Surrounded by "hypocritical lying weasels"

From Walter Russell Mead at his blog:


"...the college admission process is hard.  It’s particularly hard on a lot of young Americans because the college admissions process is the event that demonstrates how much they are surrounded by hypocritical lying weasels.

I am, of course, referring to teachers and parents. Ever since American kids can remember, they’ve been surrounded by a doting chorus of adults telling them how special, how wonderful, how talented they are. Life, they keep hearing, isn’t about competition. It is about sharing.

Then comes the college admissions derby, when many kids (especially those from the upper middle class families and schools where the self-esteem religion is most fervently practiced) discover that their parents and teachers don’t believe a word of all that tripe they’ve been dishing out all these years.

Life, these lying weasels now tell their kids, is incredibly competitive, and you’ve got to run faster and smarter than the other kids or you will end up humiliated, scorned and relegated to Podunk State Community College while your classmates go on to the Ivy League. And if you go to a bad college, you will end up in some lousy job living in a tiny house and your parents and teachers all think that is a terrible idea.

Grade inflation and self esteem chitchat fuzz the harsh edges of the real world, but then come SAT scores and the competition for college admissions and scholarships. It turns out that you don’t live in Lake Wobegone: a lot of kids are below average, and you just might be one of them...."


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Link: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/04/18/college-letters-fat-and-thin/