Though You Never Told Me So, Somehow I Know I Never Had a Chance

In comments, Anon. nails one part of the philosophical caste system:

What's particularly annoying about the contingent faculty experience is the yearly ritual of meeting the new kids coming straight out of fancy programs with no teaching ability and no publishing record being interviewed for the job you've been fighting to get and will never have an interview for. I have nothing against them, but inevitably one or more of them will get the tenure track job, life will seem easy, and inevitably they'll start treating the contingent faculty as if they suffer from some sort of mild mental handicap. Because, you know, if you weren't mentally handicapped, you'd have a tenure track job or something.