The Ivy Machine

They call it a temple of knowledge, but the walls were never meant for thought— only the careful curation of power, where names are chiseled in Latin and inheritance is mistaken for intelligence. The gates are high, not to keep the world safe, but to keep the chosen ones in— a factory of fathers’ sons, daughters of old wealth repackaged as prodigies, spitting polished syllables over wine they never had to earn. They sell wisdom like a relic, ancient and gilded, but it’s just debt wrapped in ivy, a hundred-thousand-dollar handshake to certify you belong. Here, history is optional— revised at the convenience of kings, rewritten in marble by men who inherited their ethics like cufflinks. Nothing before them was ever great, nothing beyond them will ever matter. The professors teach compliance with a flourish, disguising obedience as philosophy, praising innovation— so long as it rhymes with profit. A degree here is an invitation, not to brilliance, but to the table— where policy is printed in the blood of the voiceless and the world is divided between the invitees and the extras. They call it education. They call it prestige. But the only lesson they’ve ever taught is how to keep the gates closed— how to stand behind them, smiling, while the world burns.