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Aug 26, 2021 34 tweets 16 min read Read on X
To exempt themselves from the demands of adulthood, children of the WASP elite claimed to have "neurasthenia," a "neurotic despair" with symptoms like insomnia, irritability, anxiety, fear of responsibility, lethargy, an inability to make decisions amzn.to/3Dm3Fjx ImageImageImageImage
Theodore Roosevelt suffered from neurasthenia as a young boy, "with the makings of a full-fledged neurotic." He ridiculed the softness of the upper class and overcame his fears by lifting heavy weights, boxing, rowing, mountain climbing, cowboying, and leading men into war Image
Women from rich WASP families were taught at colleges that they had undeserved privilege, and felt a "desperate wish" to atone and "do violence" to themselves to repent. They aimed to blend Christianity with Socialism & "delighted in the vast Russian experiment" in Communism ImageImageImageImage
J.P. Morgan, "the most powerful WASP in the U.S.," established clubs in which the old rich (who had prestige but lacked capital) & the new rich could intermingle

Lax WASPs favored the term "social prestige." High WASPs thought that term vulgar, preferring the term "reputation" ImageImageImageImage
Some upper WASPs believed moneymaking was "a hell to be endured in the hope that they might one day enter the public service." The choice between Wall St. & government was often determined by the person's aptitude and desire for specific kinds of power (eg political vs economic) Image
The rise of "cocktail parties." The rich drank on empty stomachs. Love affairs became respectable—"a great relief to WASP women who were famished sexually...The traditions of preppy endogamy obliged them to marry within their class...this severely restricted the choice of mates" ImageImage
Some WASPs ridiculed the loosening norms and the popularity of binge drinking and casual sex among the rich. John Maynard Keynes remarked that “We had the best of both worlds. We destroyed Christianity and yet had its benefits.” Image
In 1914, Woodrow Wilson proclaimed U.S. neutrality as Europe was engulfed in war

Many WASPs refused stand by. Graduates of Harvard and Groton served as fighter pilots in Europe before the U.S. later officially joined the war.

The elites were different back then ImageImage
WASPs believed in "the perfectibility of man" and wanted America to play the part of a good emperor, "promoting a stable world order through wisdom and virtue" ImageImage
T.S. Eliot was a WASP but grew up outside their circles. His detachment helped him diagnose their failures

"When Eliot, the transplanted New Englander, came to catalogue the weaknesses of his fellow WASPs, he exhibited them in a way no purely New England Brahmin could have done" Image
Contrasting what he saw on campus with the “debris of a city” he saw just beyond the gates of Harvard Yard, T.S. Eliot concluded that the WASP elites of his day weren’t up to the task of redeeming American culture Image
The WASP founder of The New Republic wrote about the "impossibility" of educating the masses. Members of the WASP elite spoke of "the bewildered herd," envisioning a class of experts and insiders who managed problems "to complicated for the mass of misinformed citizens to grasp" Image
WASP Ernest Hemingway battled the fear of neurasthenia by skipping college & getting a job as a junior reporter covering crime. At 18, he joined the Army in WWI, where he sustained severe wounds. Later, he described the work of Henry James as "snobbish, difficultly written shit" Image
"in autumn 1964 the first episode of Gilligan's Island aired, and in the character of Thurston Howell III the WASPs began their descent...Mid-Atlantic English—dropping the r's in words like 'fear' and 'Harvard'—became the dialect of a lock-jawed clown" amzn.to/3sJRat5 Image
American WASPs who studied abroad in Cambridge University discovered a vibrant socialist society at Trinity College, which was controlled by the USSR. Old Cambridge families developed ties with the Soviet Union, & recruited wealthy sons of American WASPs into the socialist cause ImageImageImage
Communists found WASP men who were "bourgeois in education, appearance, and origin" & trained them to infiltrate top institutions. One Soviet spy stated "the majority of Britain's most polished sons are pederasts," suggesting most affluent British men were interested in other men Image
Eleanor Roosevelt, born to socialite WASPs in New York City, was supportive of communism. In 1939 she said innovations of the Soviet Union were “a positive force in world affairs” and formed ties with U.S. communist organizations Image
After the Great Depression, “young idealists” from Harvard and other Ivies became enamored with communism. They flocked to Washington, D.C. in their quest to follow the example of the Soviet Union Image
The rise of standardized testing undermined the WASP establishment, and their monopoly on Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The SAT led to a fairer society and a more hyper-competitive, status-anxious elite ImageImage
Interesting that 2 men now considered iconic WASPs, George F. Kennan & F. Scott Fitzgerald, both felt like outsiders when they were around WASPs

Kennan resisted induction into their circles, but was later admired within them. Fitzgerald hustled for acceptance & died in obscurity Image
The conventional wisdom is that the 20th century WASP establishment pursued internationalist policies for power & profit. But just as important was that WASPs were generally uninterested in their own country beyond Manhattan & the northeast, preferring to meddle in other lands Image
The WASP elite viewed ordinary citizens as "yahoos" trapped in "moronic darkness."

