I just started watching Mad Men on the Netflix.
It’s funny how TV shows can have an immediate effect on the amount of scotch you drink. Every time I see them pour a glass I want to pour a glass. It makes you wonder if a specific liquor company had stock in that show.
It’s an interesting show, something nice to wind down to. I like it for the marketing. Marketing fascinates me, and there are some gems in the show about people, the nature of people and how to get to what people really want.
One line that stuck out was the fella with the grey hair, Don’s boss, telling one of the younger fellas that his generation served while the youngster’s generation went to college.
That was a stark change between generations. One served their nation, learned discipline, self-reliance, and learned a lot about life and death, while the next generation went to college, some became hippies, they, in turn, raised more college kids who eventually raised the dreaded millennial.
One generation served, and the next went to college.
College, let’s call it what it is, is partying. It can serve some very well, but I’d argue that it helps even more avoid life then walk out feeling entitled to a career, be it in a legitimate profession, like law or marketing, or in one not so legitimate, like women’s studies.
You’re told that a degree matters, but you’re not told that you should treat college as if it were training you for the real world.
The problem with college today is that it’s going so far as to shelter our teens from the real world, from things like opposing views, failure, and hard work. The vast majority (70% of American professors last I saw) of professors are of the liberal slant. It’s an ideology that wants things to be as they’re not and ignores things as they are.
Reality isn’t a foundation of modern liberalism, though it definitely is of classical liberalism, the form loved so dearly by Jefferson and Adams and Washington.
I’m all for college if you’re going into a field that trains you for a career, like medicine or law. Few do that. I’m all for college if you can afford your own tuition while studying liberal arts, which is a great thing to study so long as you understand that it’s more attempting to prepare you for life, not for the workforce.
I’m not, however, on the side of going to college simply because you think that’s what everyone does.
Too many people are blindly doing what others do and our suicide rates climb, our sense of belonging, meaning, and purpose decline.
You’d be far better off serving your country, getting a real education in Lost are of Discipline, and maybe even seeing portions of the world where folks here in the west simply don’t enter. That’s a real education.
It’s one of the few things I wish I did.
Anyway, I’m back to drinking and writing with another episode of Mad Men to come before I hit the hay.
Think about your decisions, though. Are you doing something simply because you think it’s what everyone does, what you’re expected to do, or are you doing what you genuinely want to do, or even better, what would prepare you to live a flourishing life, one of action, of accomplishment, and not just theory. (Read This: Why You Shouldn’t Go to College)
About The Author
Chad Howse: Chad’s mission is to get you in the arena, ‘marred by the dust and sweat and blood’, to help you set and achieve audacious goals in the face of fear, and not only build your ideal body, but the life you were meant to live.
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Another excellent article. I think there should be a push for more trade schools of the blue collar workers not just the insane colleges and their insane cost. Colleges are not the only institution lowering the standards, the problem also is we are recruiting these snowflakes in the military ranks because of this past administration. I hope this new administration (Mad Dog) returns to the old school ways of hard discipline and challenge which creates tough men.
I’m sure he will. Excited to see how he does.