May 5, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:Okay, I confess: I went to prep school. There is nothing wrong with having gone to prep school; you get a really outstanding education, although unfortunately also some very funny ideas about wealth. I got rid of those (I would say), though I still bear the marks in other ways, of course: for example, I have had the same haircut since approximately 10th grade, and yes, at camp I sported a goofy animal nickname that even now occasionally comes up in emails.
But as I say, there is nothing wrong with having graduated from one of our nation's elite secondary educational institutions. Some of my best friends went to prep school.
Nonetheless, I find the notion of wanting to hang out with other people because they went to prep school pretty extraordinary. I can't say I've noticed that people who went to private school were any more interesting or charming than those who went to public school; in fact, I find the borg-like sameness of places like Nantucket, where everyone is not only white and fit, but also buys their clothes and haircuts from the same three vendors, pretty oppressive. Okay, so I went to Dorian's after college. But just a couple of times to look and ogle the way our former football hero was already losing his hair. And at least we had the excuse that, when I was in high school, Dorian's was a high school bar*, and the people I knew were flocking to a familiar watering hole. (I presume it is now packed with screaming toddlers for Sunday brunch).
There is no excuse whatsoever for this.
* Does such a thing exist any more?
Dorian's?
Is that the sports bar in Manhattan where Preppie Killer Robert Chambers left with Jennifer Levin in August 1986?
It's all about marriage. I hung out part of the time in that kind of circle in Atlanta in the early 80s (Southern debbish version - substitute McCallie and Westminster and Girls Preparatory School and Sewanee and UVa and Tulane for the schools metioned in that story and the flavor is pretty similar). Lots of them did marry each other. Handy if that's what you're looking for - prescreened mating material in an uncertain city.
As the saying goes, don't marry rich, hang out with rich people and fall in love.
What kind of ideas about wealth did it impart, (if temporarily)?
Ben: "Don't marry for MONEY..."
To the larger point, this is just a venue for new grads to hang out with like minded folk, like going for drinks at the Harvard Club for a slightly older set. Fairly similar set up at the better clubs in Manhattan, just that this place doesn't seem quite as focused on selling $500 bottles of liquor.
It all depends on what you like. If you still enjoy sailing and spending time at the Yacht Club or the Country Club, then its great. If you decide that you don't want to spend more time with those people, then it's idiotic.
Despite my reading and blogging habits, the self-righteous left wing policy analysts that you get along with set me on edge and quickly wear on me, while I thoroughly enjoy a few hours on the porch of the club, after-regatta drinks, or getting some neighbours together at the cottage. It works really well as a marriage market at finding people who have a lot in common with you, a similar outlook, and you're likely to blend families and friends easily. Why hang out with bigotted media and policy people who neither understand nor respect your work or your family traditions? The author of this piece, and the audience presumed in the "Really?...Still?", is emblematic of the bigots that young professionals would like to avoid.
I'm laughing so much I almost wet my pants. Shit like this just can't be parodied.
Oh, I was supposed to take it seriously? Heh.
Dorrian's--yes, the preppy murder bar. Know the some of the family. Went to prep school myself, a small one in Maine, and don't hang out at any "prep school bar" in NYC likely because there are so few fellow alums that I am aware of in NYC. Also, I don't really like a lot of bars.
(Is Dorrian's still a high school bar? Well, I'm three years younger than Jane, I think, and when I went there it was definitely a high school bar, if you knew the people. And if you knew how to behave. Is it still? Was there for a burger last weekend and there were a bunch of young fillies there who looked barely legal. But then it was the afternoon, not prime drinking time.)
Who knows.
After reading the Saletan article you linked to below, I'm really concerned about the sexual horrors that the prep ethos encouraged by these bars and nightclubs will inevitably lead to.
Why do people feel it necessary to concern themselves or comment on social behavior that is legal, consensual and poses no first order externalities? Disappointing.
