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Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class by Ross Gregory Douthat Hyperion, 2005 304 pp., $24.95 |
In 1998 Ross Gregory Douthat enrolled in Harvard University. The it school, known to Ross Douthat and countless other hopefuls as the H-Bomb. Twenty thousand students. Twenty-two-billion-dollar endowment. More than one million dollars per student. Begun in 1636, the school denies entry to 91 percent of applicants while admitting the best and brightest. Harvard is Harvard.
That same year, I, Nathaniel Jon Daniel Taylor, began my studies at Bethel University. The it school for Baptist General Conference diehards and their ilk. Three thousand students. Fifteen-million-dollar endowment. Five thousand dollars per student, 220 times less than Harvard. Bethel wants to be a good school that educates and trains students in a Christian context. And Bethel is Midwestern to a T: only 27 percent of the students are from out of state. The student body is overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and, of course, Christian.
I majored in English Literature and graduated in glorious sun in May of 2002.
Ross Douthat majored in History and Literature and graduated in a downpour a week later.
Three years after our entrance into the "real world," I'm working at Starbucks and leading high school orchestras on tours of Europe. Ross Douthat works at The Atlantic Monthly and now has written the story of a young man's four years at the richest, best, most desirable school in the world. Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class is a commentary on the culture of Harvard and the privileged of America. For Douthat, Harvard was not the "refuge of genius and a sanctuary of intellect" he had expected to find; rather, he soon discovered that "the real business of Harvard … was the pursuit of success." Harvard is the "best known ticket" to entrance into "a privileged class of talented students [that] sits atop the world … secure in the knowledge that they rule because they deserve to rule, because they are the best." Harvard is the place where the ruling class is educated and maintained.
Both Harvard and Bethel are sold as known quantities—brands that parents can trust. Parents understand that Harvard means success. Bethel promises a solid education in an evangelical setting. At Bethel parents know their children will be kept safe from godless professors, a sexualized culture, and binge drinking—and may even find a good Christian spouse. Their children will enter as Christian teenagers and leave as Christian adults. And at the end, after the entire bill is paid, both sets of parents will be happy.
Harvard is fully entrenched in the world of the American Dream, the world of liberal piety, capitalist joy, status, and money. To a degree Bethel is caught in this same world. Bethel wants to be high on the US News and World Report college rankings, proudly informing donors and prospective students that it is the eighth-ranked university in such-and-such region. It wants recognition for its success as a school educating doctors, professors, pastors, professionals, teachers, and nurses. It wants its students to go out and claim great fame and success. It wants all this, yet Bethel is an avowedly Christian school that is "committed to a distinctly evangelical Christian philosophy of education." Bethel's definition of success is constrained by the calling of God to live in the Kingdom of Heaven. In God's kingdom success is not measured by the percentage of alumni that give money or which former students walk the halls of power or the latest academic research. In God's Kingdom success is loving God and loving your neighbor and giving hope to the hopeless and blessing your enemies. Unfortunately for Bethel, these are difficult things to measure and even harder to execute. How do you help students see the Kingdom of God? Where is the course that trains Samaritans to be good?
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