Nasty Preachy Jerkwad

~ Clarissa

I thought we were past having these over-entitled WASPy boys preaching at us. Apparently not:

jerkwad

 

99% of whom, I wonder? Women? Blacks? Hispanics? Immigrants? Disabled people?

No, obviously not. The loser is upset that not everything and everybody these days exist for the benefit of over-entitled WASPy boys like himself.

I wonder what makes this smug idiot so modest, though. Why not just go pine for the times of slavery or the days when women didn’t even have the right to vote? I mean if he is pissing himself with enthusiasm over the time when women were not allowed to control their reproductive organs, why stop there? Let’s complain openly that the beautiful times when the nasty bitches were kept in their place are now over.

The complete lack of self-awareness and the degree of nearly sociopathic self-involvement one needs to possess to praise 1968 as a time where 99% had access to education never fail to make me angry. This is like spitting directly in my face. Tell me, what kind of a shared identity can I have with somebody like this?

Unknown's avatar

Published by Clarissa

82 thoughts on “Nasty Preachy Jerkwad”

  1. Sounds like a dogmatic Occupy Wall Street nut too. I really don’t like either OWS or the Tea Party. Those sorts of movements always come with a few nuts here and there.

    After a whole gap year, I’m going to a very very affordable cheap school about 5 minutes away from where I live. No excuses.

    Like

    Reply

    1. You are absolutely right, the OWS and the Tea Party do have a lot in common. There is a lot of meaningless yelling and tons of self-pity. Not a single interesting idea has come out of either movement.

      The future belongs to people like you who work hard and create great lives for themselves.

      Like

      Reply

        1. “So all those students who praise their “working hard” are psychologically healthier than those who have real good results?”

          – Working hard and lying that you are working hard are different things. 🙂 🙂

          Like

          Reply

        1. “Failing while working hard has no value in itself. To be successful while working hard has a valut because of the success, not because of “working hard”.”

          – Healthy people work because they dig the process, not only because they want a result.

          Like

          Reply

        1. “The process is a good thing but it has no value in itself. You never give grades for the process.”

          – Enjoyment is the value. It’s the biggest value there is. Like eating or having sex. We don’t get grades for that (normally) but these are obviously enjoyable activities.

          Like

          Reply

        1. People who consistently do things they don’t enjoy need to analyze what makes them masochistic. We all only have one life and wasting it on being miserable is very sad. Unless, of course, one secretly enjoys being miserable.

          Like

          Reply

        1. I don’t think I need to repeat for the gazillionth tome that there are many many very good universities with very very low tuition fees. If people choose to take on “incredible debt”, that’s because they want to do that. In this very thread we just had a comment from a young guy who is starting college and not getting into “incredible debt.”

          Like

          Reply

          1. The people who get into enormous debt in college are the ones who want to have the Ivy League lifestyle: live on campus, go to keg parties, don’t work, travel to Europe. It’s true that this is not accessible to most. It never were and it never will. So what? Where is the tragedy? I worked as a student and nothing tragic happened.

            Like

            Reply

      3. 1) In what university this jerkwad teaches? This is important because this could explain why his students are in high debt.

        2) Why USA students are almost the most indebted in the World? This is not only because of individual choices.

        3) It seems that the university model in USA care more about the prestige with high cost fancy-schmancy universities than actual academical content. What’s your take on this?

        Barking always about voluntaryist individual choicey choices is not a complete analysis of a social/economical problem. Oh, and don’t worry, I’m not the kind of anarchist or statist leftist who believes that nobody is responsible for anything, that would be even more ludicrous.

        Like

        Reply

        1. I have no idea why people take on all this debt. I also have no idea why they saddle themselves with enormous mortgages they have no hope in hell of paying out earlier than in 30 years or why they believe they need to drive a car to get to the convenience store 2 minutes away form where they live. I have no idea why so many people I know chose to remain unemployed other than to apply to non-famous state universities like mine. I have no idea why most of my former colleagues at my grad school think it’s beneath them to work anywhere than at an Ivy League. I also have no idea why so many people love driving themselves to distraction with end-of-the-world scenarios when their lives are very comfortable.

