Mohn, let me be more explicit about a couple of aspects of my speculations…
Like Markovits and the columnist in the Times I was considering the “predominant culture” not of the big baggy monster known as the U.S. of A. but of that subset of American Youth who comprise “the elite.” I know, I know, I dislike them too, we all dislike them, but if they exist, and if they are going to be running things some day, we ought to think a bit about what makes them tick and what kind of educations they get. Perhaps we ought to think even of whether this “predominant culture” of theirs is rendering them successful and fulfilled as human beings.
Lately I seem to be reading an awfully lot of critiques of the meritocratic rat race, not to mention the world that the victors in that race are making for all the rest of us. Some of these critiques - perhaps most of them - are focussed on social justice. Well and good, but I wanted to suggest that there might be another way of looking at this problem - the old-fashioned consideration of what an elite education is really for. If - a big “if” admittedly - we are entering a time in which the material rewards of such an education and even its moral legitimacy have become compromised, I wondered whether that might signal a turn back to older ideas of the purpose of education, ideas that I believe the U of C has especially espoused over the course of its history and which were the magnet that drew me and many another to it once upon a time.
You and I will always disagree as to the matter of the U of C’s uniqueness. We agree, however, that an educational ideal of the sort I ascribe to it need not be inconsistent with achieving a good life in material as well as spiritual terms. This is what John Boyer is saying. You can thrive with a Chicago education, but that is in large part because that education puts the focus on the act of learning. The material rewards lie in the future. Perhaps they can be assumed, perhaps only hoped for. But they are not the main event, and your education, if it is a good one, will carry you through it all.