Greg Dennis
P.S. One other thing I remember is that based largely on New Faces, a group of guys in our class created the TBG's designation – "Those Beautiful Girls." Of course all those girls were preppies.
I liked your post. You were obviously way of head of me freshman year. I was so stupid that I didn't even realize all the advantages those preppies had.
I never did figure out that I could ask for an extension.
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Sounds like resentment to me. You seem to have learned a lot from the preps that helped you through life. However, due to the fact that they came from money, and you didn't, you harbor resentment towards them for being better equipped financially, mentally, and emotionally, in your opinion.
I am one of those preps who enjoyed all that that upbringing has to offer. Went to boarding school and gained from the experience. That carried on through college. Then into "the real world".
Yes, we are "skittish" to outsiders. We don't offer up looks into our home life like some reality celebrity looking for constant validation. We don't seek it out in the general public. We don't need to do that. We already have it in the circles that matter to where we want to go in life. And you resent those who have what you so desperately would love to have had as well.
So out of resentment and jealousy, you cast judgement on someone because he is a "prep" and grew up in a more affluent household than yours, with more opportunities afforded to him than you, seemingly.
Weak people blame others for their shortcomings in life. Weak people harbor general opinion on people based on their general background. Bigotry.
Sean Dookie
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Dude, you nailed that one.
I sent my kids to private school, it's a long story and a boring one. But one of them went to a Long Island Gold Coast school with many waspy families.
There was definitely a sense of estrangement from the hoi polloi and a sense of entitlement they exhibited when I would get together with them at certain functions. I always felt like an outsider. Because I was.
I didn't really care that much, but they do indeed live in a rarefied atmosphere.
Rik Shafer
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Well said, Bob. If you think it's bad in the US, you should try dealing with the Public (private) schoolboys that run (ruin) this country as if by Divine Right.
Best
Adam Blake
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The US prep school system is largely predicated on the UK prep and 'public' (ie private as opposed to State) school system, which is about maintaining (and defending) privilege.
I am a product thereof. And you are dead right, spot on.
Simon Bailey
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Idiotstick!!
Matt Alan
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BULLSEYE!!!
DOUG COLLETTE
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As an aside to your remarks re: prep school: My parents sent me to New Hampton School in New Hampton NH. Today it's coed, back then it was 250 boys basically imprisoned in a valley in the middle of nowhere. Apart from bussing some girls in from nearby St Mary's School for occasional Saturday night dances, there was absolutely no contact with the opposite sex. The lack of females produced "entitled" graduates whose social development had been severely retarded. No clue how to behave in mixed company. A trainload of boneheads starting from scratch at 18.
lanningpaul
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Bob - love your stuff but not buying it on this one; its one sweeping generalization and it's too easy.
This same type of argument has been made about Jewish people for example and the tribe for a long time; which says "you're a club and you're all the same".
Either way - I don't buy it. In life some are and some are not, and a lot in between.
Edward COLE
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There is no evidence to support her claims and no crime report. No dice. He will be confirmed.
Chris M.
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To follow this flawed logic suggest we should not consider any of the graduates of these institutions to government positions. It also suggest that all people that are born in a certain part of Chicago or LA will end up in prison.
John M. Foley
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I did four years by the beach in Newport Rhode Island at a now rather infamous prep school. You know of what you speak regarding quiet rule bending and always follow the legacy kids , they are really entitled .A few of my classmates in 1974 went to Middlebury. I always thought a small private college was like four more years of the same , I went to a state university to get some perspective, glad I did .
Gerry
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This is a very big generalization of all "prep school" kids which I find very wrong. You don't mention the prep school kids that are on tuition and learn all of the negative things below about the entitled group they are a part of and work hard to change it. Or the wealthy prep school kid who also recognizes the negatives you describe below and use their resources to bring awareness to his community and bring his community closer to the rest of the country. Yes there are more negatives than positives but I think such a generalization from you gots against what you normally preach in your attempt to go after Kavanaugh. I personally think Kavanaugh did it, but I don't think it's a prep school vs non prep school problem.
Jason Roth
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Went to Georgetown in the 80s from a decent academic school on Staten Island, and yet, the culture shock of the entitled prep school kids was severe. I was white. I was an athlete. I was male. And I wasn't poor by any stretch. And yet. Everything you say, 100% true.
Neil Donahue
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Always enjoying your writing. I went to an all boys prep school on the west coast a generation before Kavanaugh. We preppies like to think of our old school as the west coast Exeter. I came from a small, middle class Southern California town in North San Diego County. I knew nothing about privilege or money when I was abruptly sent away to boarding school, but boy I sure did by the time I graduated. Those to the manor born were indeed the most cruel, entitled and knowledgeable. I was so naive and at a social and economic disadvantage. Some great friendships made there, but good lord I learned to be careful.
