This post by Glenn Reynolds discusses two of the most whiny-looking books I've seen. Apparently, the "choice" presented in Daniel Brook's The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America is between "selling out" (meaning working for evil corporations which make the world a worse place), and starving as an unpaid or underpaid activist. The argument, apparently, is that society should subsidize activism. We don't already? (I think we do; see these posts.)

I may be getting old, but I think these whining books are leaving out an important career choice -- to wit, the "working class hero." Considering the well-documented shortage of handyman skills (and presumably, handywoman skills), I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine that many a young person could, by learning the basics, earn a good income. True, they might have to work with their hands, but isn't that part of the whole working class hero ethos?

The marvelous thing is that by being willing to get your hands dirty, you can do all of the following:

improve self esteem by becoming a real part of the working class!

Live up to the Maoist goal of being in touch with "the people"!

Have something to show for your work at the end of each day!

Actually earn a real living!

(Most importantly) have something to whine about!

On the other hand, you can join the working class and not whine at all.

Molly Hartmann Ahrens graduated from a very prestigious, public service-oriented college with a degree in sociology, and eventually went on to become a professional bartender. She wrote about her experience not long ago for the Philadelphia Inquirer in a piece titled "Bryn Mawr grad's big career? Call it public service". As Ahrens points out, Bryn Mawr is known for producing leaders:

Among many, it produced Katharine Hepburn (Class of 1928), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore (1909), Nobel Peace Prize recipient Emily Greene Balch (1889) and Drew Gilpin Faust (1968), who will become the first female president of Harvard University in July. To be a student at Bryn Mawr is to be constantly reminded of the legacy of the great women who went before you.

Bartending was something a friend of mine mentioned after I quit my second job. I did not like the suggestion. "I got a college degree to become a bartender?" I asked her. But like it or not, I needed the money. So with no other immediate prospects ahead of me, I signed up for a week-long licensing course. At the time I felt like a failure. Going to bartending school felt like a punishment for not being able to withstand a job with a more impressive title.

I got mixed reactions from people when I told them I was "pursuing a degree in mixology." Most of my friends thought it was hilarious. "But you don't even drink!" they exclaimed. An old college professor I ran into asked me when I was planning to get a real job. My mom tried to sound upbeat, but I knew I was putting an end to 21/2 decades of her bragging about me to her friends. Spending your nights mixing up Purple Hooters isn't exactly the same thing as writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

After receiving my bartending license last fall, I began to work with a small catering company. We mainly did private parties in large suburban mansions. At first it really depressed me to be "the hired help" (as I have been referred to), but I was soon cheered up by the fact that I made more money bartending than at my previous jobs. Plus, I found the work pretty interesting.

At Bryn Mawr, I majored in sociology. Standing behind the bar provided me with a perfect vantage point from which to study people. Dressed in my black uniform, I could easily disappear into the shadows, becoming noticeable only when someone needed a fresh drink. But this invisibility felt very different from the kind I had experienced previously. I used to feel invisible in a bad way; it was not only about not being seen, but about not being able to feel my own spirit inside myself.

San Francisco used to be the kind of over-educated place where you could get into a taxi and discover that the driver had a Ph.D. in history or something. And what's wrong with that? Lots of people have advanced degrees in fields they never enter, and end up doing something else. (My A.B. was in Rhetoric, so I went to law school, realizing all the while that I might not enjoy practicing law. I tired of litigation and ended up selling real estate, running a (failed) nightclub business, and other things. While I have never felt entitled to complain that I wasn't made partner in a large law firm, I suppose what I'm doing now does constitute a form of rhetorical analysis, but it would never occur to me in my wildest dreams that the taxpayers should fund it.)

What it is that drives this apparent sense of entitlement that seems to characterize so many people?

There used to be a concept known as the "day job." Artists, musicians, and other creative types have traditionally worked in offices, or as waiters, cooks, messengers, or even blue collar workers while hoping for a big break. But there never was any sense of entitlement to the big break.

I can't help wonder whether a two-headed monster has been created.

A lot of this (one of the monster's heads) stems from the relentless, all-encompassing self esteem movement (beginning in kindergarten if not day care and running all the way through to college and even grad school) resulting in adults steeped in the entitlement mindset. Even people who might have practical degrees in something useful nonetheless think it is beneath them or degrading to have to work in entry level positions and work their way up. Another head of the monster is the creation of a useless and unemployable caste, by the conferring of meaningless degrees in an unending litany of identity group "studies." The holders of these degrees have their self esteem delusionally bolstered by a false belief that the "system" which sees no value in their valueless degrees is victimizing them. TS at The Sophist calls it "an indictment of our college system that someone could graduate with a double major in film studies and gender studies" and while I agree, I also think it's self-indicting to walk around with a degree like that and imagine that it has real value. (Again, false self-esteem prevents the recognition of simple reality.)

No wonder they feel entitled. If they didn't have the feeling of entitlement, I'm afraid they'd have nothing at all.

Fortunately for them, there are still vocational training centers and adult education courses available in most cities and communities where they can learn things like bartending and automotive repair. I do hope they eventually learn useful skills, for otherwise they might become an angry class of people seeking "revenge."

But I don't mean to come off sounding like Marie Antoinette. I not only ran a bar, I once earned a living as an auto mechanic. But as to the "working class hero" stuff, I really can't identify with the concept. Such things are best left to people like Hillary Clinton. (Perhaps her campaign can provide temporary employment for some of the vengeful entitlement set.)