See the Movie; Assess the Commentator

In today's Times, David Brooks says "The Social Network" is not good sociology, but it is good psychology.  What do you think?

 

Opinion

The Facebook Searchers

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: October 7, 2010

 

“The Social Network” is spot on with its parsing of who wins and loses in our information economy and hypercompetitive meritocracy.

"In 1952, two-thirds of Harvard applicants were admitted. The average verbal SAT score for incoming freshmen was 583. If your father went to Harvard, you had a 90 percent chance of getting in.

 

"Harvard’s president at the time, James Bryant Conant, decided to change that. Harvard could no longer be about birth and WASP breeding, he realized. It had to promote intelligence and merit. Within eight years, the average freshman had a verbal score of 678 and a math score of 695. New sorts of people were going to Harvard — more intellectual and less blue blood. But Conant didn’t want his school to be home to unidimensional brainiacs. He hoped to retain the emphasis on character.  

"In “The Social Network,” the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin imagine that these two Harvards still exist side by side. On top, there is the old WASP Harvard of Mayflower families, regatta blazers and Anglo-Saxon cheekbones. Underneath, there is the largely Jewish and Asian Harvard of brilliant but geeky young strivers.

"This social structure will be familiar to moviegoers. From “Animal House” through “Revenge of the Nerds,” it has provided the basic plotline for most collegiate movies. But as sociology, of course, it’s completely fanciful."  [Read More]