          Like

          Reply

      5. You pretend that this enormous debt is mainly caused by non-school expenses? This seems appealing as a theory, but I’m not so sure. In Québec, we have many students who spend like crazy but their debts are not as high.

        But at least, this is more interesting.

        Like

        Reply

      6. Yes, but why they do that? And why they do that more in USA than almost everywhere else?

        I think this could be related with my 3rd point: It seems that the university model in USA care more about the prestige with high cost fancy-schmancy universities than actual academical content.

        Like

        Reply

    1. I didn’t heed your advice, followed the link, and started looking at the comments. Lost my faith in humanity and hastily closed the link. The comment that did me in was, “Why don’t we all just work less and share the jobs?” Yes, totally, come over here and help me write my article in a language you don’t know and using the sources you have never seen! Jeez.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I an sure everybody would love to be a president of a large, successful company. A shame that if we shared that position with EVERYBODY every one of us would get, like, 2 seconds of being “the boss”.
        But it’s fun to watch the Entitlement Olympics 2013 🙂

        Like

        Reply

      2. I particularily liked the person who thought CEOs work less than 25h per week. I found that comment thread particularily disheartening though – while it uses a non-standard definition of “erotic”, it is one that is presented in the text of the blogpost itself, so I don’t get all the people complaining that the author says work should be orgasmic.

        Like

        Reply

        1. I don’t know about orgasmic, but I agree that work should be joyful. Just like every aspect of life.

          I used to be very miserable in a job where I was making tons of money back in Ukraine. So I changed my entire life and chose poverty for many years yet a joyful work experience. And I’m very happy I did that.

          I think everybody should stop pitying the person at the gas pump or the cash register because that person has not asked for anybody’s pity and look carefully at their own lives.

          Like

          Reply

      3. The comment that did me in was, “Why don’t we all just work less and share the jobs?”(Clarissa)

        That comment reminded me of what one of your posters said. Quite a similar sentiment I might add. 😉

        “Also, if addicts don’t have money for drugs, they’re ready practically rob and even sometimes kill their own mother, let alone you and me, so I am for giving them drugs for free with clean needles”.(el)

        Like

        Reply

      4. “Why don’t we all just work less and share the jobs?” Yes, totally, come over here and help me write my article in a language you don’t know and using the sources you have never seen!”

        Some actual “exploited Ph Ds” would like to share the workload…

        Like

        Reply

  4. I am afraid you are not completely correct. I remember the 1960’s; I got my Ph. D. in 1968. It is true that at that time, anyone who could get admission to a university could work enough to pay their way through to a degree. Tuition cost maybe $100 to $150 a semester at a decent state university. State governments really supported universities so that students did not have to borrow so much.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Yeah, but it’s about the first two paragraphs. But this guy is wrong on his last two paragraphs. College was never considered as a public good in USA. And college was never accessible to all the 99%.

      Like

      Reply

    2. I looked at the photos of our student body in the 1960s. A couple of female faces with huge chignons here and there. One black face. Everybody else looks like the guy in the picture I posted.

      And then I looked at the photos from this year. Half of the faces female. And about a quarter non-white.

      Somehow, I find it hard to call the 1st set of photos “education for the 99%.”

      Who cares how much anything cost if only white boys could get educated with very very rare exceptions?

      Like

      Reply

  5. Feh. If post secondary education wasn’t for the 99% back in the late 60s, it isn’t now either. Same as it ever was.

    If this man is a professor of history, I’m going to laugh and laugh.

    —Rich kids went to college to get out of the draft. Poor kids ended up in Vietnam.

    —Depending on what date in 1968 he’s talking about, the Civil Rights Act hasn’t even been signed yet, and Yale is a male only institution.

    —Title IX is not in effect and will not become law until 1972.

    –Oh, and depending on the date, the National Immigration Act of 1965 (abolishing the national origins quota) has not taken effect yet.

    Like

    Reply

  7. Sure he seems self-righteous, and the 99% part is obviously bullshit, but I think there’s a point hidden in there somewhere, that universities have become too expensive.

