Imagine a jester from King George III’s court, charged in 1790 with writing a comedy about the new American Republic....
It annoys me that in a piece attacking Sorkin for having a cartoon vision of the world, Lessig uses an analogy with a cartoon understanding of the world himself. The British monarch in 1790 did not have court jesters, they were long gone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester ).
I think this point is similar to that made in Nathan Heller's Slate article - http://www.slate.com/id/2269308/ - that Sorkin believes that Ivy League schools are still controlled by some kind of elite class (if not the WASP elite of old, some kind of new Internet-connected parvenu elite). Similarly, a member of King George the Third's court (jester or not) might assume that the United States was controlled by a landed aristocracy similar to that in England.
I've been to parties in the bike room of the porc and I've been to Henley, both are pretty much as described. If anything Harvard is actually a lot more waspish and cliquey than they make it out to be. It's not the majority of the students but it has an enormous effect on the culture.
It annoys me that in a piece attacking Sorkin for having a cartoon vision of the world, Lessig uses an analogy with a cartoon understanding of the world himself. The British monarch in 1790 did not have court jesters, they were long gone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester ).