I'm assuming "He didn’t do it with a sense of humor... He did it, like, ‘I’m fucking rich'" refers only to the way he drove his Range Rover, but it might also relate to the previous sentence: "On a campus full of T-shirts and cargo shorts, he wore dress shirts and jeans from the then trendy label 7 for All Mankind."
I'm trying to think about what it might mean to wear a button-up shirt rather than a T-shirt and jeans rather than cargo shorts in a way that could be thought of as speaking to onlookers and possibly being funny but also possibly being assholian. I'm thinking the perception would be in the mind of the beholder, the unnamed classmate.
The same goes for driving an expensive car. What possesses you that you would decide that a person driving a car is doing it not with a sense of humor but as a way to say I'm fucking rich? And by you, I mean the you that got into Harvard, so you must be pretty smart, eh?
But I can understand letting your jealousy show when some fellow student has an expensive car. It's quite something else to take a guy to task for wearing blue jeans when other guys are wearing cargo shorts. Ooh, he he thinks he so great... cargo shorts not good enough for him.... he's wearing jeans! And what's a "dress shirt" — just something that buttons up the front and has a collar and cuffs? It's not as if he went to class dressed like the Monopoly Man.
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Also, "patrician" and "rich" are not synonyms.
The New Yorker ought to know better, but it is a sign of the times, perhaps, that they don't distinguish between these terms.
He drove a Range Rover around campus. “He didn’t do it with a sense of humor,” one classmate recalled. “He did it, like, ‘I’m fucking rich.’”
Distinctions not cost-effective.
It's okay to drive an expensive car, but it has to be driven ironically. See also Brooklyn.
Sounds like he'd fit right in with the racists up in Wisconsin.
A 2017 Range Rover costs less than one year's current tuition at Harvard.
Just so's y'all know, you don't just drive around Harvard campus. It's all over Cambridge, crosses streets and even the river, and you can't drive inside Harvard Yard, which is what most people think of here.
"He didn’t do it with a sense of humor... He did it, like, ‘I’m fucking rich.’"
The New Yorker writer heard him yelling "libtard!"
Some people are gifted with resting ironic sense of humor face and others with resting entitled rich asshole face.
I think the unnamed classmate is an anti-restingentitledrichassholeface-ite. That's what he is.
The blog software misfired and caused a duplicate of this post, which I've now deleted. 2 people commented there, so I'm copying them here:
eric said...
"I had a friend on Facebook this weekend why don't I just shut up about politics and run myself?
This is why. They don't just go after the candidate. They go after everyone. Your family. Your friends. Your past friends. School teachers from elementary school. Whatever they can do to tear you down.
Now maybe I'd do it if I were a billionaire. But I don't have the kind of money one would need to keep from being turned into the next Hitler. By the time my campaign was done, not only would I not be elected, I'd be despised like Sarah Palin. My wife would be a whore. And my children would all be banned from ever attending a university."
8/15/16, 5:14 PM
readering said...
" If I'm not mistaken, the weeks one can wear tee shirts and board shorts in a Cambridge, MA school year are relatively few. Was he wearing a hoodie or a monogrammed cardigan?"
I would be willing to bet that 80% of Harvard students come from families who could afford a Range Rover if they wanted one.
About two thirds of Harvard College students are on financial aid.
They charge too much and educate too little, but you don't get anywhere by spouting false narratives about the elite.
More to the point: Harvard should simply abolish tuition charges for all of its students. It has plenty of income to make this happen. No-tuition schooling for the top elite school would be a challenge that even Bernie Sanders could admire.
Or: eliminate the non-profit status of all private universities. Make 'em pay corporate taxes. That'd teach them a few economics lessons that they don't teach freshmen.
Next thing, they'll say that Jared Kushner put the family dog's cage on the roof of said Range Rover. Or that Trump wanted to "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."
Althouse, I honestly can't remember; did you get your knickers in a twist when the Times did the same stuff to Mitt Romney and John McCain? If so, can you supply some links because I am having just a bit of trouble believing/recalling.
For an article in the NYer, it wasn't quite the hatchet job one might expect on a topic linked so closely to Trump.
Also: the Harvard model is designed to get 'em young and raise 'em left.
Get them from wherever, and pay for them if need be. We've got the money.
