Friday, September 21, 2007

Prince Charles, Entitlement and Diversity

I was just looking over Prince Charles' official website. (As far as I know he is not blogging, say, on moneyroyalty or prinzblog or any of the other blogs run by present, past, future, or pluperfect royalty. But think about it. Because some genes got mixed with some others we have the randomness of a Prince Charles. I have no reason to think he is not a humble guy and fully cognizant of the randomness of who we are and and even if we are. If he is about to be objective about himself he cannot have a sense of entitlement although I in fact I am sure he does. (Which raises the question at one level of whether all babies in hospital nurseries should be randomly handed out to parents so that each has a equal opportunity of having a decent family life, or we could just tax people on the basis of IQ.) Now switch to those in higher education who have a sense of entitlement -- as though they earned something -- when all they did was fall into the right gene pool and luck into the right parents. Crazy, isn't it for a kid with middle-class or higher parents, a high IQ, and a privileged upbringing to develop anything other than a profound sense of gratitude.

Who should have a sense of entitlement? The people least likely to have it. These are the people who overcame the lack of all those factors that those with a sense of entitlement seem to have. If those with no sense of entitlement were found more frequently in law teaching, the profession would be more diverse. In my own effort to increase diversity I think the first question to ask any faculty candidate is "What did your father do for a living."

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