The Eton Scholarship Question

[Lord Percy]

This is how the British elite are trained to think.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/eton-scholarship-question-how-british-elite-are-trained-think

Basically they're educated to assume they're the best, and the rightful future leaders of the country. Just because they went to that school, or at least because they have the life where they mix with 'that crowd'.

They get set questions like this:

https://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/o-ETON-COLLEGE-EXAM-570.jpg


Because, y'know, it's important to practice defending shit decisions.

If you can't be arsed to read the article, here's the final paragraph:

[Ste]

An interesting question that people wouldn't be offended about if it wasn't an Eton scholarship question.

Perhaps more interesting would be to see what they consider a good answer and what they consider to be a bad answer.

[Derivative]

[D O G]

[Derivative]

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

[Rogerborg]

Hang on, speech writer is a spotty oik job. The correct answer is that you lash a fag until it writes the speech for you.
____________________
Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[Tungtvann]

I haven't got much to add apart from I want see all those cunts burn.

[mistergixer]

The first comment on that article amused me:

[Lord Percy]

Ahhhh interesting points.

You have to ask though... particularly when considering our current leadership... Did David Cameron get the job because he was just abso-fucking-lutely awesome, entirely thanks to that brillient education of his? Or is it just because he went to the right school and knew the right people? I mean... is he really that much better than anyone else? But meh, he went to Eton...

Also...

If every school had pushed forward this attitude of 'you children are going to lead this country some day - no really, you are...' How would that pan out? Better or worse? It seems to miss out on the key fact that some people most certainly will not be the new rulers of the country.

Surely education should be about getting people to do what they're best at. Not just pushing them on with the blind assumption that they deserve to have/do 'great things'.

[fatpies]

[Derivative]

[DrSnoosnoo]

It's obviously a thought exercise, which puts you in the most powerful position of the country asking you to rationalise an action.

I know someone at Eton, he's doing finance and languages, pretty much all the languages. His dad came here as a grad student to study for a PhD, with 300 quid in his pocket. He's now the head of our school, my supervisor, and his son, got into Eton on a scholarship, because he's bright and he works hard, not just because his footballer parent or aristocratic parent paid for the place.

People shouldn't have the dim view that just because you went to Eton, you're a bad person. There are 'normal' people there too. What we should be worrying about is how can we get mainstream schools teaching to that quality.

Eton was first made as a school for those too poor to go school, for free. The teaching was so good, those who paid felt ripped off and so it went. These people who went there free wanted to go to school and wanted to learn. If my kid (non existent) was offered to take a scholarship exam for Eton, I know what I'd advise!
____________________
I'm Sam; Northern, Ginger, Lover
Did have: '95 ZZR600 '83 CG125 '97 ZZR1100 '15 Hypermotard 821 SP Do Have: '10 ZX10R

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

I wouldn't hesitate to advise them not to go. Most - and by most I mean the large majority - of people I know who've been to public school are total wankers. Arrogant, over-estimating their own abilities, ignorant and dismissive of average and working class people, and with a massive sense of entitlement. Also - and this is probably the most common trait - they have a very strange attitude to women. On the one hand, bizarrely quixotic and mannered - on the other, a twisted strand of misogyny. In other words, very conflicted and fucked up.

Yeah yeah that could be most of BCF.

Not even close!

Of course, I have to say straight away that I don't know that many ex-public school boys. But over the years you do bump into them here and there. And I always think whoah what's wrong with this guy - and then you find out what school they went to and you just go, fuck, of course. All makes sense now.

So no - no fucking way would I send my kids to a public school.
____________________
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[fatpies]

I wouldn't send my hypothetical children to Eton either.

I would home school them.

This is slightly unfair because I am an educator. Mainstream schools I feel are too much brainwashing and teaching to the exam rather than critical thinking.

Hell a few months ago I asked about maths revision books and went through one. I'm pretty confident on my maths now. How many people will do that?
____________________
"It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one"

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

But let's play, anyway.

The only option - and one that was both necessary and moral.

Well firstly there seems to be a whiff of pleonasm in the wording cited. If something is the only option surely it is also necessary. And strictly speaking, if it is the only option then it's not an option.

But anyway - onto "necessary":

It would be necessary because dissent may spread, leading to the weakening and possible destruction of a democratically elected government. I suppose any answer would have to have that as a central thread. For balance, it could be mentioned that such coercive retaliation by govt could lead to accusations of brutality from the 'international community' and thus the alienation of allies and trading partners. So weigh the dichotomy and make the speech appear carefully reasoned and rational around those two poles, but concluding ultimately that brutality erm sorry I meant law and order are the best way to go.

And now "moral":

A moral argument would probably have to be strung together around some notion of utilitarian ethics or whatever they're called - i.e. the desires/actions of the few cannot be allowed to harm those of the majority.

Fuck knows. That seems to be how this shit usually plays out.
____________________
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[J4mes]

15 hours and no sign of hetzer?

Is he alive?

[DrSnoosnoo]

On Behalf of Hetzer:

SCVM
____________________
I'm Sam; Northern, Ginger, Lover
Did have: '95 ZZR600 '83 CG125 '97 ZZR1100 '15 Hypermotard 821 SP Do Have: '10 ZX10R

[Hetzer]

I was in the countryside getting wrecked.

But anyway, what Trevor said. Plus we have Cameron and Osbourne as perfect examples of the kind of sociopathic sewage that comes out of Eton. Eton.."It's all about us and our kind, ya?"
____________________
"There's the horizon! Ride hard, ride fast and cut down all who stand in your way!"

[Lord Percy]

[Hetzer]

Which is ironic, because on the whole the nastiest, greediest self-entitlement arrogant human sewage flows from places like Eton. As the evidence clearly demonstrates.
____________________
"There's the horizon! Ride hard, ride fast and cut down all who stand in your way!"

[Derivative]

[syl]