Sustained constraint

An amusing take on university, kids these days and the downside of affluence from Lindybeige.



Among the middle and upper classes we have historically viewed college as a transition point, the passing from dependent childhood to independent adulthood. It doesn't always go smoothly nor in a direct line, but usually the outcome is achieved. Child goes off to college and a young man or young woman comes back.

Lindybeige makes an interesting suggestion in the context of our usual expectations. He focuses on being poor as a critical catalyst to adulthood. As long as there is a ready flow of cash, parents are there to pick you up and save you from the consequences of your mistakes, you can postpone achieving the critical attributes of adulthood.

Among those adult attributes are the ability to

Plan ahead
Delay gratification
Budget
Prioritize
Appreciation of small thigns
Make trade-offs
Recognize limits

There are other ways to learn these skills but I wonder whether being poor might be the most effective, as Lindybeige suggests.

The federal government, in an effort to extend the benefits of college to everyone, has dramatically expanded federal loan programs so that virtually anyone with a minimum cognitive capacity can now attend or complete college. The problem is that the munificence and generosity of the government is grounded in effervescent hope and the anticipation that only the best will ever happen.

As a consequence, we now have increasing numbers of young adults starting their adult lives with large debt. Given that the debt is to the government, it is essentially to the worst loan shark in the world. There is no forgiveness in bankruptcy and the shark has its fin in your pocket all the time, fishing out whatever loose change might be jingling around.

The problem is exacerbated by the structure of the loan programs. Because it is easy to get the loans, kids will often use the money for non-educational purposes, thus removing the constraint of being poor in college. Holidays to exotic or dissolute places during school, semesters abroad, sophomoric classes with no prospect of improving life conditions, etc. The evidence for unconstrained living in college is extensive. Again, not a blanket indictment. I am privileged to know many young people who are self-supporting in college and who live carefully and frugally. They are just in a much smaller minority than they used to be.

Many business people mock the shocking unpreparedness of "millennials" for the workplace. I am loathe to indulge in such generalizing and I think the problem is likely wildly overstated but it does seem as if there is a postponement of adulthood. More particularly, a postponement of the skills necessary to function as an adult. Which comes to Lindybeige's observation that everyone should experience being poor, (not being in poverty), but being poor for some sustained period of time in order to acquire the skills of delayed gratification, gratitude for small things, making trade-off decisions, etc. These are the skills of life and their exercise is the mark of an adult.

Which connects with another thought I was mulling on a few weeks ago. It seems as if the circumstances of a society becoming prosperous always contains the seeds of its own self-destruction. In the US this is most obvious in the shenanigans and misdirected screeching advocacy of such groups as radical feminists, social justice warriors, black lives matter people, occupy wall street people, etc. One of the notable things about all these people is that they seem closely affiliated to the academy, either as students or as protected professors. These people, in pursuit of their naive utopian idealism, are always threatening to bring down the very institutions and systems which generate the productivity and money to sustain them.

To Lindebeige's point, university used to provide the context for the experience of sustained constraint. For many, it no longer does. What social or cultural institution can take its place where near-adult children can learn the many necessary skills attendant to adulthood?

I am not sure that any of this should be, much less could be, translated into public policy. I suspect that is simply a familial choice, family culture. Find ways for your children to experience sustained constraint somewhere at the point of near-adulthood in order for them to acquire the multitude of behavioral traits that are core to being an adult.