One thing that I think might help in the discussion of the “shithole” controversy would be to consider its counterpart… the Shinola Hole.
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Shinola, as you know, was a shoe polish until 1960. Not leather. Not rubber. Stuff to make dirty shoes look clean. Dressing. preservative in a sense, sure, but mostly to make things look better. Now? It is a lifestyle brand peddling watches and other stuff. It’s based in Detroit. I guess locals work there. Good for them, I guess, but I don’t own any of their products. According to Wikipedia, the company bought the rights to the name, trading off the old “You don’t know shit from Shinola” jab. So again, the name itself is clever window dressing.
And that’s what these institutions are, and that culture is. Everybody knows that you don’t learn much more at Yale than you do at Community College. [Note: Sam M. is a Yale graduate. — RD] They don’t add a whole lot of value. They just take kids who are really smart in the first place, which allows them to signal their intelligence and work ethic. That’s the value. The downside is that the value of that signaling creates a culture of “merit” and weird striving which has, in many ways overtaken our culture’s ambition.
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