The Trouble with Entitlement
I was having dinner at the Union League Cafe in New Haven, with a couple of friends, when the question of entitlement came up. We were discussing experiences of freshmen as they arrive to an elite institution such as Yale.
There is no doubt in my mind that Yale breeds a sense of entitlement in its graduates — to their own peril as future members of society and, even more so, as human beings generally.
The motivation behind some of the forces driving entitlement formation is actually benevolent. As Yale admits a new class of frosh (the politically-correct term encompassing freshmen, freshwomen and the rest), one of the most powerful principles it espouses is that of need-blind admission. It’s an amazingly powerful concept if you think about it: no matter how poor or rich you are, if you apply to Yale, the school will assess your application on it merits alone. And if selected into the prestigious entering class, Yale’s financial aid will ensure that you receive one of the word’s most expensive educations— no matter where you come from, how much money your parents make, or whether you struggled or lived a life of privilege growing up.
In principle, this philosophy extends beyond the admission and the financial aid reward decisions. Once admitted to Yale, egalitarian living and learning arrangements (including sleeping in the same bunk beds in freshman dorms, eating the same food, riding on the same shuttle to class or practice, even wearing the same college sweatshirts), construct an atmosphere that fosters the University’s principal purpose — acquisition and preservation of knowledge — without regard to wealth. More broadly, the campus community fosters inclusion that eliminates all the well-known sources of marginalization in modern society (race, sexuality, gender, religion, even political beliefs), lifting barriers to the pursuit of knowledge.
And even more so than that, once students are admitted to Yale, they become Yale — the University is ultimately a self-proclaimed “society of scholars, a company of friends.” Whether a wealthy alum, a Nobel Laureate professor or a struggling freshman in an organic chemistry lab, each member of the community is granted ownership and agency, so that through his or her work, they continue Yale’s tradition.
It is in this environment that the troubling feeling of entitlement emerges as an antidote to (real or anticipatory) feelings of inadequacy. By construction, no entering student is in reality adequate by Yale graduating standards — if they were, they would have not needed a Yale education. Intellectual growth during undergraduate years is meant to foster reflection, ambiguity, struggle, self-discovery and enlightenment — all of the educational, scientifically-flavored variety. An easy way to adapt to the Yale’s extraordinary philosophy of need-blind admission, and education, is to self-cultivate a deep sense of entitlement to be treated as if one always belonged at Yale.
The feeling of entitlement some students develop at Yale empowers them intellectually and spiritually, unshackling the students from the bonds of past injustice, even nostalgia or, in the worst of cases, suffering before arriving to New Haven. It also fosters a powerful collective identity, allowing an incredibly diverse incoming frosh to identify with hundreds-year-old tradition and form bonds that transcend almost any known modern social barrier. The feeling of entitlement also empowers students to exercise their talents and practice fearless intellectual curiosity, both in the sciences and in the humanities. And upon graduation, it endows them with an undying hope in a better world and a fierce determination to make their mark on it.
So what is the trouble with entitlement then?
The trouble with entitlement is that it ill-equips Yale students not only for life after graduation, but also for the purpose of their education. Yale’s “society of scholars” is a utopia purposefully built to foster intellectual freedom and growth, yet utopia nevertheless. The feeling of entitlement leaves graduates with a dangerously skewed sense of justice, a disconnect from their fellow man, and an impediment to further growth.
The practical drawbacks of entitlement simply arise from the fact that a Yale undergraduate education is not a training ground (not even a safe-holding-space version of it) for the real word; it is rather purposefully designed to be as far as possible from the injustice that characterizes modern society in almost every social, economic and cultural sphere. Students who rely on entitlement to mask potential feelings of inadequacy are in for a rude awakening after Yale, where their resolve and hope will be tested at every turn. The greater the stakes in their future career and personal endeavors, the great the challenges — and eventual failures they must overcome to be successful. Entitlement is perhaps the worst way to face such challenges and to recover from the failures along the way.
Entitlement also has an ugly side to it — it fosters alienation and disconnect from people, places and things that threaten to reveal the reality of suffering and injustice in the real world. If there is at all a healthy sense of entitlement, it is certainly the entitlement to be treated as a human being, and to treat others as such, regardless of circumstance. It is this kind of entitlement that empowers incoming undergraduates to step out of their comfort zone and connect with their teachers and fellow classmates. It also enables them to connect with ideas and knowledge at Yale. But entitlement to things beyond this basic common identification as equal human beings leads to disconnect and marginalization. Hence, Yale’s message of being in service of a greater human good becomes lost as entitlement prevents graduating seniors from connecting to communities and the society at large that they were trained to serve.
Most ironically, entitlement ultimately also disconnects us from the parts of ourselves that once experienced marginalization or oppression. While a temporary antidote may be necessary to foster instant admission to the Yale’s “society of scholars,” fostering growth; entitlement in the longer-run arrest change. The students’ struggle with both disadvantage and privilege before coming to Yale is a part of a much larger struggle of becoming and being human. Yale’s utopian atmosphere suspends such struggle for the purpose of a liberal arts education, but the hope is that the progress students make at Yale will transform them from foot soldiers to master warriors as they re-engage their old life’s battle fields.
Ultimately, students who reject entitlement will not only be better prepared for life after Yale; they will also reap the benefits of experiencing a fuller range of human conditions, from continuing personal growth to engaging their lives’ companions to making a difference in their communities.
As we finished our desert at the Union League Cafe, we walked down Chapel Street and College Street and talked about our weekend plans. I started thinking about what it would take for the sense of humility and responsibility to be of service to supplant the familiar feeling of entitlement students at Yale develop.
