through the city walls and massacres everyone. Whether the craftsmen/consultants survive is not included in the common Greek’s telling.

I suspect that even Paulson would wake up some mornings and think: “Who on earth am I kidding?” But who in management consulting allows themselves that smidgen of doubt?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8081484.stm

Min,

I’m not sure – are you saying that you’ve been so ensconced in your Ivy bubble post-graduation that you can’t really make that assessment?

Is it unimaginable that kids who went to a state school would also be “well-informed and sharp as a tack”?

Do you think those sessions don’t occur in state schools?

Is is unimaginable that kids who could not afford the Ivy League, perhaps because they had family commitments, might have a truly higher education about the world? Kids who spent their college years not in the safe bubble of Harvard Yard, but in actual urban centers (Harvard Yard, I am afraid, does not count), and had to deal with a true variety of people?

(It’s part of the appeal of Obama – he took his Ivy League education AWAY from the Ivy League, and into the neighborhoods, instead of remaining in the bubble.)

I don’t want to generalize, but I’ve seen far too many Ivy League nitwits (Bush, Paulson, Geithner) et cetera, to believe you when you say everyone was “well-informed and sharp as a tack.”

The term “meritocracy” was originally intended as a tongue-in-cheek comment. But I guess they don’t teach you that in the Ivy League?

What I learned from the Ivy League: it’s all about branding.

BTW, how many Ivy League nitwits are running giant pharmaceutical companies and supposedly peer-reviewed medical journals? Are these people really sharp as a tack? Or merely greedy as pigs? It seems to me that they only THINK they are so sharp that no one understands the massive fraud they are perpetuating.

Just now, though, it still feels as though the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.