Good lord.
William Kevin Anderson
Anderson Scores, Inc.
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hi bob,
to paraphrase president jimmy carter:
in america, there are the protected and the unprotected.
marvin etzioni
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No question about what you say. My story? Living in Georgetown, I transferred to Sidwell Friends in Washington D.C. to attend high school. The question of wealth was really not the whole story. In D.C. it always has been and remains, about power My best friend and neighbor at the time was Larry O'Brien Jr. who went to Georgtown Prep. Larry Sr. was JFK's chief of staff and he arranged summer intern jobs for both of us after our freshman year. His father being of the old Boston Irish mold made a teachable moment out of it by making sure he was assigned to the Dept. of Interior, ugh... I got the mailroom at the White House (bingo, some great stories there). But at school, I was an outsider. Most of the kids had been together since kindergarten. They were the offspring of cabinet members, senators, agency directors etc. Trisha Nixon was 3 mos. younger than me and I graduated in '63, but she didn't graduate until '68 (at 22?), she was notoriously dense but that's ridiculous. I guess when your Dad is running for president, entitlement is the name of the game. My step father was a lowly chief of psychiatric research at NIMH (he took acid with Tim Leary at a military base when the army was still looking at how it might be weaponized) so I certainly didn't fit the profile.
It was a different time and so the issue of privilege, for us, did not extend to breaking the rules. A handful of couples had sex and that was a huge deal for a private Quaker school. But by age 16 most kids were driving to school in Corvettes and big convertibles. Our family had just the one car, a VW micro bus. Still, the point remains that even though some of us had to work harder there was no question about who got a pass and why. As most of these kids knew from birth and the rest of us learned with time, opportunity is about privilege and who you know. There are no limits to entitlement and it is disturbing but totally realistic to assume that over the decades that followed, this milieu became unquestionably capable of hideous behavior. Even my alma mater had a scandal of sexual assault just before the Obama girls began attending.
Given Kavanaugh's age, that pretty much puts him a ground zero...that moment when the guilded young of the elite began to feel that the rules no longer applied to them. They could do whatever they felt like doing, with impunity. Georgetown Prep, much like Harvard-Westlake in L.A., was notorious even then.
John Brodey
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I am 71 and a product of the prep school system, West Coast version, which is less WASPy than the East Coast but otherwise similar. I went to Town School in San Francisco, where plenty of my classmates went to Groton and St. Paul's, Lowell High, which might as well have been a private school, and San Rafael Military Academy, a prep school with rifles.
Put a bunch of teenage boys together with minimal adult supervision and not only are they beastly to outsiders like girls, they're beastly to each other. These behaviors were, I believe, milder in the 50s and early 60s but they were there in spades. We drank, smoked, and tried to get over on girls whenever we could. All boy schools amplify this sort of thing because there's only positive reinforcement, and you can't control anything with positive feedback. The adults aren't around enough to stop these behaviors.
Fortunately I took a left turn after high school and went into the rock and roll world but plenty of my classmates, most in fact, stayed on the privilege track and so did their children and grand children.
And Brett Kavanough is the result.
Phil Brown
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Thanks Bob.Growing up in Fairfield county is a little different than elsewhere.It's hard for some people to understand.You can think that you're doing well in business or life,then you find out who is REALLY doing well.Hope you're doing REALLY well.Have a great day,Ted Keane
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This might be the dumbest post you have ever published. And that's saying something.
Charlie Gaylord
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Hi Bob
100% correct. Virginia Episcopal School class of '85.
Dave Richards
14 Hits
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I went to Campbell Hall. Place was a sh*thole of right wing indoctrination -
Michael Olsen
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Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Wow
Maybe the funniest delusion yet
AJP
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Wow. You lost me on this one, Bob.
So every white person is racist? And every German hates Jews?
I don't know about Kavanaugh... but I think you're making some pretty big assumptions.
Caroline Lindsey
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"They were much better read than us?" Come on, Bob. You surely know it's "they were much better read than we (were.)" Us receives the action, we performs the action.
