The Southern Alternative To Grind Culture

Wanting to escape the Asian ‘worker bees’ of the Ivies? The SEC is here for you.

Conservative writer Helen Andrews stirred up a hornet’s nest last week after she questioned the value of Asians taking over elite universities. The mere suggestion that this may have downsides inspired outrage among the commentariat, with accusations that Andrews and other right-wingers don’t really believe in merit. The conservative writer argued that Asian dominance of education will lead to a greater fixation on “grind culture” and bubble filling to the detriment of creativity, athletics, and other skills.

Andrews worries elite universities will only produce dutiful worker bees without any sense of entrepreneurship or risk-taking. This would dramatically change America’s culture and leadership–and not for the best.

It’s obvious that a new demographic taking over your elite will affect society. It shouldn’t be treated as “racist” to ask what effects this will have.

But it’s a tricky matter to make admissions less generous to conformist worker bees. Holistic admissions, ostensibly, were intended to assess student capabilities beyond grades and test scores. However, they served as a gift for liberal administrators to enact racial quotas, and they were easy for strivers to game. With affirmative action undermined, a stricter observance of test scores and grades rather than holistic admissions is now more likely at the top universities. This will benefit Asians and disadvantage blacks and Hispanics.

WASP-loving rightists would prefer that holistic admissions were a tool for right-wing administrators to favor their fellow Heritage Americans. But that’s unlikely to happen. The choice is between affirmative action-favoring holistic admission or a more rigorous commitment to test scores. The latter is at least more meritocratic, even if it leaves much to be desired.

The old WASP elite of the early 20th century is not going to return. That demographic gave up its power in World War II, and what remains of it is very different from George H.W. Bush’s prep school days.

However, there is an alternative, WASP-y “elite” of sorts to what’s promoted in the Ivies. It’s now located in the South, particularly at SEC universities. “The boom in Southern colleges is white flight from Asian educational norms,” Andrews argues. The values and skills prioritized at these schools are different from those of the Asian worker bees, but they’re also not the same as those of the old WASP elite. The southern elite is its own thing. While Alabama graduates may not compete for the top Wall Street and Silicon Valley jobs, they will have ways to make money and gain power independent of the usual elite channels. This could be the conservative counter-elite of the future, even if it doesn’t meet the ideals of the right-wingers who desire such a thing.

One thing must be made clear: the southern elite is not like the cavaliers of the past. (Even that is a bit of a myth.) These are not people steeped in Lost Cause mythology. They’re not stuck in the region’s “tragic” past. They don’t care a whole lot about that part of their heritage. They’re optimistic people who view the future as one of continued economic growth and big wins for their college football team. In their world, sociability, sports, and entrepreneurship matter far more than test taking.

If one wants to understand the Southern elite, don’t watch Gone With the Wind. Put on The Blind Side instead.

One need not worry about Asian strivers taking over the SEC. They would hardly fit in. However, southern public universities aren’t suddenly going to turn into the new elite universities of America. Those places will still remain the Ivies and other colleges where Asians predominate. These places will still be pumping out much of the financial, legal, tech, and much of the political elite of the future. But there are many ways to find success in America. The South will offer its own path independent of grind culture. It will be more conservative (and whiter), but it probably won’t meet the ideals of right-wing intellectuals.

A good snapshot of SEC culture was recently provided by the British magazine The Face. The essay looked at the University of Alabama’s famous sorority culture. What it found was something very different from grind culture. These are not kids spending all their time studying and conforming to professor dictates. They’re spending the vast majority of their time in a different rat race, one centered on who can look the best and party the most. Their temple is Bryant-Denney Stadium, not the library. Greek Row shapes who they are rather than the curriculum.

