Generational Conflict. Article Print By William Deresiewicz I really stepped in it the other month.
I had published an essay called “Generation Sell” that argued that the culture of today’s youth (the so-called “Millennials”) revolves around the idea of entrepreneurship, and that, unlike previous youth cultures, it is devoid of rebellion or dissent. Well, a lot of people didn’t like it, and I don’t blame them. I’ll address the last objection in a later post. The Entrepreneurial Generation. The End of Solitude - The Chronicle Review. What does the contemporary self want?
The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge — broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider — the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude.
I once asked my students about the place that solitude has in their lives. To that remarkable question, history offers a number of answers. Like other religious values, solitude was democratized by the Reformation and secularized by Romanticism. But it is with Romanticism that solitude achieved its greatest cultural salience, becoming both literal and literary. I speak from experience. Faux Friendship - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education.
By William Deresiewicz William Deresiewicz discusses the shaky future of friendship on New Hampshire Public Radio's Word of Mouth Wednesday, December 16 at 12:40 p.m.
Listen to the episode here. "…[a] numberless multitude of people, of whom no one was close, no one was distant. …"—War and Peace "Families are gone, and friends are going the same way. " The Tattoo. The tattoo started as a mark of obedience. The Navy and the Federal penitentiary weren’t what you were hoping for out of life. But you had this odd satisfaction: You let someone cut and ink your skin with institutional signs, to identify your body with a fate that you couldn’t escape anyway. Tattoos belonged to institutions. And accompanying them were all the contradictory feelings that go with having your will ground down under the weight of an institution.
There was fear, hatred, adoration, and identification. Did tattoos individuate people? Scott Carrier. The Disadvantages of an Elite Education. Exhortation - Summer 2008 Print Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers By William Deresiewicz June 1, 2008 It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35.
It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy. I’m not talking about curricula or the culture wars, the closing or opening of the American mind, political correctness, canon formation, or what have you. The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. But it isn’t just a matter of class. I also never learned that there are smart people who aren’t “smart.” What about people who aren’t bright in any sense? There is nothing wrong with taking pride in one’s intellect or knowledge. Cowbird · Stories.
Solitude and Leadership. Essays - Spring 2010 Print If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts By William Deresiewicz The lecture below was delivered to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009.
My title must seem like a contradiction. Leadership is what you are here to learn—the qualities of character and mind that will make you fit to command a platoon, and beyond that, perhaps, a company, a battalion, or, if you leave the military, a corporation, a foundation, a department of government. We need to begin by talking about what leadership really means. What Are You Going to Do With That? - The Chronicle Review.
By William Deresiewicz The essay below is adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May.
The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree? But that's not the question I'm asking. We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here.
Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your best and to be the best. Technology Provides an Alternative to Love. Scott Carrier.