Why do people feel it necessary to concern themselves or comment on social behavior that is legal, consensual and poses no first order externalities?
What are you, a robot?
From another perspective, there was a time -- probably within living memory -- when people named "Martignetti" would never have had the chance to go to prep school. Best of luck to 'em -- the silly people.
--What are you, a robot?
Yes, a robot in a pink shirt, posting from the basement of Bar Martignetti.
This is an old, old, old story of self-selective, aspirational socialization. As is the reverse snobbery from the peer group here.
The more general point is: There is an infinity of human behavior to complain about. If you can't affect it, and it doesn't affect you, why bother thinking, writing, or complaining about it. Unless of course you have the poor judgment to be involved in the social sciences as a professional.
The more general point is: There is an infinity of human behavior to complain about. If you can't affect it, and it doesn't affect you, why bother thinking, writing, or complaining about it.
Because most people have neither time nor interest sufficient to consider and analyze the complete spectrum of human behaviors, and thus tend to particularly focus on those in which they have an interest.
Now for the irony:
If you can't affect it, and it doesn't affect you, why bother thinking, writing, or complaining about it.
So what you were just doing was...?
True, there's nothing wrong with having gone to prep school. All the same, I just won a bet with myself.
When I was at Exeter, there was certainly a higher density of 'preppiness' to be found, but the environment emphasized excellence rather than a set of cultural attitudes. But the self-conscious social attitudes of this scene is a pretty good screener for class background and wealth, if that's your thing.
the article's best line: "'But just because you went to Princeton doesn’t mean you’re a jerk.'”
High school bars pretty much disappeared with the advent of the 21-y.o. drinking age.
Hey... it's just people hanging out. There is nothing to be ashamed of, nor admired.
I hope they have fun. In the end, we all want some sense of community or connection. Sometimes it comes off elitist, sometimes not.
Fascinating replies. Since none of my respondents understood what I said, I'll say it more simply.
Calling sex between men marriage will not solve what is wrong with being homosexual. I've lived among gay men for 35 years in NYC and San Francisco.
Behind all this hubbub about gay marriage is the notion that the ills that affect gay men are the result of societal disapproval. This is nonsense. The society disapproval is the result of a wise acknowledgement of just how destructive it is to be engage in the behavior of gay men.
Marriage won't fix this. The innate moral and health problems of being gay will continue to exist.
And, while every heterosexual is certainly not an exemplar of virtue, the true purpose of sexuality is procreation.
The author of this weblog is clearly a fag hag. I've got nothing against fag hags. Fag hags are women who like to watch men having sex. As women so often do, the author is trying to construct a moral universe in which she is really acting on romantic, intellectual motives... instead of just wanting to get off. I've got nothing against men fucking each other in the ass.
It's not marriage. Calling it marriage won't make any difference in the destructiveness of gay men's lives. You've bought into an illusion. Homosexuality should simply be tolerated, but discouraged. You don't kill people for being self-destructive sinners, but you don't encourage them either.
(Start the ranting and raving. I know that you are too sophisticated to believe in sin.)
Shouting Thomas:
I'm going to forgo responding to what you said how much I disagree with it, to say but one thing...
Psst. Wrong thread, dude.
why is it that prep school grads never seem to get over high school?
Presumably you've all read 'The Preppie Handbook'?
It's all about social segmentation and 'sorting'.
The film 'Metropolitan' and its sequels ('Barcelona' and 'the Last Days of Disco') are brilliant satires of post-Princeton, New York life in the late 80s.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100142/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120728/
Our version of prep is called 'Sloane' (as in Sloane Square in Kensington) and includes connotations of Volvo-driving parents with Labrador Retrievers, country estates in the Cotswolds, being related to the Royals (at 4th hand) etc. Barber jackets, debutante balls, etc.
It also connotes not being too bright, or rather having a position in a bank or law firm that would not have gone to someone of your intellect, if your father weren't Lord-so-and-so or Major General such-and-such or your grandfather hadn't sat in Churchill's cabinet.
