<p>I think that it is legitimate to point to these highly successful artists when discussing the state of the arts. It’s equally legitimate as those who point only to starving artists to lament the state of the arts. Stan Lee wasn’t always a mogul, he was a young guy superhero stories to tell and characters to create. The classically successful rock stars and singers are spent years and years honing their craft in garages and basements and dive bars, working for a pittance. Some of these guys are musical geniuses that can compose music like Mozart who was kind of a rock star of his day.</p>
<p>I think it’s just a little too convenient to leave all these guys out when making a case that artists are under appreciated.</p>
<p>A teacher in NJ can earn $80k-$90k after some years of teaching and a high school math teacher can start out at $60k. Plus, they get a pension and health benefits for life after retirement (a buddy just retired at 53 yrs old) and it increases at the rate of inflation every year (called COLA). But it’s some common wisdom that teachers aren’t paid what they are worth. Same thing as with artists. One must ignore inconvenient truths to make their philosophy true.</p>
<p>Well, patertrium, my alma mater, which is elite by CC standards, just NAILED representation at the Emmys, including the host and several of the major award winners, plus lots of the writers and directors. I’d say there’s no lack of support for the theatrical arts there. </p>
<p>And all I have to do is look at the alumni magazine to see plenty of interesting people doing plenty of interesting things. My girlfriends from those days span doctors, lawyers, very successful business people, to interior decorators, ministers, special ed teachers, TV anchor people, and yoga-and-theater-studio owners. I have no need to sit and bemoan some young people wanting to go into high finance. Like anyone else, they’ll figure out soon enough if that’s what they really want, or not. </p>
<p>So what’s the fraction of well-to-do artists in the 1%? How does it compare to WS successes? Did anyone say every 1%er is a problem? I think we love people doing well on their own. We need more of them, we want everyone to be them whether they are artists or innovators or anything else. What we are worried is we may also be disportionately rewarding conformists who learned to jump through hoops propelling them to the top of the society influencing the mores of our society. Why has prestige gotten so much more prestigious? Could it be that prestige alone can make you a success? Don’t we see some signs of it around us? The strength of the US has been strong individuality. Other countries can play prestige game much better. If we begin to make the game to be about prestige, we may not be as competitive.</p>
<p>“What we are worried is we may also be rewardsing people who may not merit their success, disportionately rewarding conformists who learned to jump through hoops instead of originality and independent thinking. Why has prestige gotten so much more prestigious? Could it be that prestige alone can make you a success?”</p>
<p>I don’t think prestige has gotten so much more prestigious. In my day, there were also certain jobs that were coveted by the smart, ambitious kids – they were just different jobs, that’s all. More mgt consulting (the old Andersen Consulting, BCG, etc.) and less Goldman Sachs. But same principle. </p>
<p>I think you’re vastly overstating the importance of prestige, anyway. There are plenty and plenty of successful people – and vast swathes of the country – who simply don’t give a hoot one way or the other about working for Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, and don’t genuflect at the sight someone who does. Something only has the prestige if you allocate your share of mind to it. This is still a very tiny subset of all college students in the country who aspire to these places.</p>
<p>"What evidence do you have that there are more of these artsy introspective types from Ivies+ than other schools? "</p>
<p>I just pulled the majors list at a less selective, directional state school in my state. Let’s see. The majors include athletic training, parks & recreation, graphic communication, horticulture and landscape management, physical education teacher training, various allied health professional training, public relations, etc. </p>
<p>Now, is there anything “wrong” with studying these things? Who I am to say? But these are very specific job-preparatory tracks. You want to run your park district’s parks & recreation program, here, go get that major. You want to learn how to teach sixth grade phys ed, here, go get that major. These are pre-professional. NTTAWWT, but it’s a different world than where my kids go to school. </p>
<p>“So what’s the fraction of well-to-do artists in the 1%? How does it compare to WS successes?”</p>
<p>Probably less. But so what? You don’t NEED to define membership in the 1% as being “successful.” Isn’t someone doing what they love and being self-supporting, happy and healthy a success? You’re falling into the very trap you decry by using money earned as your barometer for doing well.</p>
