William Deresiewicz — author of (the newly updated) Excellent Sheep, The Death of the Artist, and The End of Solitude — returns to the pod! This time we dive into one of the institutions we love to hate: elite universities. We dwell on and debate the protests at Columbia (et al.), the reasons why it’s all gone so wrong, and whether or not the solution is just to raze them to the ground.

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On the agenda:

-The context for Excellent Sheep, c. 2014 [2:39-12:21]

-The student as customer / PC police officer [12:22-27:32]

- The emptiness inside [27:33-40:02]

-To fix or ruin the elite reputation? [40:03-49:54]

-Getting into the protests & elite failure [49:55-58:58]

- What exactly went wrong [58:59-1:08:08]

-The answer isn’t yoga [1:08:09-1:29:36]

Mentioned in this conversation:

-Our last conversation with Bill

-Vanessa’s newsletter on solitude/friendship

Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk. For more doomsday rumination, subscribe to: uncertain.substack.com.

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The Indoctrination of Elite Education (w/ Bill Deresiewicz)