    Tuition rates, even at state schools, have risen at dramatically high rates. I think the student loan thing is going to be a huge disaster, following the housing crash playbook: borrowers get fucked, lenders get bailed out. Colleges don’t have any incentive to keep tuition low because federal loans are relatively easy to obtain. Let’s build mega gyms and spend millions of dollars on football coaches because it’ll attract undergrads (and their federal loan money) to our program. Party!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Why, why can’t people just say things clearly and reasonably? Universities have become too expensive. Without all of this drama, exaggeration and 99%, the statement makes sense. If you add to it a proposal to can college athletics, you actually have a program of action.

      What happens instead is that somebody makes this cute little slogan, everybody adores it and shares it on Facebook and Twitter, we all feel like we have done some important activism by sharing the slogan, and nothing ever changes.

      Like

      Reply

  8. College costs have increased at 5x the rate everything else has and this is since the 80s, direct result of the neoliberal practices installed then and that cranked further since. It was a lot easier to afford as working class person. A *lot.*

    Public good vs cash cow for the corporations, yes, believe it or not. Public *schools* were public good in the universal access sense, not elite public universities, but universities were invested in because they were seen as an asset to grow, not the provider of a population to exploit.

    And remember, students in 1968 were the ones getting teargassed, beaten, shot struggling for integration – courses in women writers – and many other things you take for granted now.

    Like

    Reply

    1. “And remember, students in 1968 were the ones getting teargassed, beaten, shot struggling for integration – courses in women writers – and many other things you take for granted now.”

      – Exactly. Which is why saying that they had things oh so easy compared to us – like the preachy boy does – is very offensive.

      Like

      Reply

  9. I agree with the prof.. I see nothing wrong with sympathising with over-indebted current students. I do not see that the prof. has any desire to restrict education
    to well-off white students, and I think that some people are reading more into the professor’s reference to the 1960s than can be inferred from the text of the note.

    Public higher education ought to get more funding for actual education (as opposed to football). Popular courses should have a night section reserved for working people. The student’s debt burden should be low enough that it could be paid down in 10 to 12 years of a reasonably frugal lifestyle. Community college courses should have sections that are rigorous enough to satisfy credit transfer requirements imposed by most public and private four-year colleges. Public community colleges should be marketed as giving more value per dollar than for-profit colleges and for-profit “distance learning” coursework. Prospective students should have financial, academic, and career counseling before they apply to college. Basics of personal finance should be taught in middle school and high school. Talented but impoverished potential college students should have the same possibility to attend college as talented middle class students. Students who would benefit from vocational education should be steered to high quality public or private non-profit community colleges.

    Like

    Reply

    1. If you agree that higher education in 1968 was available to 99%, then how do you explain that there were so few women and non-whites getting that education? Is you explanation that women and non-whites are lazy? Not interested in getting educated? Too stupid to acquire education? If you agree with him, you have got to have an answer. Why weren’t all these crowds of people not taking advantage of the amazing opportunities offered to them by the Golden Age this country experienced before women and non-whites established their right not to be treated like cattle?

      Like

      Reply

      1. I am not concerned with the “99%” slogan. I am not nostalgic for the 1960s. I am pointing out that on average college used to be more affordable to lower income people. No-one debates the fact that more women and minorities are getting college degrees, compared with the 1960s, in both absolute terms and in proportion of total students. More blacks are getting college degrees from “mainstream” universities and public universities. In the 1960s, the overwhelming majority of black college degree holders had attended historically black colleges and universities, because “mainstream” and public universities either discriminated against or outright banned blacks. (“Ole Miss”). As for the “pay loans down in 10 years”, this may be relatively easy in a good economy with a good job obtained by having a “good” degree (STEM or business) and good connections. In a poor economy, college graduates with humanities degrees and no job experience are likely to find themselves working retail or waiting tables or working “temp” office jobs. Eventually the graduates will crawl out of the hole, but the debts are still compounding whether or not the graduates can pay for rent, food, and full installment of the loan repayment. There are some people who don’t have family giving them free room and board and who don’t have any personal or family savings. These are the people who can incur large debts even at schools with relatively low tuition and necessary educational expenses (eg, a computer and access to the internet; required textbooks; lab fees).

