Previous - 177. Johnson & Montaigne
The Big Me
This is Brooks's wrapping up chapter. He starts out talking about the cultural shift represented by Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath in Super Bowl III. Unitas represents the traditional "Little Me" values Brooks is advocating for, while Namath is a classic "Big Me" figure. He goes on to identify Unitas with moral realism and Namath with moral romanticism. He doesn't talk about 18th and 19th century romanticism. (If he had, he could have brought up the shift to valuing this world over the next. Brooks seems to have less of a grip on what is the source of the problem he's warning about than Dostoevsky had over a century earlier.) Instead, he sees the Greatest Generation as turning its back on moral realism as a result of the Depression and WW2. (If he were British, he would probably push this back to the Lost Generation after the Great War.)
All this puts me in an awkward position. I'm a realist (Burkean conservative) and I blame the Greatest Generation (or their parents) for the transition to an auto-centric national infrastructure following the war. I have no problem with Brooks throwing some moral stones in their direction as well.
This is similar to the (quite natural) tendency to blame those damn Millennials for everything wrong with the world today, forgetting that the Millennials are literally the children of Boomer values.
The Soul of Man Under Meritocracy
p251 The purification of the mertocracy has also reinforced the idea that each of us is wonderful inside. It has also encouraged self-aggrandizing tendencies... You have, like me, spent your life trying to make something of yourself, trying to have an impact, trying to be reasonably successful in this world. That's meant lot of competition and a lot of emphasis on individual achievement... moving toward success and status.
How is this different from Johnson and the exemplar strivers in this book?
This competitive pressure meant that we all have to spend more time, energy, and attention on the external Adam I climb toward success and we have less time, energy, and attention to devote to the internal world of Adam II. [Still not seeing this.]
I've found in myself, and I think I've observed in others, a certain meritocratic mentality, which is based on the self-trusting, self-puffing insights of the Romantic tradition, but which is also depoeticized and despiritualized. If moral realists saw the self as a wilderness to be tamed, and if people in the New Age 1970s saw the self as an Eden to be actualized, people living in a high-pressure meritocracy are more likely to see the self as a resource base to be cultivated. The self is less likely to be seen as the seat of the soul, or as the repository of some transcendent spirit. Instead, the self is a vessel of human capital. It is a series of talents to be cultivated efficiently and prudently... The self is about talent, not character.
Once again, and hopefully for the last time, I would know what Dostoevsky was getting at here but with Brooks I'm at a loss. He seems to be praising classic middle class character and values while sniping at middle class meritocracy.
p253 The shrewd [meritocratic] animal has streamlined his inner humanity to make his ascent more aerodynamic. He carefully manages his time and his emotional commitments. Things once done in a poetic frame of mind, such as going to college, meeting a potential lover, or bonding with an employer, are now done in a more professional frame of mind. Is this person, opportunity, or experience of use to me? There just isn't time to get carried away by love and passion... If you commit to one big thing you will close off options toward other big things. You will be plagued by a Fear of Missing Out.
Now, starting on page 262, we get Brooks's list of propositions that make up a "Humility Code" intended to address the flaws in our meritocracy. 1. has to do with "holiness" and 2. and 3. concern our flawed nature and tendency to sin. I love it when people jump into drawing up an ethics before tackling metaphysics or meta-ethics. Are we all supposed to be closeted Christians, just needing a gentle prod to follow Alyosha into the monastery?
It's true of course that if this book contained a full-throated call to Jesus, I wouldn't be reading it, but this goes beyond burying the lede to not even mentioning the main point. I suppose he is leaving it to Dorothy Day and Augustine to speak for him here. And I have to wonder if his failure to include any Jewish people indicates he identifies Jews with the middle class world order he is attacking? That would surprise me, as he hasn't seemed to think things through that far in what he's actually written.
I'm in the middle of his "Humility Code" now. We are deep into "the struggle against sin and for virtue," "Character is built on your inner confrontation" and achieving "self-mastery." And all this reminds me of Dorothy Day's daughter Tamar. Granted, all I know about her is the few sentences Brooks has given us, but as I've already compared her to Lizaveta, I think I'm safe in using her as an example of someone who doesn't struggle with self-mastery and sin. It's interesting that people like this are of very little interest to people like Brooks. Someone who is a natural in this respect seems to be less worthy than someone who can only avoid sin (some of the time) with the daily help of Jesus and all the saints.
I'm still not sure what Dostoevsky meant to show by contrasting Lizaveta with the monks -- who were so like high school Mean Girls. Perhaps he simply wanted a moral opposite of Fyodor so he could breed them and get Pavel. Regardless, he presents her as someone who is naturally good. Just as Brooks gives us Montaigne who is naturally (or at least as a result of nature and nurture both) reasonable and comparatively untroubled. I'm actually surprised Brooks included him since he can do so little with him aside from contrasting him with Johnson.
AIDS Walk
Today I took the bus all the way out to Golden Gate Park to work only four hours at the AIDS Walk event. Take a moment to think well of me... I'll wait.The truth here is that I missed Oyster Fest (not sure why) so when I saw this event posted my first thought was "Pass" but then I saw "at Sharon Meadow" and realized it would be an excuse to have a late breakfast at the Pork Store, where I haven't been since April when they raised their prices. So really I'm just getting paid to have my favorite breakfast and put in a fairly token four hours of work in the park. Or so I thought.
This is as difficult as an even gets without being Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Lots of sponsors buying too much food and coffee to hand out and then throwing the rest away at the end. And the walk started and ended late so the cleanup was also delayed. And we were as poorly organized as I've ever seen us. At the end of the day, no one was in charge.
The result was a pile of bags and trashed boxes like we rarely see these days, and only a couple people left to deal with it all. Two additional people were called in to take charge while I stayed an additional couple hours and the others also worked past their scheduled quitting time.
I had almost forgotten how much I hate back-end sorting but doing some without tables to sort on or cans to sort into quickly reminded me. We also ran out of space in the dumpsters. It was a mess.
But here's what I don't know, Would it have gone better if I had been doing my usual roving sorting a couple hours earlier (and thus longer)? Actually I do know it would have gone better, but would it have made enough of a difference to prevent the mess at the end. Maybe. Maybe not.
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