The majority (79 percent) of freshmen in 1970 had an important personal objective of “developing a meaningful philosophy of life.” By 2005, the majority of freshmen (75 percent) said their primary objective was “being very well off financially.” (Table 274)
Census Bureau: 126th Statistical Abstract
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December 15, 2006
The Purpose Of Life
Comments
i called my 20 yr old son and ask him…
“to live happily ever after”
some apples don’t fall far from the tree.
Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 15 2006 18:23 utc | 1
that was me. actually his first response was “to stay alive”
so i ask for another
Posted by: annie | Dec 15 2006 18:25 utc | 2
I remember a specific class in which the Professor curiously asked, “So, why do you guys come to college?”
A loudly received a cacophony of a responses like “to make more money!”, or “to get a better job!” Given his immensely facetious-personality, he half-seriously (I think?) continued with a follow-up question: “But don’t you guys come to get a better education? To learn about things? About life?” The class erupted with laughter amidst a choir of no’s!!! Sadly, I think both parties were rather dead-serious about their questions and responses, respectively.
Posted by: A | Dec 15 2006 19:41 utc | 3
My dad always said, “The purpose of life is to go through it making good memories.” I think he was dead right.
Posted by: Observer | Dec 15 2006 22:52 utc | 4
That speaks volumes about where we’re headed. Let us all hope that stat changes.
Posted by: Ben | Dec 15 2006 23:32 utc | 5
doesn’t this also reflect the reality for current students?
as Krugman , this from Oct. 2002, has noted for years that the middle class is eroding as more and more wealth is concentrated among fewer and fewer people. in a winner-take-all society, who can afford to care about an education?
if a student’s family cannot afford to pay for a college education and they work or take out loans, of course they care most about getting out of that vise.
so, I don’t blame the students for seeing the world as it is. I blame the people who are now in their 50s and 60s who betrayed those students during the Reagan era, up until the present day.
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 16 2006 0:11 utc | 6
There are not parts of a society, there is only the society. The students are just playing the student part.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 16 2006 1:18 utc | 7
I like buying things. If I’m not screwing people over, then money is a measure of my market value in society. The small part of the money I make that isn’t from luck is from making or fixing things, which I enjoy doing.
I have given some thought to my purpose in life, and I really haven’t come up with much except for trying to be happy, and trying not to hurt people and break stuff.
Posted by: Scott from Baltimore | Dec 16 2006 3:33 utc | 8
Well, for one, I won’t mourn or feel any sympathy when the demise of these 75% will come.
Good riddance, and let the worthy survivors, or the next main species, enjoy what’s left.
As was said in V for Vendetta, “We deserve to be culled”.
And I also agree with fauxreal. I have a very strong loathing of the bulk of the May68-hippies generation of the 60s-70s. There were a few who were decent and honorable people and fought for what is right, had ideals, dreams, but the bulk of it was just a bunch of buffoons wanting to get laid on the cheap, and who were just to eager to be greedy assholes as once as they got into some position of power in the late 70s-80s.
The late 60s is the most obvious example of a totally failed revolution, which could have had great results but failed and brought shit and crappy individualism me-me culture to the world, because it wasn’t mostly made up of people struggling for the greater good and for some higher purpose, but (including some if not many of their leaders at the time) made up mostly of selfish irresponsible wankers.
There’s just room for one last revolution and then either we’ll die off or we’ll be lucky, wise and smart at long last.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Dec 16 2006 23:24 utc | 9
Clueless Joe–
I won’t gainsay you, and there are certainly enough examples of famous sell-outs to support your point. But it is important to rememmber that the revolution was always a minority affair. The majority were not involved at all, or were looking for selfish benefit only–and those are the ones who are setting the tone now.
Posted by: Gaianne | Dec 16 2006 23:54 utc | 10
I think the rabid right derailed the “revolution.” –seemed more like an evolution to me…but then, I don’t think the SDS were good guys. Whether acting out the collective mindset, or acting as a collective the tighty righties got rid of…
JFK
Medgar Evars
Martin Luther King
RFK
among others.
beat students for peaceful sit-ins on campuses
which led to Kent State
so, for the minority who were involved, they were uncut by these things, and by the continuing racism that led to the “southern strategy”
— I don’t think America will ever become a social or even liberal democracy. I wish I could be more optimistic, but…I’m not.
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 17 2006 0:21 utc | 11
Looking for scapegoats, calling each other names, calculating the worthiness of blameworthiness of one another… we ought not do this. It serves no worthwhile purpose. It indulges our least attractive sides. I personally have more than enough faults to work on overcoming during the rest of my own brief life.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 17 2006 1:58 utc | 13
Satire is always appreciated, however.
Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man
I think it manages to be shockingly real and absurd at the same time. Thanks Susie Day.
She may even be a member of the club.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 17 2006 5:54 utc | 14