42 pages • 1 hour read
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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Key Figures
William Deresiewicz
Deresiewicz holds a PhD in English from Columbia University, which he also attended for his undergraduate degree. He taught as a graduate assistant at Columbia, and then for 10 years at Yale University. He has written for publications such as the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Harper’s, and his work has been nominated for several awards, including a National Magazine Award. In 2012, he won the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle. He has published two other books, Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets and A Jane Austen Education; a new book entitled The Death of the Artist is due out in 2020.
Deresiewicz discusses his own background in the book as an example of going through the system of elite education. He grew up in a household academically focused on science, with a father who was an engineering professor and siblings who worked in medicine. Though he loved writing and literature, he double majored in biology and psychology. Before long, he took to reading novels hidden behind his notebook while attending large, impersonal lectures in his chosen fields. By the time Deresiewicz thought of following his passion, it was too late to change majors. After getting a graduate degree in journalism—something he took up half-heartedly—he worked in a job he found boring, until he finally decided to pursue a doctorate in English. His choices about his education were partly based on family expectations and partly made in a vacuum, without real guidance. As he puts it, “There was no one there to stop and make me think, no one there to save me from myself” (106).
George Eliot
George Eliot (1819-1880) was born Mary Ann Evans and took the pen name “George Eliot” to conceal her gender in order to have her work taken at face value. Deresiewicz uses both Eliot’s own life and her novel Middlemarch to make several key points about constructing an authentic self. Eliot lived swimming against the current of acceptable norms. After moving to London, she engaged in a literary life in a predominantly male field, becoming assistant editor of the Westminster Review. What brought scandal and scorn, however, was her open relationship with a married man, George Henry Lewes. The couple lived together without trying to hide it. Though it led to a painful break with her brother, “[t]his was the life that she was going to live,” writes Deresiewicz, “and she wasn’t going to apologize for it” (93-94). He includes this to illustrate what moral courage looks like. His advice to students that they forge their own path and identity will not be easy and involves some degree of risk.
Dorothea Brooke
Dorothea Brooke is one of the main characters in George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch. Born into wealth, she defies expectations by marrying a much older minister, Edward Casaubon. Her idealism leads her to believe that she will benefit from his great mind, but their relationship turns out to be a failure. When he dies and she gets a second chance, she takes yet another risk by marrying Casaubon’s impoverished young cousin, Will Ladislaw—an idealist like her. This turns out to be a happy union. Deresiewicz also portrays Brooke as an example of someone with moral courage, taking risks to follow her heart and create her own life. He stresses the failure of her first marriage to show the risks involved. Though her story turns out well in the end, he cautions students looking for their own path that there is no guarantee in life. Still, he argues, the risks are worth it if one truly wants to be free.
Mark Edmundson
Mark Edmundson is on the faculty at the University of Virginia where he teaches English. He holds a PhD from Yale University and is the author of numerous books, including Why Write?, Why Read?, and Why Teach? He is also a contributor editor at Harper’s and has written for several other publications, including the New Republic and the Nation.
Deresiewicz quotes Edmundson a few times in the book to support his ideas. For example, when discussing leadership, he refers to Edmundson’s definition that today the term means someone who blindly follows the people who are in charge: “When people say ‘leaders’ now, what they mean is gung ho ‘followers’” (135). Deresiewicz also uses Edmundson as an example of what a good teacher can do. When the latter was still in high school, a teacher helped him question what Plato calls doxa, which prepared him for a life of the mind. Edmundson writes about this experience in his book Teacher.
Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom taught philosophy at several universities, including Cornell and the University of Chicago. He is perhaps most famous as the author of The Closing of the American Mind, published in 1987, in which he lamented the state of higher education in America and pushed for a return to the traditional canon based on the so-called “Great Books.” Deresiewicz quotes him several times, like in his discussion of universities losing sight of what true education is. Bloom wrote “[t]here is no vision…of what an educated human being is” (60). Since Bloom was a conservative figure, Deresiewicz’s use of his ideas is significant, as it shows that the book’s thesis can appeal equally to those a bipartisan audience.
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