<p>I don’t spend one minute of my life worrying that I don’t do as well financially as people who chose a WS career. I’ve done more than fine by my standards. I’m sure I could have chosen one if I’d wanted to and done quite well. The presence of other people who make millions a year blah blah blah just isn’t threatening to me. It’s … well, irrelevant to me. Good for them, I hope they enjoy it. I don’t know why you need to be tangled up in resenting it, determining whether it’s “earned” or not, or whether the people “deserve” what they get. It doesn’t sound personally rewarding to <em>me</em> (me, me, me) and that’s enough reason for me not to have chosen it, but that reflects only on me. I didn’t want to be a doctor either, but I don’t sit around worrying about whether doctors “deserve” or “earn” their money or not. </p>
<p>“What we are worried is we may also be disportionately rewarding conformists who learned to jump through hoops propelling them to the top of the society *<strong><em>influencing the mores of our society. *</em></strong>**”</p>
<p>Now what I put stars next to is interesting. How is the presence of a few Ivy types who are dying to go to Wall Street “influencing the mores of our society”? Really, the rest of the country doesn’t remotely care about Wall Street success. Should they? Are they wrong? Do you think the average American just <em>dreams</em> of his kid going to work at Goldman Sachs? </p>
<p>The country has about 200 million people. No doubt there are plenty of people in every profession. Having plenty of people in all areas is not what I call reasoned argument. In a society, there are always plenty of people everywhere and there is also a driving force dominating the culture. When we hear more than a third Ivy grads head to WS and Ivy admission is getting harder and harder, we have a reason to look what it all means.</p>
<p>“When we hear more than a third Ivy grads head to WS”</p>
<p>See, that’s a lie (error?) that you’re hearing. The real data WD was quoting shows 20%, and it includes consulting as well as finance. Consulting is not the same thing at all, especially when you look beyond the mega-firms we’ve all heard of. Consulting goes into all kinds of industries – tech, health, transportation, food & beverage, etc. It’s just an introduction to business in general.</p>
<p>We cross-posted. It’s not more than a third heading to Wall Street. Not even close. Maybe if you look at Wharton grads by themselves, but not true even across Penn, much less across Ivies.</p>
<p>A third was what I heard from Drew Faust when she was interviewed on a network a few years ago. Even at 20%, it is big enough to be a dominating force. As far as it is big enough to dominate, the absolute number itself is not important.</p>
<p>“How is the presence of a few Ivy types who are dying to go to Wall Street “influencing the mores of our society”?”</p>
<p>I do believe that Michael Sam being picked up by the Cowboys had to do with the head coach having an Ivy League education where tolerance is the rule not the exception. That’s a positive influence in my mind.</p>
<p>And a third of people graduating Ivy League schools end up on Wall Street? I highly doubt that. How much do Wall Street traders, who often start out working 80 - 100 hours per week, really influence anyone’s everyday life?</p>
<p>“You call more than a third a few? More than a third is just about everyone in practice since that could very well be the dominating dynamics.”</p>
<p>Dominating WHAT, though? You’re the one giving this exaggerated importance to what “young top students at Ivies/elites do.” The vast majority of people in this country don’t give one minute’s thought to what young’uns at Harvard or Penn are doing with their lives in the first place. So whether they all congregate at Goldman Sachs this year or McKinsey the next doesn’t matter to them. You’re far, far exaggerating the impact that Ivies / elite schools have on “society.” </p>
<p>If anything, Silicon Valley / tech has a lot more nationwide buzz. Everyone knows what an iPhone is; it’s something they can touch, feel, use. </p>
<p>You think all those young people going into finance have influence? How many of them stay in finance? How many of them get to top jobs where they really have all that much power?</p>
<p>And as far as fewer going into academia, I suspect that the Ivies still send a larger percentage of people into academia than any other group of colleges except perhaps for the top LACs–and we’re not talking about that many people, because there are so few jobs.</p>
<p>My three kids have all gone to Ivy League schools (the youngest is a sophomore now). They were not depressed in college and they are all happy in their careers. None of them is on Wall St. They are in the tech industry although one was an English major and one was a CS major. We didn’t put pressure on them to go to Ivies. They went to an average high school in a middle class town where they were able to stand out with their grades, scores, and EC’s. The financial aid from the Ivy League schools was unmatched. It was a no brainer for us.</p>
<p>“You think all those young people going into finance have influence? How many of them stay in finance? How many of them get to top jobs where they really have all that much power?”</p>