Then teach them how to be leftists. Some of them will grow up to be leftist academics. That's nice. Some of them will start Facebook or some other horrible enterprise, and feed us more money.
It's not a money problem. That's downstream. It's a power play.
Just because you are offered financial assistance does not mean you are poor. At least not at Harvard and other schools that meet 100% of financial need. A family with income of $150,000 would be expected to contribute 10% of the cost. 80% of students come from families that make at least $65K. Sure, a fifth might be considered lower middle class to poor, but 4/5 are middle class and up.
"For an article in the NYer, it wasn't quite the hatchet job one might expect on a topic linked so closely to Trump."
It's only August. They have to ramp up the hysteria slowly.
"He didn’t do it with a sense of humor... He did it, like, ‘I’m fucking rich'"
Oh, everybody knows how those rich NY Jews act!**
**That's sarcasm in case no one notices otherwise. But, I do wonder if there was a bit of antisemitism lurking behind that anonymous insult.
So, this is how gay was appropriated with a double entendre.
So he wasn't goodrich like George Soros, or Tom Steyer or happyrich like Penn Jilette or Gwyneth Paltrow or caringrich like Romney or Cecile Richards. No. He was like an asshole!
So more like Hillary. Or Huma. Or Gore. Assholes. Got it.
If any trolls known and unknown wanna quibble with my list, please take a moment to ask yourself how the skank in the New Yorker and her skanky storyteller can read the man's heart by the car he drives or er the manner in which he drives it.
Lizzie Widdicombe is an asshole!
Awwwww! Butt-hurt little liberal snowflakes.
My heart bleeds.
Why do I think back on the Rolling Stone's Jackie at the UVA fraternity house??
Because everyone knows its shocking to see a son or daughter of wealth at Harvard.
Funny how the democrat party media is ever able to locate schoolmates of republican candidates, even elementary school classmates willing to take a crap on the republican. But when it comes to democrats- No can do. Shit, they're still looking for Obama's transcripts.
Meet open anti-Semitism. The kid probably also supports Israel's existence like a fucking rich Jew. You can tell them by their noses.
Fighting antisemitism with antisemitism.
He probably drove over some endangered turtles, leered menacingly at a member of the LGBTQIA community, blasted appropriated hip-hop lyrics with no trace of irony, all while plotting how best to date-rape a Lena-Dunham-like creature that very night.
Hooligan. Brigand. Barbarian.
Jackanapes. Marauder. Ruffian.
I can't imagine he's a bigger jerk than Chelsea's husband.....I bet Chelsea's husband wore loafers without socks. And not because he couldn't afford socks either.
How might one go about driving a car with a sense of humor?
This is the kind of guy who takes a shit on your postmodern art exhibit which is a pile of uniquely arranged shit, and says:
'Now THAT'S art, baby'
".I bet Chelsea's husband wore loafers without socks. And not because he couldn't afford socks either."
I do this. It is bad, yes? Or is it rich?
Maybe if he drove a Hummer or a Ferrari, but a Range Rover? Wouldn't even stick out.
"How might one go about driving a car with a sense of humor?'
I can think of ways, but the insurance company may not find it funny.
Sheeeet, the HS kids at the rich-people public HS around here drive Land Rovers.
100% guarantee, though, that if he wasn't notable for wearing something different he'd be dinged for "slumming" or trying too hard to pretend like he was just one of the common people. Ya can't win, guys, it's bias all the way down.
Just to leave on a nice note, though: YT: William Shatner - Common People
Freeman Hunt said...
How might one go about driving a car with a sense of humor?
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One asks the other "does he taste funny to you?"
HoodlumDoodlum said...
Freeman Hunt said...
How might one go about driving a car with a sense of humor?
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One asks the other "does he taste funny to you?"
One of my neighbors tells me that, as a child, headhunters would come to his village. His Grandmother would point them out and tell him"Behave, or else".
Not sure if they were cannibals...
He drove a Range Rover around campus. “He didn’t do it with a sense of humor,” one classmate recalled. “He did it, like, ‘I’m fucking rich.’”
For whatever it's worth (likely very little), he did all of that when he was unequivocally a Democrat.
If he was driving a Range Rover around Harvard Square - hell, if he was driving around Harvard Square, period - he's a moron. Not to say that he doesn't have plenty of company (sorta the point).
