Weird Status Inversions

Originally Published on June 2, 2019

Donald Trump is a Wharton graduate. If you published the things he said specifying “Wharton MBA grad and known real estate developer” it would carry much more status than “Donald Trump president of the US.” Nassim N Taleb is a Wharton Grad and has a Ph.D; is a professor at NYU. If you sanitized his writings and p-hacked together a study, it would be accepted as gospel by the same people who poo-poo his (mostly right) criticisms. It’s funny as how someone outstrips their academic credentials they lose status for doing so amongst a certain group of Americans who derive their viewpoints from The New Yorker. Their success threatens to lower the degrees these achievers earned on the status hierarchy ladder-because it allows other real estate developers or traders without said degrees to also outrank degree holders; it implies that the act of becoming president, or of being a successful trader, is more difficult, more impactful, and higher status than a Wharton MBA. Rightfully so, I might add.