        Like

        Reply

        1. “I am not concerned with the “99%” slogan. . . No-one debates the fact that more women and minorities are getting college degrees, compared with the 1960s, in both absolute terms and in proportion of total students.”

          – Are you not seeing that these two statements contradict each other?

          ” In the 1960s, the overwhelming majority of black college degree holders had attended historically black colleges and universities, because “mainstream” and public universities either discriminated against or outright banned blacks.”

          – I’m sincerely puzzled. How can you have an education for 99% while a significant portion of the population is discriminated against or banned?

          “These are the people who can incur large debts even at schools with relatively low tuition and necessary educational expenses (eg, a computer and access to the internet; required textbooks; lab fees).”

          – My university doesn’t require anybody to purchase textbooks, there are no lab fees, you can get a laptop at the library for free. Sorry, but no, you can’t incur a large debt at my university even if you try really hard. This imaginary hardship is a lot less daunting than what women and non-white people had to face if they wanted to attend college in those supposedly amazing sixties.

          Like

          Reply

    2. “Popular courses should have a night section reserved for working people.”

      – Every year we cancel all of our night sections because nobody enrolls.

      “The student’s debt burden should be low enough that it could be paid down in 10 to 12 years of a reasonably frugal lifestyle.”

      – 🙂 🙂 This is getting seriously funny. OK, I’ll rinse and repeat. 🙂 At my university, even the few people who get zero state and federal help only pay $4K in tuition per semester. On what planet do you need 10-12 years to pay that off?

      “Prospective students should have financial, academic, and career counseling before they apply to college.”

      – Counseling is a good idea. Although getting anybody to listen to you is rarely possible.

      Like

      Reply

  10. At my university, even the few people who get zero state and federal help only pay $4K in tuition per semester. On what planet do you need 10-12 years to pay that off(Clarissa)

    How many semesters does it take to get a degree? 6-8? If so that could be as high as $32000. With interest what would it eventually be?

    Like

    Reply

      1. I am somewhat surprised at how little empathy you have for someone who needs to borrow money to go to school because they probably do not have the ability to work and study at the same time. BUT you do think junkies should get free needles and nurses and rooms to shoot up in on the taxpayers dime. Very interesting brain you have.

        Like

        Reply

        1. “I am somewhat surprised at how little empathy you have for someone who needs to borrow money to go to school because they probably do not have the ability to work and study at the same time. BUT you do think junkies should get free needles and nurses and rooms to shoot up in on the taxpayers dime. ”

          – People who have to postpone getting a degree don’t pose any danger to my health. An unchecked spread of HIV poses a danger to everybody’s health.

          Like

          Reply

      2. Just so you know, HIV in drug addicts only poses a risk to you if you decide to have unprotected sex with them or share their needles. So, if that is your kink then you should be concerned.

        Like

        Reply

      3. Dont worry, I know, I have volunteered at a clinic. The truth is though, if you dont have unprotected sex with people who have HIV and you dont share needles with people with HIV and you dont have blood transfusions with tainted blood…………..it really, really isnt going to magically happen that you get infected.

        Like

        Reply

  11. From Zimbabwe:

    During a robbery in Guangzhou, China, the bank robber shouted to everyone in the bank: “Don’t move. The money belongs to the State. Your life belongs to you.”

    Everyone in the bank laid down quietly. This is called “Mind Changing Concept” Changing the conventional way of thinking.

    When a lady lay on the table provocatively, the robber shouted at her: “Please be civilized! This is a robbery and not a rape!”

    This is called “Being Professional” Focus only on what you are trained to do!

    When the bank robbers returned home, the younger robber (MBA-trained) told the older robber (who has only completed Year 6 in primary school): “Big brother, let’s count how much we got.”

    The older robber rebutted and said: “You are very stupid. There is so much money it will take us a long time to count. Tonight, the TV news will tell us how much we robbed from the bank!”

    This is called “Experience.” Nowadays, experience is more important than paper qualifications!

    After the robbers had left, the bank manager told the bank supervisor to call the police quickly. But the supervisor said to him: “Wait! Let us take out $10 million from the bank for ourselves and add it to the $70 million that we have previously embezzled from the bank”.

