Word: mandarins
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There are three main paths in the U.S. today: Talent, Lifer and Mandarin. It's possible to think of American politics as an epic power struggle among the three paths; in this year's presidential campaign, Buchanan is the Talent path's candidate, Dole is the Lifer path's, and Clinton is the Mandarin path...
George and Barbara Bush are part Episcopacy--they met as a result of being born into the same social class. Bill and Hillary Clinton are part Mandarin--they met in the library of Yale Law School. It could be argued that the Clintons are the first White House occupants who are pure products of the meritocratic machinery that makes Mandarins. Both grew up in provincial obscurity without any connections to the big time. Both, by their early 20s, had been clearly marked for membership in the Establishment by virtue of their accumulation of golden educational credentials. They filled their Administration...
Last year's revolt against the Clintons led by Newt Gingrich was all about the dislike, even hatred, that Talents and Lifers feel for Mandarins. Gingrich and some of his key lieutenants are failed Mandarins--recall that as a historian, Gingrich was denied tenure at a third-rank college--ho despise the Mandarin path for its air of self-satisfaction and for having been so blind to the abilities of Gingrich & Co. when young. When Gingrich rails against the corrupt "elite," he's talking about the Mandarins--and hitting a nerve. Mandarin resentment has enabled the Republican Party, whose home...
...Republican candidates other than Dole are running as Talents, though most of them are only pretending. Lamar Alexander, whose official campaign persona as the angry outsider is practically see-through, is actually a Mandarin--can you imagine Buchanan ever having been president of a state university, as Alexander was? Steve Forbes is a child of the Episcopacy, having been raised in a manner modeled on the social practices of the British aristocracy in the 19th century: the family seat in the country, the character-building boarding-school education, going to work for Dad. But, having realized that...
...graders, most of whom speak little or no English, spend most of the day in mainstream classes. And then, in just 45 minutes, Cao must speed them through the baffling vocabulary they have encountered. Energy, gasoline, electron, molecule, dilute, bubble, wave, atom--all new words to be explained in Mandarin. And, for a slender youth in the front row, in Cantonese. In three years, under state rules, newcomers are to be fluent enough to graduate into all-day mainstream classes. In practice, few are-and schools are caught between researchers who decry the unrealistic expectations and parents who blame...