You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
A review by rick2
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life by William Deresiewicz
5.0
I can't stop thinking about this book. Reading this book felt like a warm cup of Coco after going on a winter camping trip.
The second half is pretty simple. Frustrating even. More humanities classes will lead to better people. Pay teachers more. Don't be obsessed with status. The system is inherently biased. Feel good fluff that on the surface I think most people would agree with. But also a disappointment after how strongly I felt about the first half of the book. I wanted real answers. But it seemed like the author fell into the trap of extrapolating his personal experience onto everyone. Do you really think Madoff would have changed his life if he had just read Bonfire of the Vanities? It felt cheap.
The first half of the book though. It..... Well.... It felt like someone hit me with a lightning bolt. Multiple times. A brutal portrayal of myself and many people I know. Ivies, UChicago. Econ and Business majors. It felt like someone held up a mirror and for the first time I saw where I stood and what things looked like. Prejudices I had but was unaware of. Driving motivations I hadn't noticed. All laid out. It was like getting glasses for the first time. The world had been slightly blurry, and I just thought that's how things were. But then, one magical day, you're whisked off to the Optometrist and when you leave everything is in focus.
I could see why I've been so frustrated the past 8 years. Knowing at some level, but unable to express the cause of this frustration. This perpetual hamster wheel of achievement. The overwhelming fear of reducing life's optionality. And this crushing letdown of getting somewhere and going "is this it?" How institutions set the bar so high to get in the door, but once you're in, it's a massive letdown. From job interviews to college applications. Everyone is telling you to do more, be a leader, gain the certificates, have experiences. But this tyrannical gremlin on your shoulder keeps pushing you to commoditize and market those experiences, so you do. And you get to the next rung on the ladder and after that theres another fucking rung. And you keep climbing. And there's always another rung. And then you die.
And I guess that's why it felt like a letdown to hear that the conclusion to this new way of seeing the cycle I had been so frustrated with, this understanding of myself I had been blind to, was to read more literature. To focus more on liberal arts. To get B's for once to fight the system.
The second half is pretty simple. Frustrating even. More humanities classes will lead to better people. Pay teachers more. Don't be obsessed with status. The system is inherently biased. Feel good fluff that on the surface I think most people would agree with. But also a disappointment after how strongly I felt about the first half of the book. I wanted real answers. But it seemed like the author fell into the trap of extrapolating his personal experience onto everyone. Do you really think Madoff would have changed his life if he had just read Bonfire of the Vanities? It felt cheap.
The first half of the book though. It..... Well.... It felt like someone hit me with a lightning bolt. Multiple times. A brutal portrayal of myself and many people I know. Ivies, UChicago. Econ and Business majors. It felt like someone held up a mirror and for the first time I saw where I stood and what things looked like. Prejudices I had but was unaware of. Driving motivations I hadn't noticed. All laid out. It was like getting glasses for the first time. The world had been slightly blurry, and I just thought that's how things were. But then, one magical day, you're whisked off to the Optometrist and when you leave everything is in focus.
I could see why I've been so frustrated the past 8 years. Knowing at some level, but unable to express the cause of this frustration. This perpetual hamster wheel of achievement. The overwhelming fear of reducing life's optionality. And this crushing letdown of getting somewhere and going "is this it?" How institutions set the bar so high to get in the door, but once you're in, it's a massive letdown. From job interviews to college applications. Everyone is telling you to do more, be a leader, gain the certificates, have experiences. But this tyrannical gremlin on your shoulder keeps pushing you to commoditize and market those experiences, so you do. And you get to the next rung on the ladder and after that theres another fucking rung. And you keep climbing. And there's always another rung. And then you die.
And I guess that's why it felt like a letdown to hear that the conclusion to this new way of seeing the cycle I had been so frustrated with, this understanding of myself I had been blind to, was to read more literature. To focus more on liberal arts. To get B's for once to fight the system.