Thursday 10 January 2013

amour-propre


There has been not an insignificant amount of pontificating about the up-and-coming generation of young adults, college-goers and pedigreed for the workplace, by psychologists and trend-minders of all ilks that sounds on the one hand like a fire-and-brimstone sermon meant to inspiring fear and quaking and a bit of humility and at the same time, a very dire caution. Although such warnings and calls for reflection are ignored at great peril and the adjudicated assessments of others are always worthy of consideration, to say that in the main that people growing up vicarious through their avatars, with an on-line persona that shields individuals from criticism and dissent and attracts and enhances esteem and confidence, are at best a cohort of megalomaniacs may be somewhat of a Noble Lie.
I can’t tell who the recipient and conjurer of this fib are exactly, however. It reminds me a bit of the theory that engineering’s prerequisite is manual dexterity and not being too privileged not to have had to work on a jalopy, or that self-confidence is no measure of success, given that success’ measure scorns contentment. Demographers and psychologists have pronounced that young people in this age group are saddled with a sense of entitlement expressed in terms of high opinion not commensurable with the studiousness or effort they’re willing to apply. Their own virtual lives, fronted and secure, in fact, often scoop their genuine experiences. These are important and uncomfortable affronts that any of us should have the courage to face. In the end, however, I suspect it is not a very novel critique since, parenting not discounted, there have always been vanities particular to each age. J. J. Rousseau and La Rochefoucauld wrote about amour-propre (self-love) already in the mid sixteenth century, Plato warned of sophistry by the fifth century B.C., and the story of Narcissus dates from the time of legend.