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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]From this interview with the author http://www.elle.com/culture/books/a46121/dream-hoarders-feature/

[b]"I can't emphasize this point strongly enough," he replies, "but I don't think we should treat our own children as social-policy interventions.[/b] And poor parents, by the way, if you go to them and say, 'I'm not [paying for tutoring] because I'm egalitarian,' they'd say, 'What the hell is wrong with you?'" He does offer some suggestions to address the imbalance: Match the amount spent on enrichment experiences for your child to assist a needier child; find a family to "adopt," and invest in their children's educations; or follow the lead of the affluent public school that his kids attend—for every dollar the PTA raises, the group gives 50 cents to a low-income DC school.
[/quote]

He is talking out both sides of his mouth. If he is establishing the cause-effect that demonstrates the active suppression of one class by another, the only solution is to combat that suppression. If he further argues that the suppression is systemic, then the combating action must also be systemic - a macro program to "make things right". It's disingenuous to argue for the existence of systemic suppression of one class by another, and then leave it by saying "but lets depend on individual action". Individual action is how we are here in the first place.[/quote]

To clarify, he didn't leave it that way, that's just an excerpt from the middle of the piece. In the context of the interview, that particular quote was in response to the writer wondering about the action she personally should take (such as denying her child a tutor because not everyone can afford it), and the author says absolutely not. I excerpted it in response to the way many people were (understandably) interpreting the online game because the game didn't align with my understanding of the book at all. I think that in an effort to be provocative and spark conversation, the game distracts from the bigger picture and is sending the opposite message of what the author intended. I don't know if it's a case of the author talking out of both sides or a case of content being added by other parties. This is a few paragraphs down in the interview:

[i]Shedding our privilege is, to some extent, a collective-action problem—I'm not giving up my legacy preference if you're not giving up yours!—and requires broad policy change. What we lucky people can and should do, I'd argue, is get foursquare behind legislative reform and embrace the fact that it might require some monetary sacrifice on our part. "The central political challenge here," Reeves writes, "is to persuade the winners that, in many cases, their success is not the result of their own brilliance but the lottery of birth.… Market outcomes can only be considered fair to the extent that each of us gets an equal chance to develop our natural talents."[/i]

In other words, I think I'm agreeing with you, PP! And I think the author does, too, and the game is the misleading element here. I say "think" because this is all above my sociopolitical pay grade, but I do think it's important, so I'm trying to process as best I can...[/quote]

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