The Mandarin Moment

A brief reflection on the recent ruling by the US Supreme Court

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Scholar in His Study, 1634

In the last week of June of 2023, many made much of a recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court on the subject of race-based admissions to prestigious universities. Whether they saw the blow struck against affirmative action as a victory for champions of meritocracy or a sign of the imminent return of Simon Legree, these spillers of ink, electronic and otherwise, agreed that the decision was a matter of great importance. To be more precise, both Brahmins, who hold that matriculation at a famous school is an act of grace, and Mandarins, who see it is condign compensation for fun forgone and sleep unslept, concur that the right to purchase, for increasingly outrageous sums, four years’ worth of cramped quarters, institutional food, and viva voce readings of shop-worn lecture notes, belongs to the category of benefit.

Autodidacts know better. We realize that those who got into Harvard by way of undeserved gifts will, in all likelihood, remain dependent upon such presents for the rest of their lives. We also suspect that those who won places at Chapel Hill by serving as foot soldiers in the Bore War have done little more than advertise their ability to focus bleary eyes on meaningless facts and figures for long periods of time. In short, while the Drudges have won the most recent battle in their long war against the Drones, the contest continues to remind me of the old story of two bald scavengers fighting over a comb.