    This is called “Swim with the tide.” Converting an unfavorable situation to your advantage!

    The supervisor says: “It will be good if there is a robbery every month.”

    This is called “Killing Boredom.” Personal Happiness is more important than your job.

    The next day, the TV news reported that $100 million was taken from the bank. The robbers counted and counted and counted, but they could only count $20 million. The robbers were very angry and complained: “We risked our lives and only took $20 million. The bank manager took $80 million with a snap of his fingers. It looks like it is better to be educated than to be a thief!”

    This is called “Knowledge is worth as much as gold!”

    The bank manager was smiling and happy because his losses in the share market are now covered by this robbery.

    This is called “Seizing the opportunity.” Daring to take risks!

    Like

    Reply

  12. If one wants to belong to elites, one goes to Elite universities. Where have people near Obama, his advisers, studied? Ivy League.

    Btw, where have most of your colleagues studied? Which percentage of professors graduated from Ivy League, like you, and which from a small practically unknown places?

    I heard that in Europe, with record high levels of unemployed university graduates, one has to graduate from a prestigious university to have a chance of finding a job. (As a result of wrong economic policy.)

    On slightly another topic: what are you thinking about this?
    http://www.worldcrunch.com/eyes-on-the-u.s./after-europe-the-us-now-facing-plague-of-youth-unemployment/university-college-student-loan-debt-ivy-league/c5s11292/

    – el

    Like

    Reply

    1. “If one wants to belong to elites, one goes to Elite universities. Where have people near Obama, his advisers, studied? Ivy League.”

      – Yes, pretentiousness always costs money. 🙂 I think that is fair.

      “Btw, where have most of your colleagues studied? Which percentage of professors graduated from Ivy League, like you, and which from a small practically unknown places?”

      – I don’t know anybody specifically from an Ivy. But small unknown places don’t have PhD programs, so nobody is from such a place either. Most people are from solid, good schools that are not Ivies. Many people are from state schools. None of this matters, though, because people in the PhD programs don’t pay any tuition. The difference in tuition is not that between small and unknown and big / known. These super expensive $90,000 per-year places are not Ivies. I guarantee you wouldn’t recognize their names. And they don’t have any PhD programs. People told me what those colleges are called but I forgot already. Yet they obviously have entire bunches of idiots go there for some mysterious reason instead of going to big and known state schools.

      As for the article, my sister tries to place recent graduates from Economics programs in jobs every day and it’s extremely hard. Not because there are no jobs but because the sense of over-entitlement, condescension and childish petulance take forever to dissipate in these students. She was from an Economics program herself and knows the environment well. Besides, the article discusses a person from a family that had $200,000 to dish out, just like that. Such people never have careers of any kind. I’ve seen enough of them back at my Ivies.

      Like

      Reply

        1. I think the example of my sister can be an inspiration to anybody who wants to enter the field. An immigrant, weird last name, no French (at that time), no connections (and we all know how crucial those are in Montreal) – and look at the career she forged for herself. And now she is creating workplaces for people at her own company. With insanely good working conditions.

          Of course, “I’m too good for an unpaid internship with my real-estate Mommy and my $200,000 education” was never her approach.

          I believe that everybody who does not have parents who can shell out $200,000 for their education should thank God on their knees daily. I’ve seen enough people with trust funds and I’m more happy not to have one than I’m happy not to have a second head. 🙂

          Like

          Reply

        1. “I don’t talk about 200K jobs in economics nor entrepreneurship, I talked about 20K jobs in economics…”

          – I’m sorry, I don’t understand. The article suggested that people who graduate with a BComm can’t find good jobs. I suggest that this is only true for people with ultra-rich Mommies.

          Like

          Reply

  14. Also, an article in Russian, which may be interesting:

    Исследователь церкви Николай Митрохин рассказал, почему РПЦ лучше жилось при Ельцине, что она позаимствовала у Муссолини, почему ополчилась на геев и с каких пор “русский” значит “православный”.

    http://publicpost.ru/theme/id/3899/pravoslavie_modernizaciya_administraciya/

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to musteryou Cancel reply