The social life, not academic rigor, is what draws people from all over the country to Bama, Ole Miss, and Tennessee. #RushTok, which documents sorority rush week, especially helps advertise Bama to the rest of the country. As The Face documents:

Rush, as it’s concisely known, first went viral four years ago, when sorority hopefuls at the University of Alabama began sharing their daily outfits for the week-long recruitment process. Their looks were excessively coordinated, each item bouncy and clean, punctuated with mass-luxury goods such as David Yurman bracelets and Golden Goose sneakers. Most importantly, there was a new outfit for every day of the week, each as articulated in its conscious splendour as the last.

Those not fully initiated in the ritual femininity of the Deep South—so, most of the global population—couldn’t look away. This was an expression of ultra-feminised beauty that evoked gypsy brides, Barbie dolls, and long-ago ladies wearing rouge and corsets, their curls shaped by hot metal tongs. But there it was, in our world of smartphones and women wearing jorts to the office.

Girls want to be like them and guys want to date them. It’s that simple.

Southern Greek life is still very WASP-y, but of a separate variety from that of the Boston Brahmins. There’s no great love for intellectual activities. They do learn the Greek alphabet, but only during hazing and it’s quickly forgotten after college. Learning only matters so far as it gets you the degree to enter the world of business. High culture is not a particular concern. Don’t expect the next Henry Adams to come from this milieu.

But this milieu is very conservative. Unlike the Ivies, the SEC is Trump country. MAGA hats are in abundance, and the president’s election victory was celebrated across southern colleges. Traditional gender norms are rigorously enforced. There’s no tolerance for gender theory and trans types. Men are supposed to be men and women are supposed to be women. These places are also notably lacking in diversity. As reporters constantly bemoan, SEC Greek life remains lily white.

When compared to the campus multicultural center, Fraternity Row can look like paradise.

The southern gentry is pretty insular. It’s a trait that allowed them to retain their exclusivity following the civil rights revolution. These are people who constructed their own private world to keep out people they didn’t want, whether through private schools to bar diversity or fraternities to keep out weirdos. It’s a world with a high barrier of entry. Having good grades or being involved in a lot of extracurriculars aren’t what count. Who you are, your athleticism, and your personal skills matter far more.

There is a serious challenge that lies ahead for this culture—and it’s a direct result of the undermining of affirmative action.

It should be noted that not everyone at these schools is in Greek Life. Only a third of Alabama students belong to a fraternity or sorority. That number also includes members of black fraternities and sororities, which are a completely different scene. These schools are remarkably white, considering their own states’ demographics. Most of them are at least 70 percent white. But these figures could change, and that could have a major impact on the campus culture.

There is a good chance that the center of the campus cultural wars could move to the South thanks to demographic changes.

The undermining of affirmative action at elite colleges has boosted the black student population at southern schools. This creates the potential for conflict between the dominant white Greek Life and that of the expanding black student population. The black students who would have been leading protest movements at Yale are now stuck at LSU. They’ll have an even bigger chip on their shoulder when confronting a more conservative student body and culture. There will be greater demands for fraternities and sororities to open their doors to minorities and check their white privilege.

Greek Life will have to respond to these challenges. It could force them into a more aggressively right-wing culture that directly confronts campus leftists and unapologetically defends their community. On the other hand, they could cave to these demands.

Since the civil rights revolution, the southern gentry has striven to exclude unwanted parts of the world in their own social sphere. They’ve largely succeeded, which has led them to lead enviable lives. But the good life also dissuades them from being too right-wing. As long as they’re making money, their kids are going to a good school, the country club has good fellows, and the Tide are on, why bother too much with the culture war?

They’ll care who wins elections because they still value low taxes and regulations, but they’re not much for turning themselves into a radical right-wing vanguard. They’ve got more important things to worry about.

If the SEC becomes the epicenter of black militancy in this country, they’ll have to face these problems head on. If the southern gentry capitulates, they’ll eliminate the draw of these schools. These schools will still be different than the worker bee factories of the top universities, but they will no longer present the pretty white face of #RushTok.

You can now preorder Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.