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?]Perhaps the most ill-advised entry:
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.]
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.Related posts
And have always been ignored in lists like this.
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
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.
No time! I spent exactly the right amount of time online, can’t do more. :)
Over at Inside Higher Ed, Tim Morris imagines what a Beloit Mindset list for the class of 1915 might look like.
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.
Post a Comment