WASPs viewed them with contempt:

"It is a question whether a high WASP ever supported a fashionable cause without some secret knowledge that the cause was abhorred by the vulgarians." Image
"WASPs were not, of course, in a conspiracy against America. They were, however, out of touch with it...WASPs never mastered the art which a viable elite must incessantly practice, that of hiding its contempt for those who seem to it vulgar." Image
JFK was another outsider who is now remembered as an emblem of the WASP establishment

Though from an Irish Catholic family, his father Old Joe Kennedy “had no doubt that the WASP ascendency was real; he wanted his boys to be first assimilated to it, and afterward to master it” ImageImage
"In the days before Viagra, aging WASPs took up gardening as a substitute for sex, deriving a vicarious pleasure from the orgies of pollen, the fertilizing stamens, the receptive pistils—the exuberant display of all that voluptuousness we ourselves are at pains to conceal." Image
WASPs argued for the value of a liberal arts education and donated a lot to humanities programs. But they failed. Today the liberal arts survive in diminished form because top colleges look at it as "a hoary heirloom you don't really need but can't bring yourself to put on eBay." Image
The author suggests that today, a liberal arts education might do more harm than good. Introducing curious young ppl to the works of Sophocles, Shakespeare, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching might lead them to lament a bygone era before the narrow culture of specialization Image
"the university (once faulted for being out of touch) has come to embrace every passing fad...the philosopher needs a rest from 'anything to do with today'...difficult to achieve in institutions that give philosophers every incentive to wallow in the commonplaces of the moment" Image
"the insecurity of elites in a democracy. Under a democratic regime a power establishment has hardly got its moat dug before its ascendancy is assailed by a new troop of moneyed barbarians...the patrician under egalitarian stars fears loss of caste and takes refuge in snobbery" Image
The author argues that despite the failures of the WASPS as a ruling class, they still cultivated a culture of "public service and sober patriotism" that ultimately triumphed over both National Socialism and Soviet totalitarianism in the 20th century Image
The manners, tact, and restraint that characterized WASP culture helped to "soften the fierceness of the country's politics." Politeness and "habits of civility" helped to unite the ruling class and cultivated collaboration across political lines. A different era. Image
Henry Adams, among others, thought "WASPs were spiritual traitors, snobs who exchanged a red-blooded connection to their country for an anemic Europeanism that left them, finally, in a moral no man's land." In contrast, T.S. Eliot praised WASPs for trying to be "good Europeans." Image
The WASP Louis Auchincloss: "I used to say to my father, 'Everything would be all right if only my class at Yale ran the country.' Well, they did run the country during the Vietnam War, and look what happened!"

The late 60s was more or less the end of the WASP power structure. Image
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More from @robkhenderson

Mar 6
3 interesting findings:

1. If you want a happy and long-term romance, pick a partner with high levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. These traits are associated with longer and happier marriages. Men and women high in conscientiousness tend to be more faithful.
2. Seventy years ago the psychologist Hans Eysenck found evidence that authoritarianism existed among left-wingers as well as right-wingers. He was ignored by both American and British intellectuals because, at the time, they greatly admired Joseph Stalin.
3. Machiavelli's reading routine: Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 6
3 interesting findings:

1. Unlike motherhood, which is relatively evenly distributed across the female status hierarchy, men with higher lifetime earnings, higher net worth, higher educational attainment, and higher leadership skills have more children over their lifetimes.
2. People under 25 are evenly split on the question of whether JK Rowling should be dropped by her publishers for her criticism of transgenderism, while nobody over 45 thinks she should be cancelled. These more illiberal generations will be the median voter by the 2040s.
3. Women are more likely to wear high heels if they anticipate interacting with an attractive male, and less likely if they anticipate interacting with an unattractive male. Desire predicts the inclination to wear high-heeled rather than low-heeled shoes.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 18
Three interesting findings:

1. While men are nearly 18 percent faster than women in 5K races, they are only 11 percent faster in marathons, 3.7 percent faster at 50 miles, roughly even as they approach 100 miles, and then women routinely outpace men at races 195 miles and up.
2. In a longitudinal study on happiness, the most reliable indicator of being happy and healthy at age 80 was relationship satisfaction, especially within marriages, which proved to be the strongest predictor of a fulfilling and healthy life.
3. Behaviors associated with high Openness on the Big 5:

•Eating something spicy for breakfast

•Lounging around the house with no clothes on

•Spending an hour at a time daydreaming

•Buying a book

•Swearing

•Reading poetry
Read 4 tweets
Sep 19, 2024
Some pieces of advice Machiavelli offers to rulers:

•Punishment should be delivered in a swift and brutal manner, while rewards should be dispersed in small amounts over time

🧵 1/
•Religion must be promoted regardless of how truthful it is, because it supplies social solidarity

2/
•When you confer benefits to the people, make sure to do so yourself. But let minions do the dirty work of inflicting punishments because then they, not you, will be blamed, and you can then gain the people’s favor by cutting off your minions’ heads

3/
Read 16 tweets
May 30, 2024
Fertility among college-educated women hasn't changed much since a generation ago. Fertility collapse is among poor women. In 1994, the average age of a first-time mother without a university degree was 20. Today, two-thirds of women without degrees in their 20s have no children. Image
A generation ago, a poor woman would have children with a man in the hope that this would lead to marriage and family. This seldom happened. Those children witnessed this failure, absorbed its lessons, grew up, and now are simply not having kids.
Read 4 tweets
May 20, 2024
Wrong. They're expensive. Takes yrs to cultivate an understanding of them; to keep up with them, to express them without error. Helps to be immersed in affluence from birth. This is why Bourdieu, Fussell, Fitzgerald etc wrote real mobility is something of a myth.
Saying defund the police in 2024 is like wearing Canada Goose in 2019. You reveal yourself as behind the fashion; a wannabe; an arriviste. Cringe. etc. Gotta be close to the source of the trends (typically elite institutions). Requires money, connections, cultural capital etc.
Luxury beliefs are expensive for the believer to acquire (money, connections, education, habitus, cultural capital, etc.) and costless to express.
Read 4 tweets

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