Saturday, January 28, 2012

Do you live in a bubble?


Take this quiz to find out. While you are at Power Line, you may want to look at more of Steve Hayward's posts.

7 comments:

Dylan Wulderk said...

Interesting quiz. I got a 13 out of 20.
I whole heartedly agree with Murray's thesis though. It fits with something I've been noticing recently: a lot of people claim to be "middle class" (come to think of it, everyone seems to want to be classified as "middle class"), but the difference in lifestyle and personal experience is just so different between the lower and middle portions of the middle class to the higher end that it just doesn't feel right calling them "classmates." I'll have to check out Murray's book. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend his talk.

TJE said...

You're a man of the people!

PL said...

I either get a 13 or a 14 depending on whether I take credit for my dad owning a truck. (That question and several others showed the slight age bias to the quiz. You're much more likely to answer with a "no bubble" response for several questions just by the mere fact of having been alive longer with more time to have had certain life experiences. But that slight bias to the quiz is understandable- young people are culturally different from middle-aged people, and it would be hard to have a culture quiz that took both into account while still putting people’s results on just one spectrum.)

Hamilton College, on the other hand, is definitely inside the cognitive elite bubble. This is made clear not only by its frequently trumpeted status as an "elite" institution of higher learning, but also by some of the little things like the cars, clothes, room decorations, tastes, vacations, personal appearances, life experiences, etc. that make up the culture shared by many of Hamilton's students and faculty.

PL said...

I should state that my comment about Hamilton isn't meant to be a normative critique, but instead a simple descriptive statement based on my personal experiences. In other words, no hard feelings towards Hamilton.

TJE said...

Average score of HC faculty? My guess: 4. Percent who could recognize Jimmy Johnson? <5

Dylan Wulderk said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dylan Wulderk said...

Yeah. I don't think the student body would score significantly higher than that either. This just isn't the traditional pool for Hamilton. I've noticed that the difference between where I grew up (in my hometown my score is most likely low) and where I go to school is significant. There's nothing wrong with that, but going back and forth between the two ends of the spectrum, I think it's a sociological phenomenon people should take notice of. It's real.