The gall of some people. Apparently Malcolm Gladwell has gone after John Paulson for giving $400 million to Harvard University.
It takes a special kind of immorality to feel comfortable doing any of the following:
(a) bossily telling other people how to spend their own money,
(b) telling them how to spend their philanthropic dollars,
(c) chastising them for giving to an educational institution, and
(d) doing so publicly rather than privately.
The writer for Vox chimes in by calling the donation “obscene.”
What is truly obscene is seeing a perverted ethic at work. Apparently the fact that Paulson is a rich man and Harvard is a rich institution means that anything goes. One may attack them without regard to normal decency and pretend that one is taking the moral high ground while doing so. Repulsive.
I agree with your evaluation of the high-handed immoral action of Gladwell of attacking someone’s choice of how they spend their money (whether for a yacht, a mansion, or the name of a university School).
However, in a more universal way, I think giving significant money to the vast majority of universities, for any purpose, including for an engineering school, is giving money to the enemies of capitalism and free citizenry. The intellectual culture of the vast majority of universities and colleges is so corrupt that they shouldn’t be promoted with one’s money.
Of course, there are some exceptions, such as the work of BBT to specifically endow pro-freedom university entities, and other very carefully targeted activities that won’t allow corrupt university administrations to get their hands on the money.
What is really obscene is that he should have given the money to Yale.