--gpm
Reminds me of the Lincoln MA town meeting where it was proposed that the police should drive Mercedes. The salient objection to the proposal was that it would then be impossible to distinguish the police cars from all the other cars in town.
Dress shirts and jeans are standard "Looking nice without looking too formal" wear around here.
That quote from Lizzie Widdicombe's article basically is porn for a very high percentage of New Yorker readers...as is the name "Lizzie Widdicombe."
How does one drive with a sense of humor? Well, had he run this former classmate over a couple of times, I might have laughed at the story.
Dress shirts and jeans are what is called Casual Friday.
The complaint is as old as Portia. Just fill in the ellipses:
He didn’t do it with a sense of humor, like we do.
One thing about Harvard is you can find just about any type of personal attitude in its environs. During my undergraduate days we lived in a room right on a corner where, nightly, we heard a classmate drive his Mercedes 300SL gull wing up the street. We thought he was one hot shit!
I knew a kid in college who drove a new Cadillac around campus, because his rich father gave it to him. Otherwise, he was a good guy who didn't put on airs or flaunt his money. He just happened to drive a Caddy.
Ha-ha! A "classmate" from Harvard, says Kushner was stuck up! Imagine that! A stuck-up asshole at Harvard!
You're supposed to pahk your Range Rovah in the Hahvahd Yahd, not drive it.
Just in case anyone still wondered whether "the politics of envy" was actually a thing or not.
Yancey Ward,
How does one drive with a sense of humor?
Remembered line from Chesterton (I honestly have no idea where):
"Indeed, it is difficult to blow a wind instrument ironically."
Michael Fitzgerald
In 2007 I saw a CNN interview with one of Obama's Harvard Law classmates; a black guy. Guy said Barack was arrogant even for Harvard and it was so bad they had a special word for it. Wish I could recall the word.
I did read just earlier today that "Large human brain evolved as a result of ‘sizing each other up’".
Apparently, as Joe Biden would put it, this is big fucking deal, sizing up what exactly Jared Kushner was up to, circumventing the laissez faire campus norms and attitudes.
Maybe he just shared the Professor's attitude toward men in shorts.
YH:
**That's sarcasm in case no one notices otherwise. But, I do wonder if there was a bit of antisemitism lurking behind that anonymous insult.
8/15/16, 5:46 PM
Anti-Semitism at Harvard? The Devil you say!
a button-up shirt
May I say thank you, Althouse, for not getting confused and calling this a "button-down shirt". All too rare.
"Shit, they're still looking for Obama's transcripts."
Apparently, they are still looking for even one student at Columbia who can remember taking a poli-sci class with Obama.
Implying intent. How the left builds a narrative.
"Meet open anti-Semitism. The kid probably also supports Israel's existence like a fucking rich Jew. You can tell them by their noses."
Maybe I missed it in the article, but where do you get the idea that they didn't like him because he was Jewish? For all we know the person insulting him is also Jewish. Or are we doing that thing where if you don't like a black president it must be because they're black? Because that was fun, and I can't wait until every time we criticize Hillary it will be because we don't like women.
As for the insult itself, it doesn't tell us much--if you interview enough classmates you'll find someone who doesn't like a person. Driving an expensive car at an Ivy League school doesn't sound so out of the ordinary. Driving an expensive car to your job as an inner city social worker would be a story.
Was it "asshole" perhaps David Begley? Cause you know...
First, 7 for All Mankind is relatively expensive, but not bespoke. It's a sportswear label, all the shirts are sized S, M, L, XL, not by neck and sleeve. They are not known for button downs. They also seem to exult skinny jeans.
Secondly, even the post Ivy dress code of the late 1960s with chambray work shirts, bell bottoms and Frye boots were superior to the present third world childish costuming. But, unfortunately most American men today dress like children.
Lastly, what I'd like to see is Lizzie Widdicombe of the New Yorker or a staff writer of the NY Times write articles comparing and contrasting the aroma and taste of Obama's and Hillary's taint.
These things always speak volumes about the commenter, none of which is good, and nothing at all about the target.
Martin
Compare and contrast.....
I wish I had known about this kind of driving when I was younger. I would have driven with a sense of humor instead of driving like, "I'm effing poor."
I knew a really rich kid in college. Nice guy. Wore preppy clothes, too, but back then we all did.
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