SuperZips: "Overeducated Elite Snobs"

That New Upper Class we were talking about, they carry with them "an unmistakable whiff of a 'we're better than the rabble' mentality."  Some people call them "Overeducated Elite Snobs" (OES).

"The daily yoga and jogging that keep them whippet-thin are not just healthy things for them to do; people who are overweight are less admirable as people.  Deciding not to recycle does not reflect just an alternative opinion about whether recycling makes sense; it is inherently irresponsible.  Smokers are not to be worried about, but to be held in contempt.

"They just quietly believe that they and their peers are superior to the rest of the population, intellectually and in their nuanced moral sensibility."

Where do they get this opinion of themselves?  Well, from their education at HPY (Harvard, Princeton, Yale) or another elite university, and from their super high income that is higher than 95% of all Americans.

Where in the U.S. are these SuperZips where the OES live?   More to come.

Pres. Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. . . .

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

SuperZips: Home of the New UPPER Class

You've never heard of SuperZips?  Charles Murray created the term in his book Coming Apart, published 2012.

A social scientist, he uses studies and statistics to demonstrate the rise since about 1990 of a New American Upper Class.  These people have extremely high levels of education/intelligence and wealth,  They are segregated into homogeneous zip codes.

SuperZips are habitat of the New American Upper Class.

By his definition, SuperZips are the 882 zip codes in which resident adults have educations better or more elite than 95% of all Americans and incomes higher than 95%.  They are "substantially whiter and more Asian than the rest of America" and they enjoy a culture something like you would have seen in the tv series "thirtysomething."  They may "obsess about how smart their baby is, how to make the baby smarter, where the baby should go to preschool, and where the baby should go to law school."

"Members of the new upper class don't watch much television", but maybe PBS NewsHour.  They don't go much to "bars with pool tables in them, bars that allow smoking, or bars with many wide screens showing professional sports."

More to come about the New Upper Class.

Perspective reversed

The word "bigot" is defined by dictionary.com as:

"a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race"

Professor Rorty's quotation below is so provocative.  Was the highly credentialed professor intolerant of his students' parents' religious ideas?  Was he a bigot by this definition?  Does he sound a bit vicious?  Just saying.