There is a pub in Fulham (a place frequented by young Sloans) called something like The Horse which is known as 'the Sloanie Pony'.
Out of curiousity, what's the proportion of prep schools that are boarding vs. day? And is it a prep school if it's owned and run by a church? Or is that in another category?
I went to (public) middle school with a boy who went off to Choate for high school. We all felt sorry for the poor boy since it seemed obvious to us that his parents didn't like him if they were willing to ship him off to New England.
Jane: some very funny ideas about wealth.
I'm curious what this means, would you be willing to expand on this point?
Maybe it's because I'm from the midwest, but I don't understand prep schools at all. Are parochial schools preps? Certainly all of the local suburban HSs near my hometown provided better educations than most of the private high schools, except for the pricey University School, natch. And the local newspaper only confuses things by calling *all* HS sports "Preps."
At any rate, does this article mean that I'll never find a sugar mama with my lousy public HS, Big Ten pedigree? Rats. I am post-docing at an Ivy, but I *earned* that, so it doesn't count.
Matt B - Parochial schools are not prep schools. The term prep school should technically refer to the 13 New England prep schools such as Andover, Phillips Exter or St. Pauls. It's not your local private high school.
At the risk being Jeff Foxworthy- If your high school sends more than half of its graduating class to the Ivy League, Little Three, Seven Sisters or Stanford, it is a prep school. May be boarding or day. Extra points if it shares colors with the colleege to which it has traditionally been a feeder. A feeder being a school that sends say fifteen or more from one graduating class to a particular institution.
remember, preview is your friend. colleege s/b college.
I have to disagree with dedalus275. The best line from the article was clearly: "You don't meet girls here you want to hook up with once," he said. "You meet girls here you want to hook up with multiple times."
Matt B
At a guess, a prep school in the USA could be affiliated with a 'mainline' Protestant church like the Episcopalians or the Methodists. This would certainly be true in the 'public' (ie private) school system in the UK.
(actually in the UK 'prep' school is what you go to before public school, public schools are high schools: big name public schools are Eton (about 1/3rd of all British Prime Ministers attended Eton), Winchester, Harrow (Winston Churchill alumnus), Westminster)
The expression 'preppy' is I think rather well known in the US, and was popularised by Lisa Bernbach's 'The Preppy Handbook' (about 1980) which is a fascinating insight into that world.
"funny ideas about wealth" Isn't that the definition of Libertarian?
"...looking for future husbands..."
You know, I'm watching Officer and a Gentleman right now. Great movie. It is a quarter of a century old as of today. And it appears, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
People want to couple. And they tend to want to couple with the most promising people they can find. This is part of human nature. And I'm sorry Megan, this is going to continue to happen no matter how much we try to bullsh*t ourselves believeing that it doesn't.
I went to a northeastern prep school. That was the first place I was indoctrinated in big government liberalism, so yes, they gave me some funny ideas about wealth that took me twenty years to realize were bunk.
Noblesse oblige can be so foolish.
the midwest is very different.
there's no real prep schools. yes, we have country day schools, but probably the best high schools are catholic or wealthy suburban public schools.
most midwesterners don't dream of attending ivy league schools.
"You meet girls here you want to hook up with multiple times."
Notice this is NOT marriage and commitment. In fact it has shades of Shouting Thomas's anti-gay rant...
Guys want sex; may be willing to give love (=commitment = marriage, usually = willing to have children & raise them). Women want the love, may be willing to hook up with sex (as love bait?).
But I wanted to note that some "merit based" or gifted only high schools might generate similar desires for reunions that colleges often do -- that IS the case in Slovakia. Where my wife is looking forward to her upcoming annual HS re-union from the math-gifted HS she went to.
The HS (in Slovakia) that our 11 year old son is now going to; our 10 year old will start next year. I confess to hoping they'll get accepted to Stanford to follow their dad; but that's still years away.
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