thedrifter
11-26-05, 07:15 AM
Things the '60s got right
DAVID GELERNTER
A GENERATION HAS passed since I went to college. Today's college students understand that things have changed in many ways — some good, some not. But one change is glaring and tragic. The change I mean is that nowadays so many students are obsessed with their careers. (This is strictly my own personal observation — as a college teacher of long-standing, and of declining optimism.)
It seems to me that when I was an undergraduate, students were far more obnoxious than they are today. Many of us were positive we were smarter than our teachers and naturally gifted with superior taste. But there was a good side (believe it or not) to our arrogant self-assurance. Many of us waded right into intellectual life until we were in way over our heads. Many of us were obsessed with books, poems, music, arguments, theories, paintings and politics, history and philosophy, truth and beauty. Virtually no one cared about "careers" except for the despised pre-meds. (And didn't they have the last laugh!)
Why the big change between now and then? Many reasons. But there's one particular reason that students seem reluctant (some even scared) to talk or think about. In those long-ago days, more college women used to plan on staying home to rear children. Those women had other goals than careers in mind, by definition. They saw learning as worth having for its own sake; otherwise why bother with a college education, if you weren't planning on a big-deal career? (There were social reasons, of course — such as finding a husband. But social reasons don't explain why so many of those students who planned on being mothers rather than CEOs took hard courses, did well and wound up at the top of their classes.)
In the days when many college-trained women stayed home to rear children, the nation as a whole devoted a significant fraction of all its college-trained worker-hours to childrearing. This necessarily affected society's attitude toward money and careers. A society that applauds a highly educated woman's decision to rear children instead of making money obviously believes that, under some circumstances, childrearing is more important than moneymaking. No one thought women were incapable of earning money if they wanted or needed to: Childrearing versus moneymaking was a genuine choice.
In those days, liberals looked down on corporations and careerism. In fact, society at large did. "The Organization Man," "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" were all about the silliness (or, to be less polite, the stupidity) of U.S. corporate culture. Deans pleaded with their students to treasure learning for its own sake.
But all that changed with feminism's decision to champion the powerful and successful working woman. Nowadays, feminists and many liberals are delighted when women make careers in large corporations, which are still the road to riches and power in this country.
No doubt contempt for the corporation was overdone back then, just as corporation worship is today. In any event, college deans tell their students nowadays (especially women, but men can't help overhearing): Go out there and make money! Get power! Build those careers!
Some liberals imagine that conservatives spend their time trying to set the clock back. That's a foolish caricature. We're not going back to 1960 (before careerist feminism took off) any more than we're going back two weeks to the point when the leaves outside my window were blazing bright yellow and scarlet and orange. Now the ones that still cling are dead brown.
In many ways, life today is a lot easier than it was in 1960. But don't kid yourselves. The age that rated childrearing higher than money-grubbing and intellectual exploration higher than career preparation had it exactly right. We might come to miss what we had then, but we are never going back; no nation has ever sacrificed wealth for intangible spiritual satisfactions.
In some important ways, this society has made a tragic but probably inevitable (and certainly irreversible) mistake. Crying about it is senseless. Denying it is cowardly.
Ellie
DAVID GELERNTER
A GENERATION HAS passed since I went to college. Today's college students understand that things have changed in many ways — some good, some not. But one change is glaring and tragic. The change I mean is that nowadays so many students are obsessed with their careers. (This is strictly my own personal observation — as a college teacher of long-standing, and of declining optimism.)
It seems to me that when I was an undergraduate, students were far more obnoxious than they are today. Many of us were positive we were smarter than our teachers and naturally gifted with superior taste. But there was a good side (believe it or not) to our arrogant self-assurance. Many of us waded right into intellectual life until we were in way over our heads. Many of us were obsessed with books, poems, music, arguments, theories, paintings and politics, history and philosophy, truth and beauty. Virtually no one cared about "careers" except for the despised pre-meds. (And didn't they have the last laugh!)
Why the big change between now and then? Many reasons. But there's one particular reason that students seem reluctant (some even scared) to talk or think about. In those long-ago days, more college women used to plan on staying home to rear children. Those women had other goals than careers in mind, by definition. They saw learning as worth having for its own sake; otherwise why bother with a college education, if you weren't planning on a big-deal career? (There were social reasons, of course — such as finding a husband. But social reasons don't explain why so many of those students who planned on being mothers rather than CEOs took hard courses, did well and wound up at the top of their classes.)
In the days when many college-trained women stayed home to rear children, the nation as a whole devoted a significant fraction of all its college-trained worker-hours to childrearing. This necessarily affected society's attitude toward money and careers. A society that applauds a highly educated woman's decision to rear children instead of making money obviously believes that, under some circumstances, childrearing is more important than moneymaking. No one thought women were incapable of earning money if they wanted or needed to: Childrearing versus moneymaking was a genuine choice.
In those days, liberals looked down on corporations and careerism. In fact, society at large did. "The Organization Man," "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" were all about the silliness (or, to be less polite, the stupidity) of U.S. corporate culture. Deans pleaded with their students to treasure learning for its own sake.
But all that changed with feminism's decision to champion the powerful and successful working woman. Nowadays, feminists and many liberals are delighted when women make careers in large corporations, which are still the road to riches and power in this country.
No doubt contempt for the corporation was overdone back then, just as corporation worship is today. In any event, college deans tell their students nowadays (especially women, but men can't help overhearing): Go out there and make money! Get power! Build those careers!
Some liberals imagine that conservatives spend their time trying to set the clock back. That's a foolish caricature. We're not going back to 1960 (before careerist feminism took off) any more than we're going back two weeks to the point when the leaves outside my window were blazing bright yellow and scarlet and orange. Now the ones that still cling are dead brown.
In many ways, life today is a lot easier than it was in 1960. But don't kid yourselves. The age that rated childrearing higher than money-grubbing and intellectual exploration higher than career preparation had it exactly right. We might come to miss what we had then, but we are never going back; no nation has ever sacrificed wealth for intangible spiritual satisfactions.
In some important ways, this society has made a tragic but probably inevitable (and certainly irreversible) mistake. Crying about it is senseless. Denying it is cowardly.
Ellie