<p>Exactly. They’re young people who happen to be more well-paid than most other young people so they can buy a few more toys. Don’t confuse that with power, influence, or happiness.</p>
<p>If you’re defining success as that, keep in mind that major record labels who pay such rates for tippytop artists are at most, paying them 50 cents for every individual album sold with the label keeping the rest for overhead(A few dollars at most per individual album) and overwhelming profit. </p>
<p>Only folks at the levels of mainstream success like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Jay-Z get that rate. Oftentimes, it’s much less. Moreover, even mainstream successes selling plenty of records could end up in bankruptcy/debt if the labels set a high minimum amount of records to be sold to fulfill the advance given to the recording artist or pulls some shady contractual clause which ripped off artists who may be naive/ignorant of the business/legal aspects of the music business. Unfortunately, considering such labels had a stranglehold on the mainstream music industry…including access to recording studios/marketing channels…they were effectively the only game in town until the last decade and half. </p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that most major label executives are extremely risk adverse and prefer settling on a “sure thing”. Among other things, it means they tend to focus their marketing focus overwhelmingly on the 12-24 age demographic in marketing music and prefer following trends than taking the risk of betting on something uncertain. </p>
<p>One good illustration of this was how such labels were caught flatfooted when the once popular and dominant metal/hair metal genres of the '70s and '80s rapidly lost mainstream popularity once grunge/alternative rock/pop-punk came emerged all of a sudden in the late '80s/early '90s. </p>
<p>One major reason for the sudden loss of popularity was the sudden emergence of a popular previously non-mainstream genres as a viable alternative to metal/hair metal…a once popular genre which ended up being flooded with label encouraged copycat acts because the labels settled on a “sure thing” as was their pattern-istic tendency. </p>
<p>Another illustration of the major record labels’ risk adverse preference of settling on a “sure thing”…the disco genre during its heyday in the '70s which was widely panned by many music critics/historians as a “label/producer driven genre”. So many label encouraged copycats…including shamefully some iconic rock groups got onto the disco bandwagon to cash in the whole genre it turned off enough of the music listening public that it lost popularity by the late '70s/early '80s and became a cheesy punchline. </p>
<p>Also, the creative arts/music world is structured so that either one is one of the tiny minute minority overwhelmingly successful per your examples or much more likely, the vast majority barely eking out an existence…assuming they’re not waiting tables, pursuing a string of temp jobs, and/or living off one’s substantial trust fund to to pay bills while maintain flexibility for a great opportunity in their main avocation. </p>
<p>I should also mention the highest level of education attained has little/no relation to one’s potential success or lack thereof as a creative artist/musician. While there are successful mainstream musicians like Brian May of Queen with a PhD in Astrophysics from Imperial College/London or Offspring members pursuing/completing STEM PhDs, there’s also plenty of successful bands like Green Day made up of high school dropouts with Mike Dirnt…the bass player being the only high school graduate of the original trio still in the band to the present.*</p>
<ul>
<li>The original drummer before Tre left the band well before their mainstream breakout album Dookie to attend college. Something which caused a rift between them for many years…and possibly to the present from what I’ve read.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Igloo- a lot of kids who spend two years at a bank post college end up as high school teachers, speech therapists, clinical psychologists, directors of marketing for ballet companies, etc. So I think your concern is quite misplaced. There are also loads of young people in banking from Baruch, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, CMU, SUNY Binghamton.</p>
<p>Not sure why you think this is something to worry about. Should we also be concerned about the number of kids from the UC’s who end up in Silicon Valley or all the kids from USC who end up in the film industry?</p>
<p>And that is indeed remarkable considering that there are so many people around who would love to get their hands on the the compensation and pricing mechanisms in order to make the world the way they’d like to see it.</p>
<p>Most of the author’s gripe simply boils down to wishing that he could control others, and lamenting that some of those beyond his control earn lots of money, and actually like it.</p>
<p>The author is on the whining loser team. Infuriated that he’s not in charge of life. And angry that the people making the choices that he dislikes actually are not depressed. </p>