Here's an email I wrote to my mom in response to the David Brooks article she sent me. I think she was expecting something more like "Hey Mom, ate some lasagna today. Love you." But we philosophers are gadflys, you never know how long we can write for when the bud light is coursing through our veins. Thought you fellas might be interested in the topic under discussion; if not, just keep that to yourselves you philistines. Ignore the second sentence of my email. Read David Brooks article first--linked below.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&oref=slogin
Interesting articles. The Cavett piece was pretty much just a rehashing of where everybody already stands on that issue, with some fancy vocab. thrown in, rather than really presenting any coherent counter-argument against Imus' critics; I generally agree with him though. The David Brooks article was perceptive and I agree with some of its assumptions. It kind of smacks of an older-person-writing-about-hip-things-they're-not-involved-in though; like Walter Cronkite commenting on the early 70's counter-culture or something. I guess its true that people in their 20's are living differently now then the boomers, but I think its important to remember--and people often don't--that the way people lived in the halcyon days of the 1940's, '50's and '60's isn't the way people have always lived in the history of humanity either. When you read Charles Dickens's books for instance (set in the 1850's-'60's), the main characters usually got married in their late twenties and early thirties or even later for men; it was only the lower classes that married young. And this was in a time with shorter--sometimes much shorter--life spans. I think there could be many reasons why many people in their twenties are more experimental than the past generation or two. Like David Brooks says, it could be that there are more people looking for the same quote-unquote good jobs; I mean who wants to be a bus driver if you--or anyone in your graduating class--can be a CEO or rockstar or fashion designer or invent the next google. This phenomenon--more competition in the workplace--could be a good thing for workers (i.e. the result of the egalitarian effects of the new, internet economy enabling opportunity for previously-marginalized groups) and consumers (i.e. better service because of higher quality employees) but it could be a result of the fact that more and more people are going to college, many of whom should not really be there and whose ambition exceeds their intellect, causing them to plagiarize, cheat and cram for exams, finishing with a degree in conniving but without any reason, sophistication or concrete knowledge.
Or it could be the fact that in every generation of human history since the beginning, the bulk of the people in any society, with the exception of small ruling elites, have had to struggle and strive and it was only after WWII, for the first time in history, that the dream of material sufficiency and comfort really reached the masses (the majority) in the form of a booming and enlarging middle class. And that consequently, for the first time in history, large numbers of people (the children of middle class baby boomers) had an opportunity to ponder a question, which until then was only considered in the circles of intellectuals and elites: "is material satisfaction enough?" I can personally attest that it is GOOD to be materially comfortable (as most college students and Maui surfers can tell you-its a lot nicer to have money for gas and food than to not have money for gas and food) but I do think people wonder if it's ENOUGH to be materially comfortable. I can tell you a lot of people who I went to Siena with who are making decent/good money are not that happy--after all, a good/decent salary after taxes and living expenses isn't quite as decent anyway. People are wondering, as people always have from the beginning (those who DO wonder--not everyone does--some people let other people do the wondering for them), what is going to make them happiest--more money, more time off, doing what you love, doing what will allow you time and money to do what you love etc.; you see this also in the discussions now about "work/life balance" and all that psycho-babble; or, as it was more eloquently put by Maslow, the "hierarchy of needs" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs). So that is the economic-historical reason, perhaps ,for the phenomenon that David Brooks writes about.
Or it could be that the standard of material well-being in America is (taking the long-view) pretty high. Economic historians point out that while you can (approximately) compare how much 16th centuryVenetian Ducats (currency) are worth in today's US dollars, its impossible to determine how muchLouis XIV would have paid for an ipod; or Alexander the Great for a machine gun; or Richard III, a horse. I mean, I could work on a boat in Maui for a day or two and buy a low-end laptop. With such an abundance of material wealth (even if it isn't cash, which everyone feels they are always short of right?) and high living standards, young people may feel more comfortable 'exploring'--as an older person would call it, or 'living'--as a younger person would probably say. Although people strongly want to be "relatively wealthy" (meaning wealthy compared--or relative--to their peers and society) being able to afford luxuries cheaply (i.e. $200 monthly payments for a new car or $250 for a new computer) means there is not the same need to put one's nose to the grindstone in order to raise potatoes from the soil. That said, it seems more people are working more hours than ever before--maybe because of what I said above regarding competition for jobs.
Or could it be simply that people are living and working longer and staying healthier later in life and so the twenties are like "found time" for the younger generations. It could be any of these things, all of these things, some of each, and probably a bunch of other reasons too. There were people who came on my boat today--a private trip of high-sales insurance agents. I know what you're thinking--how boring! And...you're right. They were all pretty young or young/ersatz-hip looking but in the end, under the fleece jackets, visors and streaked hair, they were insurance agents. I struck up a conversation with one couple and after I exhausted their life stories by determining they were from Utah and sold insurance, they started to ask me this and that. They asked me how I got to Maui, why I moved here, blah blah blah; then, when they asked me what I studied in college and I told them philosophy they gave me a hearty--though not mean or consciously condescending--laugh. But it still annoyed me. Having endured this type of person many times on the boats, I have a small arsenal of replies ready; today I just shot back "What did you study?" The guy was a little caught off guard and meekly mumbled "Umm, ah, human resource and supply chain management" or some such hive-esque and mole-like thing. Suddenly studying philosophy sounded like hiking to Xanadu, which it should. Getting back to the Brooks piece, there's nothing wrong with a traditional material life, if fact, its great--but if people are taking time off in their twenties in order to 'explore' or just to avoid becoming insurance salesmen who chuckle when they encounter someone who studied philosophy and therefore knows the origins of the intellectual threads which Jefferson wove together into theDeclaration of Independence, then whatever the reasons, it is a good thing.
One last thing: it's interesting, telling, and precisely wrong that David Brooks uses the phrase "Odyssey Years." The Odyssey is Homer's book about Odysseus becoming alternately lost and stranded for 10 years on his way home from the Trojan War. Being that Brooks is talking mainly about the decade (ten years) between the teens and thirties, it's interesting and probably not coincidental that he chose the phrase "Odyssey." But its probably an incorrect allusion, or maybe a fundamental misjudgment on his part, because if this is a real phenomenon--the "experimental 20's"--and I'm not entirely sure it's widespread enough to be considered a social phenomenon--it's not a journey of finding one's way back to their starting point, but exploring the possibilities of what makes people happy. Or more likely, it's not a journey at all, its just people living.
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