Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Beloit Mindset List, 2011 edition

The 2011 edition of the Beloit Mindset List is out, and it manages to outdo the 2010 list in faulty perspective and tackiness. A few choice examples to characterize the “mindset” of the class of 2015 (“most of them born in 1993,” we’re told):

They “swipe” cards, not merchandise. [Have the listmakers never scanned groceries at a self-checkout?]

O.J. Simpson has always been looking for the killers of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman. [Simpson has been imprisoned since 2008.]

Arnold Palmer has always been a drink. [Huh? Here’s an explanation.]
Perhaps the most ill-advised entry:
We have never asked, and they have never had to tell.
“We”? “They”? This odd sentence also obscures the fact that DADT [Don’t ask, don’t tell] prohibited gay and bisexual servicemen and -women from speaking about sexual orientation and same-sex relationships.

I prefer Angus Johnston’s Beloit Mindset List for the Real World. A sample:
Returning students have always been a growing campus demographic.

And have always been ignored in lists like this.
Related posts
Re: the Beloit Mindset List (“What bothers me about the Beloit list involves some unspoken assumptions about reality and young adults.”)
The Beloit Mindset List, again (the 2012 list)

[Thanks to Matt Thomas, whose tweet about my 2010 post brought the 2011 list to my attention.]

comments: 4

Matt Thomas said...

My pleasure. I sometimes find myself tweeting links to your blog posts, particularly your vigorous and various defenses of the still-worth-reading Strunk & White and your inspired attack on the always cringeworthy Beloit list. I figure since you aren't on and refuse to join Twitter (a position I respect), I'd play proselytizer.

Michael Leddy said...

No time! I spent exactly the right amount of time online, can’t do more. :)

Matt Thomas said...

Over at Inside Higher Ed, Tim Morris imagines what a Beloit Mindset list for the class of 1915 might look like.

Michael Leddy said...

Thanks for that, Matt — it’s very good. I know A.T. Stewart’s name from a Horatio Alger novel and went slightly bonkers seeing his name on a plaque outside a house in Greenwich Village last summer.