I'll tell you one thing, though. It's the people you meet getting KICKED OUT OF prep school that are the most fun. The dealer in the city who sells you your pot, the tough kids in your neighborhood that suddenly think you could be worth something after all, the girls who are suddenly interested in you, where they weren't before. "Wait, he's from a good family AND got kicked out of a private school?" Those were the relationships that taught me the most, not the Hunts, Hartfords and Gettys I left behind in the private school. When I was sent off to a private boarding school, I thought the rich kids ( I was on an arts scholarship) would be so boring. But it turned out they were hellions! They always had booze hidden somewhere, smoking cigs at every opportunity, got A's on term papers, thanks to Dexedrine. Taught me a so much in the way of chicanery and mischief. The only sad part was how unhappy some of them were. One very wealthy kid was visited on parents day by the chauffeur, since his Dad was too busy chasing ingenues in the city. Be that as it may, it isn't fair to paint all us private school kids with the same brush. Some of my schoolmates went on to do great good for those who had less than they. People change between being a freshman in high school and being an adult, and that fact looms largely in the issues surrounding us this week.
Hey, did you read the ink I got in the NY Times?
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/nyregion/summer-in-the-city-lovin-spoonful-soundtrack-for-city-summer.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront
Not all of us were narcissistic nutjobs, Bob.
Best,
Mark Sebastian
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Couldn't agree more Bob,
It was a big part of my thinking as a kid when I turned down a sports scholarship to a prestigious college back east, same one our dear leader went to...
I had contact w that world thru sports and the shocker to me back then was the rampant cheating. All of them. Like a pack. Defended and cheated for each other. It was impossible to beat them one on one as the other members of their team had to judge while not competing.
It was crushing as a kid from brooklyn to go up against ivy leaguers and maybe win on talent but loose over and over on lack of connections... Your 100% right it truly does exist. That's how you get Wall Street, all these criminals went to our best colleges, what made so many of them feel above the law?? You describe it perfectly.
For me,
It Didn't make me want to join at all. It's what I went into the arts, my true love.
But those people.
Same ones I bartender to in downtown NYC in the 80's when they came out slumming after days of insider trading on wall st.
Fucking Gross.
Frat boys.
Sorry all you frat alumni, But nuff said.
David Sardy
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Bob,
Wow, I usually agree with you, but for you to accuse and convict an entire group of people is antithetical and below your usual standards of intelligence. Just because kids (KIDS! teenagers!) are sent to preparatory schools does not indicate that they will develop criminal behavior.
I was sent to a high school prep which now costs about $40,000 per year. I am in my late fifties. Of everybody who attended with me, the vast majority are plugging along just as everyone else working towards retirement. Most went to college. A couple became doctors, a couple became lawyers, a few earned MBAs or other post-graduate degrees, a few became teachers or public servants. Some become drug addicts. In short, my classmates became the entire gamut of "average" Americans. In fact, my classmates represent America equally to what my children and their classmates have aspired towards. The only thing most preppies have over many public school kids is that they know that they might not have to save for retirement, that at some point they will inherit some money from their folks.
So for you to disparage and accuse an entire class of people based on where they went to school simply demonstrates your biases, prejudices and inflexible mind.
And IMHO for the vast majority of kids, prep school is an immense waste of money...as is undergraduate degrees in non hard science majors. But as parents we want to give our kids the "best" and opportunities to find their own path/love in life.
Matt Grandi
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Public High School in the city to "top of the heap" exclusive private college in the mid 80's...
Excitedly thinking my mind would be culturally expanded, only to find that the kids I'm now surrounded by from the Prep schools I'd always revered were typically entitled myopic no nothing racist dipshits. Worst part was a decent percentage of the profs & admin were simply just older versions. Yes, it was "baked in" and mind numbingly depressing.
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"Because they believe that whatever happens, you deserve it, wether it's being born into wealth or getting raped. But then again women are never raped unless it's been done by someone from a lower class, when the wealthy are slumming the women are asking for it. Because first and foremost they really do think that they are better than everyone else, no matter what people say about our classless society."
What bothers me the most is that the founding fathers attempted to eliminate this economic royalty using things like the estate tax so some idiot son would have to make it on his own merit and not the millions amassed by his parents and grandparents, and they wrote much more about this than guns. Keep up the good work, regards Chris
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Hmmm, sounds like I'm hearing my own experiences! Right on!
Edward Kaplan
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I went to a relatively new school in Washington state during my middle and high school years. It was all boys then and the kids were almost all from some of the wealthiest families in the area. There were 27 in my graduating class of '68.
Your descriptions of how wealth and privlage put you in a different universe is spot on.
I came from a middle class family that struggled to pay my tuition every year. I worked summers starting when I was 13 to help pay my way.
I never fit in with my classmates. I was seen as an outsider, which I was. I never did the vacations in Hawaii or Christmas in Vail. We couldn't afford it.
