Article by Roger L. Simon in "PJMedia":
I attended two Ivy League
schools (Dartmouth and Yale) some time ago, roughly the Early
Paleolithic Age, and, best as I can remember, sort of liked them. But
lately I'm beginning to think the whole elite school thing has turned
into one big shuck, maybe it even was then—and not just because
of the revelations of all the cheating surrounding admissions or that
the institutions apparently discriminate against Asians as they did
against Jews back in the day.
No,
it's more basic than that. These formerly august institutions have
morphed into kindergartens for jejune, virtue-signaling wannabe Trotskys
and Rosa Luxemburgs (a.k.a. social justice warriors) who can't even let
us watch a farshtunkene football game in peace.
In the middle of this year's Harvard-Yale game, the great activistes spewed out onto the field to demand, what else, action on climate change—delaying the game for over an hour.
But all these Ivy League smarty-pants couldn't come up with a slogan more original than "Hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go.”
Who'd they learn that from, their grandparents? Decades ago, during Vietnam, it was "Hey hey, ho ho, LBJ has got to go."
And
he did. Of course, if fossil fuels went, we'd all freeze to death, but
never mind. It's the thought that counts—assuming there really is some
thought involved in these climate protests, which I doubt, even and
especially those held by Harvard and Yale students and alumni at
sporting events.
It's all
rote, a pseudo-religion—and maybe a good way to meet a partner of the
opposite or same sex, depending on your preference. That's the way it
was during Vietnam too. (Mea very culpa!)
(It
would be interesting to know how much litter was left on the field by
these environmentalists. The Women's March immediately after Trump's
election was notorious for leaving a giant mess.)
Of course that this was Harvard versus Yale—THE game as it is referred to, along with Army-Navy—meant it got plenty of national attention, as was no doubt intended.
But
the larger question is: why is there still an Ivy League? What's so
special about these particular colleges? Texas A&M certainly has a
better football team and you can learn how to farm.
We
live in an era when many of us are getting fed up with elites (unless,
of course, they are former ambassadors to Ukraine, in which case they
are sacrosanct). Nevertheless, we still live in a country where people
are supposed to be impressed if you went to Harvard or Yale, as did so
many of our most distinguished leaders... like Hunter Biden. It should
be remembered that Harvard's most famous and successful graduate of
recent times—Bill Gates—quit. Possibly the greatest American writer of
the Twentieth Century—F. Scott Fitzgerald—was thrown out of Princeton.
(If you prefer Hemingway, he never went to college.)
Maybe
the Ivy League isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Maybe it's an
elitist habit we should all kick. Think of the benefits. You won't feel
bad if you didn't get in and you won't have to abide self-important
eco-blowhards interrupting a football game. You'd still have to deal
with Colin Kaepernick, but at least it's an improvement.
But
the man who really understood the Harvard-Yale game, when it was just a
contest and not a lecture, was, needless to say, the great Harvard
mathematician/songwriter Tom Lehrer. Take it away...
