<p>WASPS also were among those who fought to end slavery and Nazi tyranny that killed six million Jews. Stereotypes, especially ones based on half-truths are of little value IMHO. No one is just one thing. I try to embrace complexity not subsume it to blunt, broadbrush billboards.</p>
<p>It’s a good thing that WASPS were among those who fought to end slavery and Nazi tyranny. After all, they started both.</p>
<p>Though I agree with you, hoops, broadbrush billboards are suspect. Including those that for some BIZARRE reason (except that it’s the WSJ, so that’s probably the reason) think old schools WASPs are somehow exceptionally admirable…</p>
<p>Sorry. They weren’t.</p>
<p>I knew Louis Auchincloss personally. He was not a nice person. At all.</p>
<p>zmom, how did you know him?</p>
<p>I was a junior paralegal at his firm in my first job decades ago. Worked directly for him for a few months and left the department after working with him.</p>
<p>I come from a very old WASP family on my mother’s side. The money and family name recognition are long gone, but I do feel proud of what some of my ancestors did for our country. One was the first governor of New Hampshire and signed the Declaration of Independence; another was a heroic Civil War general who was drafted out of Harvard. I have a first-edition copy of his memoirs from the 1870s. He speaks extensively of the crisis of conscience involved in shooting other young men so much like himself. Even though he opposed slavery, he also was sympathetic to the idea of secession.</p>
<p>[The</a> Boy General from Massachusetts | Historical Digression](<a href=“http://historicaldigression.com/2011/11/13/the-boy-general-from-massachusetts/]The”>The Boy General from Massachusetts | Historical Digression)</p>
<p>Not all WASPS can be indicted in every ill that has occurred throughout history.</p>
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Got a nice hearty chuckle out of this! Ain’t that the truth! </p>
<p>You know…I watched Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee and it got my blood boiling all types of temperatures. Sure the ol’ WASPs have done a lot of great but they effed a lot of stuff, too which doesn’t allow me to fondly look back on the ol’ WASP elites.</p>
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<p>How on earth were WASPS responsible for Nazism? And many peoples participated in the slave trade, including Northern Africans, Portuguese, and Spanish. </p>
<p>I do not like the double standard in which it’s fine to bash some ethnicities but not others.</p>
<p>I agree. No need to bash WASPS; it isn’t as if anyone else’s hands are clean either. But by the same token, I don’t think there is any need to exalt them either.</p>
<p>That’s what I’ve been trying to say, apprenticeprof; you too NJSue. As to Nazism… well, you’d have a hard time proving that white anglo-saxon protestants weren’t biiig in that movement. ;)</p>
<p>I’ve honestly never heard the term “WASP” used in a serious context until this thread/article. Here, it’s always been kind of a joke. </p>
<p>Then again, the “WASPs” I know have no power and are only middle class so… lol</p>
<p>Honestly though, I think this is just a really poor article that romanticizes the past. This, in particular, bothered me:
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<p>Have you taken a history class, romani?</p>
<p>Several, niquii. I technically had enough history classes to get my history minor but had to take some other class to declare the minor and chose not to. </p>
<p>I’ve also worked in museums/libraries/and am currently working on an American history project for my job as a research assistant.</p>
<p>Thus, IMO, that line that I quoted is a bunch of over-romanticized crap. You may argue differently.</p>
<p>And you’ve never heard of the term WASP seriously?</p>
<p>I just find it hard to believe…unless you’re not counting middle/high school history. I know I knew of the term in a middle school history class. </p>
<p>And I didn’t see your edit…I was referring to this:
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<p>Different forms of fascism, including Nazism were actually popular with a certain segment of the White American population…including some WASPs who feared a communist takeover and felt Western democracy was in decline during the Depression era '30s. </p>
<p>This paralleled similar “buy-in” among those with the same perceptions in various European countries, including Great Britain (See British Union of Fascists) during the same period. </p>
<p>From their perspective, Fascist political movements, including Nazism was viewed as a great cure for both issues. And if it oppressed the Jewish people, they regarded it as a good thing as antisemitism was still openly acceptable and widely practiced by individuals from WASP and other White ethnic groups. </p>
<p>One notorious example was Henry Ford who was of Irish and possibly English ancestry who was notoriously public about his antisemitic views. This extended to his open support of the Nazi party in the '30s…including financial donations and acceptance of Nazi awards.</p>
<p>Joseph Epstein (author of the WSJ article) was a professor of mine at Northwestern. He is a High WASP wannabe who will never be there since he’s (obviously) Jewish, and he’s got a big inferiority complex that he’s at Northwestern instead of HYP. He is a very entertaining writer and a pleasant enough man, but he’s nostalgic for a way of life that excluded him from its inner reaches.</p>
<p>"As to Nazism… well, you’d have a hard time proving that white anglo-saxon protestants weren’t biiig in that movement. "</p>
<p>WASP signifies a heck of a lot more than simply being white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant though. Bill Clinton wasn’t a WASP.</p>
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<p>I don’t know what this means. Were there a lot of American WASPs in Germany in the early 1930s? That would be news to me. There were certainly some American Catholics (Father Coughlin) who also had no problem with Nazism. I wouldn’t therefore deduce that large numbers of American Catholics were Hitler sympathizers.</p>
<p>Every ethnicity has its racialist cranks that proclaim its superiority. Ironically they are often the least impressive examples of said ethnicity.</p>
<p>The old WASP ascendancy were certainly not angels and they were guilty of various depredations. But I don’t think it’s necessary to rewrite history to make them look worse than they were. They made important contributions to the fabric of this country, as many other groups did.</p>
<p>My interest in Epstein’s article is not the idea that WASPs are the natural American ruling class, uniquely qualified because of certain personal and cultural traits. His article points to a larger problem, which is the deterioration of the quality of leadership we are experiencing. He doesn’t really provide any solutions for that problem.</p>
<p>NJSue,
Your last paragraph describes my take-away from the article as well. Funny how this thread deteriorated into wasp-bashing. I think it is possible for certain cultural groups to value and perpetuate admirable qualities and not be perfect at the same time. I guess because the author implied that old wasps provided a certain type of leadership that is currently lacking, then people take that as an indictment of anyone who is not an old-line wasp. I don’t think that is the point, I think he is saying that those particular leadership qualities have not been passed down to anyone.</p>