charlie hebdoSorry, maybe you are sensitive on this but my Ivy friends have some stories to tell of how privilege, i.e., an elitism based on prep schools, family and wealth, was very evident in the 1960s, not only at Yale and less so at Harvard, but also at Princeton, mirabile dictu!!
I'm sure it was, and I'd suspect it was worse in the Fifties than in the Sixties. I can only say that my experience (which brackets those decades) was different when it came to actual 'elite' families with actual wealth at Princeton. Arrogance as far as I could tell was an institutional part of the Yale experience, and a sort of expected privilege at Harvard, but it never terribly bothered me as I concentrated on how things got done rather than who prepped where or roomed with whom there, and it was surprising how the origins disappeared once the minds got to work.
For pure snobbery it was hard to beat Columbia, but that was in the post-Baird Jones collapse of young New York 'society,' when it ceased to matter, if it ever did, whose families were in or out of the Social Register. (It remains interesting to me that, in the whole decade of the Eighties that I was studying at SIA as a foreign-policy wonk, neither I, nor any of my friends, nor any of my professors remembers ever having seen or heard of Barack Hussein Obama. And I knew Michelle Robinson when she was at Princeton...)
Shrub does seem a pretty sad example as a thinking man, but one does have to wonder how he went on to secure an MBA if he were that worthless intellectually, and so well connected with the New World Order types that he needed no skillz to succeed.
charlie hebdo The British blockade (which lasted into 1919) caused mass starvation and deaths in the German civilian population (524000 to 783000). The military lost 1.8 to 2 million. Remember, Remarque's great novel was anti-war, so may not tell the tale accurately of back home. Also the myth "Dolchstoßlegende" that the war was lost because of the home populace, socialists and Jews, not the collapse of the military, was a favorite theme of rightist and militarists postwar.
The British blockade (which lasted into 1919) caused mass starvation and deaths in the German civilian population (524000 to 783000). The military lost 1.8 to 2 million. Remember, Remarque's great novel was anti-war, so may not tell the tale accurately of back home. Also the myth "Dolchstoßlegende" that the war was lost because of the home populace, socialists and Jews, not the collapse of the military, was a favorite theme of rightist and militarists postwar.
Remarque was really more interested in telling the story of the Frontsoldaten, more so than the story of the home front, the life at the front is what he knew best after all.
But you are correct, the British blockade of Germany was brutally effective and a direct cause, among others, of the collapse of the German effort. While the country folk weren't really affected by starvation the cities certainly were, and that's where the unrest really took hold.
As far as the myth of the "stab-in-the-back," there was a study done by the German Army after the defeat as to "what went wrong." While recognizing the fact of the societal collapse the study didn't blame it, the German Army knew damn well why they lost. But, they didn't do much of anything to put the "stab-in-the-back" myth to rest, preferring people to think otherwise.
Getting way off topic here, the devastating effect of the British blockade is one of the reasons the Nazi government pursued the principle of "autarchy," or total national self-sufficiency of food and raw materials (as much as possible) as a preparation for the next war, when and if it occurred. Imperial Germany wasn't prepared for a long war and paid the ultimate price. They came close to winning anyway, but as the saying goes "Close only counts in horsehoes and hand grenades!"
Overmod, wasn't really a "red herring".
I was mildly offended when the suggestion was first made that wealth and privilige might have been a factor....but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it just as well could have been......so who is to really say one way or the other?
Certainly the opportunity is there.
Convicted OneOvermod, wasn't really a "red herring".
I'm not really intending to single you out for criticism.
My real complaint is that we have a story about a father caring enough to 'send the very best' for his kids, attending one of the premier Ivy League institutions, and the argument rapidly devolves into 'kids with that kind of advantage have to be spoiled and lazy children of privilege'.
As you point out, we don't know, and that was my point as well. However, the problem in not 'really saying one way or the other' is that in doing so we commit precisely the kind of prejudice that would be cause for a Kalmbach ban if it involved 'certain tripwire social groups' and their associated stereotypical grounds for "criticism". The father is rich and loaded, and whether he sent the car out of 'caring for home life' or to show off his wealth and capability, I of course don't know. The thing is that it remains a question, not an opportunity to render judgment ... and to then apply it to the kids as recipients makes me wonder if it's more sour grapes than seeking a sense of social justice.
I confess I'm now interested in finding out who this was, and what the kids actually did in and after Yale. This is very much still in the Varmint/Stover at Yale years, so we have a little theoretical background (however fiddled for literary purposes) to work with.
I confess I'm now interested in finding out who this was, and what the kids actually did in and after Yale. I think this was very much still in the Varmint/Stover at Yale years, so we have a little theoretical background (however fiddled for literary purposes) to work with.
Overmod I confess I'm now interested in finding out who this was, and what the kids actually did in and after Yale. This is very much still in the Varmint/Stover at Yale years, so we have a little theoretical background (however fiddled for literary purposes) to work with.
Well, well, well, and guess how this turns out! And I thought 'do you live in the Blast Zone' had an ironic source twist...
It's on p.359.
The father was Louis Hill, and if that name rings a railroad bell, yes, it's the Great Northern Hills.
Beebe said it was a business car, not a 'private car' -- not that there's necessarily a difference in luxury, but it wasn't idle rich privilege...
He had not two, but three sons there at various times, and apparently didn't miss a year that any one of them was there to send the car for Thanksgiving.
Now someone can follow up on the three Hill scions at Yale and see how they did ... Louis Warren Hill, Jr.; James Jerome Hill II (he went by Jerome, not 'Jim', btw.); and Cortlandt Taylor Hill. (Incidentally, for those watching Beebe's hijinks at Yale, the Thanksgiving dinners ran from the early to late 1920s ... Louis was born 1902 and Cortlandt, the latest, 1906 ... so he was there firsthand for the first couple; I wonder if he might have been invited...)
As far as I can tell, all three went to St. Paul's, then Exeter, if that's an important detail.
I'm sure everyone will have an opinion about this PDF and the details it contains.
I might note that Jerome won an Oscar in 1957 for a documentary on Albert Schweitzer, which, what do you know, you can watch here.
Now this is what I call fine research!
Overmod It's on p.359.
Tack så mycket.
I was quickly looking through the book last night, and overlooked that paragraph. The eldest Hill was known for being careful with his money and the GN business cars were not extravagant.
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