Being an outsider gives you a chance to observe how the elite lived. Can I imagine a kid like Kavenaugh doing what he's been accused of? Absolutely. Of course it needs to be proven but to say flat out that he wasn't capable of such behavior? Hardly. That's why I always thought of my classmates as the untouchables. Wealth, power and status changes everything, especially when you are a white teenage boy in America.
Burke Long
You got the vibe right. (I once heard it described as "superiority that is assumed but never expressed.") But you're maybe a bit too broad brush.
I went to Bowdoin — Same thing as Middlebury, only it's Maine. — and was part of the 45% you describe. I admit to being fairly skilled at securing extensions on term papers but don't recall ever ripping off the Pepsi machine. The truth is that most prep school kids don't end up at Middlebury or Dartmouth. And some prep schools are highly supervised places.
Another thing: the really, really smart kids at the Ivies (and the Middleburys) are usually the public school kids. For sure, the "St. Grottlesex" kids are smart, but to your point, they've also been "prepped" on how to appear so.
There is a self-reliance thing that happens at prep school. For example, you learn how to get another day out of a shirt. You learn how to put a meal together from a Kwik Mart. You learn how to function without Mommy on the scene. (And Mommy could sure stand to back off a bit these days.)
And all this self-reliance contributes mightily to a subject near and dear to the hearts of all Lefsetz readers: Rock & Roll. While prep school alums account for only a mili-fraction of 1% of all high school graduates, here's a short list of those who have more than made their marks: James Taylor, Joe Perry, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Huey Lewis, Bob Weir, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Natalie Cole, Adam Durwitz, Rufus Wainwright, Duncan Sheik, Trey Anastasio, Tom Rush, Tracy Chapman, David Crosby, Will Sheff, Townes Van Zandt, and on.
Now some of those folks will deny or assign their prep school experience no value in their success. Even better.
Onward, Malcolm Gauld
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Hi Bob, another spot on column. I went to La Jolla High school in 60-62. It was a public school but drew kids from some of the wealthiest families in the country. In 1958 some magazine reported La Jolla had by far the most millionaires by population in the country, 158. After every Christmas vacation the campus parking lot where students parked would reveal new corvettes, and other sports cars the rich kids got as Christmas presents. But unlike the east coast you write about so knowingly, La Jolla High in hindsight was surprisingly egalitarian socially. The campus was walking distance from one of the best surfing beaches in the world, Windansea. The beach culture,good surfers, and good athletes and good looking kids ruled the school, and money was secondary. Many of La Jolla's middle class alumni went from cheerleaders to the movies, Raquel (Tejada) Welch, Robin Wright, and two beauties from my time, Sally Vining and Linda Opie were dancing in bikinis in all the Beach Party movies. An old high school friend of mine who transfered to La Jolla High, described his previous , pricey , prep school as "a bunch of crumbs held together by their dough". alan segal san diego
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The child sex ring run by priests and cops in Baltimore, noted in The Keepers, had elite "customers." Entitled prepies for sure. That's why the FBI won't release over 4000 pages of investigative material from the 1970's. That cover up included the murder of at least four women, still unsolved to this day. Look at who the mayor of Baltimore was and his relation to Congress. Still in power all these years. Yes. They keep their secrets. Recall the $40 million secret fund to pay off accusers who where victims of Congressmen. Imagine the measures back in the 70's.
So, where is the outrage for the sake of a hundred violated high school girls from the 70'?
J Kauchick
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Bob, You really need to get over the "prep school" ( Ivy League as well) is an edge to opportunity notion. While being "connected" by adolescence may seem critical to career path success, there are millions of exceptions and plenty of successful "commoners" who didn't need any introductions to the upward mobility class. It's really an "east coast" thing.
The key to success is not " who you know", it's "what you are willing to do" (what effort to grow in experience and competence) that makes the difference in outcomes. Are you curious? Are you able to assess the playing field of opportunity? Do you have grit?
I too, attended a college occupied by a large segment of east coast preppies. They were clearly different than me, and while initially " attractive " because of their apparent confidence, it didn't take long to see through it and realize that the lack of parental love and attention had left a deficit in character and commitment to quality friendships. In my adult life, no preppie played any role in my upward trajectory. Same goes for the fraternity guys; no meaningful outcomes in my life have come from seeking membership in any group or club. If anything, I am delighted in being an "outsider" and watching in mild pleasure as many of these folks agonize over decisions that are impacted by the forces of " what others will think" vs. what's really good for me my well being. Don't waste you time and emotions on "envy", these folks got nothing to covet.
