Friend Request

Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher present us with a look at the Millenials in their film, The Social Network.

David Brooks summarizes the film's backdrop:

In “The Social Network,” the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin imagine that these two Harvards still exist side by side. On top, there is the old WASP Harvard of Mayflower families, regatta blazers and Anglo-Saxon cheekbones. Underneath, there is the largely Jewish and Asian Harvard of brilliant but geeky young strivers.

Ideals like Honor animated “the Greatest Generation” and can be seen in the WASP's of Harvard. One of the WASP’s in the film says they will not attack the strivers because “we are gentleman of Harvard.” Unfortunately, the film shows the strivers outfoxing the WASP’s.

Eduardo Saverin, one of the strivers, fits Brooks’ description of an “Organization Kid.” He is obedient, hard-working, and a careerist. But he is also a “flat soul” as Allan Bloom described in The Closing of the American Mind. He is not inspired by anything really greater than himself. He is a faint shadow of the WASP's.

That his best friend would be Mark Zuckerberg in the film should not be surprising then. Zuckerberg is like the Organization Kids in all ways except one: he is disobedient (Facemash) and disloyal (stabs Saverin in the back). He is more consistent than Saverin because he realizes friendship is out the window too when there are no principles guiding one’s life. Lacking any anchor in family, church, or tradition, Zuckerberg’s individualism (selfishness) reigns supreme; however, the last scene suggests Zuckerberg pays the heaviest price of all. He is on his labtop, sitting in the dark, hitting the refresh button over and over, hoping a girl will accept his friend request. His pettiness causes him to be alone, wishing he has friends.

The film shows the degeneration of the college elite: honor bound Winklevii to the loyal Saverin to the machiavellian Zuckerberg.

Millennials on Marriage: "Not Yet"

James Poulos has pointed out an interesting debate between Ben Domenech and Conor Friedersdorf over why Millenials are waiting to get married later than earlier generations.

Here is Ben:

But I say the simplest answer is true: American men today delay the act of

reproduction and union because they devalue it. Because technology and culture
(today, technology is culture) unite to encourage them to devalue it — to favor
distraction over maturity, personal growth over familial growth, and self over
society.

Conor offers a different set of motives: 1) Today’s women are focused on their careers. 2) Parents want to offer their children every material advantage, just like their own parents did. 3) They want to avoid a divorce, which was pervasive in the previous generation.

Ben’s response to the first point is that more and more women today are leaving the workforce. My response to the second point is that Boomers spoiled us when they did that, hence the term 'Trophy Kids'. And the third point I am willing to grant. But I would develop Ben’s argument about the “self over society.” Tocqueville describes it terms of love of material well being (we call it consumerism):

To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world
in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few
yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be
always making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to
satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are
small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day
by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene
between itself and heaven.

The ubiquity of McMansions and dozens of creature comforts is another reason why Millennials delay marriage and children. Families weigh us down as we try to climb the economic ladder. Tocqueville decried this comfort-seeking mentality and believed it would make us soft. Borrowing an argument from Peter Lawler, I would point out the inevitability of death and how it forces us to reevaluate our priorities. Lying in your deathbed has a way of changing your outlook on things, especially when it comes to how you lived your life. Better to take that perspective now than later.

Millennials work weekends

The Millennials, aka Generation Y, is entering the workforce and being asked to work long hours if they want to move up in the world. One take on this is the Millennials are "Trophy Kids" who have been spoiled by their Baby Boomer parents and are now whining because they have entered the real world.

However, there is another possibility-maybe employers ARE asking Millennials to work too much. Maybe they're asking their employees to work more than any previous generation has had to before. While I don't have the numbers to back this up, I am sure we'll find 'hours per week' are on an incline.

At this point, I'm sure many people, especially Americans, will want to know why workaholism is a problem. "Didn't the Founders place industry on the list of virtues?" they'd ask. Yes, but virtue is the golden mean between two extremes and what we have today is no media via.

Coincidentally, the vice of workaholism breeds its counterpart, idleness:

When your mind and body are exhausted from overwork, what leisure time
there is tends to be squandered on passive entertainments: hours spent in
front of the television or sleeping weekends away. In this way the person
becomes impoverished on many levels: personal, familial and social.

This is the type of criticism Americans receive from their European counterparts: Work is for the sake of leisure, not the other way around. On this point, they're right; however, what many contemporary Europeans consider leisure is simply hedonism. What contemporary Americans and Europeans share in common is materialism, albeit of different varieties.

What do I mean by 'leisure' then? Check out Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Or if you want something shorter...

We are talking here about recreation, about doing things that that are
valuable for their own sake such as reflecting on the meaning of life, attending
cultural events or learning a new language.

In conversations I've had with family and friends what I often hear is that if you don't play the game then you'll either be permanently benched or relegated to second string. They say nothing can be done about this.

France's solution is to fix the number of hours per week by law, but I admit I don't want that for fear of corporate flight. But maybe my family and friends can change the culture once they're in control of things. What seems to be happening now is each generation asks more of the next generation. One day the Millennials will be the bosses and they will have to decide if they want to ask the up and comers if they can come into work on Saturday. My advise to them is they don't ask.

Hugs replace handshakes

"Democracy does not attach men strongly to one another, but it places their habitual intercourse on an easier footing."
-Tocqueville

This is yet another observation by the Frenchman which has borne out over time. Articles from the NY Times and Time reveal that hugs have replaced handshakes:

Tocqueville predicted that formalities will necessarily decline as Democracy evolves; however, this does not mean people will develop deeper friendships. Instead, friendships will become more shallow. People will be friendlier, but friendships will be superficial. One writer has called it FDS or Friendship Deficit Disorder.