Thomas Geimer
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Not surprised to read that you stand on the side that concludes that an allegation from a woman - even one sorely lacking evidence - is enough to ruin a man. It matters not that he is a nominee for the Supreme Court. It could be any man.
Far leftists are redefining the proof of guilt standard so that now, it merely requires a woman to make an allegation and the man must be deemed guilty (and those not willing to accept this guilt premise face harsh punishment professionally and personally).
Everyday I believe more and more that we are doomed as a country as far left politics and conservative values (which do not include abuse of women or of ANYone for that matter) will never be reconciled.
Bob, I wish you would stick to music where you truly excel.
Politics put you at odds with huge numbers of people who are not connected to the Hollywood scene.
Ray Valencia
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Bob, that is just a bullshit ignorant POS statement. Everybody does not know that. Bad actors come from all walks of life. I went to a private Quaker all boys (at that time) prep school in Philly. William Penn Charter, one of the oldest in the country. We drank, and we partied, but we respected women more than my public school friends.
Senior, year I had an English teacher, Edward Shakespeare. You can google his obit. He was the best teacher of all the teachers I had from K through college.
If any of Ted's students ever submitted a paper starting with an "Everybody knows" in the context you chose to lead with here, there would be a big red F on the top of page one.
Our headmaster, Dr. John F. Gummere, wrote the Latin books used by every school in America where Latin was taught at the time. This man got Penn Charter grads into the finest colleges in the country in huge numbers. None in my class, the class before me or after we're ever guided to even apply apply to Middlebury. Your alma mater is nothing more than a Colby or Bowdoin...with a ski hill.
I went to school in New England too, know a lot of alums from many schools in the region. Trust me, I know Middlebury has turned out too many heads up their ass low self esteem under-achievers who loved to ski first and barely focus on academics.
Your writing skills and conventions suck in a most unsophisticated and unprofessional way.
Regards,
Charlie Williams
Deerfield, Illinois
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This is where we intersect. I come from the non prep school world. Shit, I didn't make it out of college. But I know who those people are, the prep school world, it's all about the relationship and the connection. For me, it was always about the work. And that's how It should be, about the work.
Nice post,
fritzdoddy
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You should take this one back. Says more about Lefsetz than prep schoolers.
Jim Edmonston
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Excellent assessment. The converted, to whom you preach (eg, me) will
certainly get it. I fear that the rest are just fodder for the machine.
You try to fit in, assuming that in order to exercise power you have to
gain the respect of those who already have it, and sooner or later you
realize that you are the source of their social power, and at the
donor/mover/shaker level the social power is what drives everything
else. But you're not driving the bus.
When I finally figured this out, I decided to never run for office,
resign from the country club, and simply enjoy life.
Best,
Darryl Mattison
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This is F'n ridiculous. My god, you categorize millions of prep school graduates into a generalization, in order to take a veiled swipe at Kavanaugh?
C'mon, you're better than that. I view the preparers as your target audience for god sake. And no, I'm not one myself.
Greg Badger
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Dear Bob –
I'm so overwhelmed with anger right now. I'm so disgusted by the membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Republican party. They are completely tone deaf to the national dialogue about #metoo and the years of abuse every woman who has ever been: a student; a laborer; to a garage to get their car fixed; to a bar to order a drink; ever tried to practice law or exercise a modicum of agency has endured since the beginning of time.
I know, somewhere deep in my heart, that not all men are privileged pigs. But right now, the leadership of our country screams out a different reality. Right now, our country is led by an outspoken misogynist and habitual sexual offender. And the open seat on the Supreme court is being offered to a man who repeatedly abused women. And you're right; maybe he doesn't even understand, maybe it doesn't even register that the way he treated women at a party was harmful. Because he was never called to account for his behavior during his formative years.
So every woman who has been subjected to this type of treatment MUST exercise their voice and call their Senator's office. The Senate is the judge and jury of this man's appointment. An appointment for life where he will not be held democratically accountable. And, as you know, I preach to my students that we are not helpless or tied to the whipping post or without agency. That we, collectively, have the power to change the power dynamics in Washington. But I have to tell you, watching this body of OLD conservative white men, who were clearly raised to believe that women are inferior and as a function of their gender incapable of agency or action, I am so incensed that I am physically ill today.
IT IS UNCONSCIONABLE THAT KAVANAUGH IS STILL THE NOMINEE! IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SO DECREPID AND ILL-SUITED FOR GOVERNANCE THAT WHAT THEY OFFER UP FOR LEADERSHIP IS TRUMP AND KAVANAUGH? ARE THERE NO OTHER ALTERNATIVES? DISGUSTING AND DISAPPOINTING.
Carrie Elizabeth Russell
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