What Life Asks of Us

The day we talked about Nietzsche in class, it just so happened that I had read a column by David Brooks, called "What Life Asks of Us", in English class. It’s funny, because I usually wouldn’t agree with the conservative undercurrents of the piece, but maybe it’s in comparison to the Nietzsche we were just reading that Brooks’ message rang true. He says:

The report implied an entire way of living. Individuals should learn to think for themselves. They should be skeptical of pre-existing arrangements. They should break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside and discover their values.
This approach is deeply consistent with the individualism of modern culture, with its emphasis on personal inquiry, personal self-discovery and personal happiness. But there is another, older way of living…In this way of thinking, to borrow an old phrase, we are not defined by what we ask of life. We are defined by what life asks of us. As we go through life, we travel through institutions – first family and school, then the institutions of a profession or craft.

Brooks goes on to argue, predictably, for the past, for the older way of thinking, for the established and the accepted. I was surprised, when reading the column, to find myself agreeing with him more than I didn’t. I guess I value respect for tradition more than I thought I did, more than I feel like I should as one of the younger generation that calls for change, and breaking free from the shackles of the unenlightened past, or something like that. It’s not just that, either. I realized, reading it, that the qualities I value most in myself, and the experiences in my life that mean the most to me, come from communities, from groups of people – not mobs but families, friends, neighborhoods, schools.
Ultimately (and rather obviously), I think either constantly attempting to overthrow the existing system and create new values, or accepting and bowing down to the old system completely, is unrealistic, for one thing, and also based on an oversimplification and refusal to accept any sort of compromise view. Brooks makes a very interesting claim:

I thought it worth devoting a column to institutional thinking because I try to keep a list of the people in public life I admire most. Invariably, the people who make that list have subjugated themselves to their profession, social function or institution.

Now, I don’t know who it is that Brooks admires, and so maybe his claim is completely accurate, but the sort of people who I admire aren’t that easily classified. After all, no one makes the top of a “People I admire most” list simply for doing working hard at their job and not going outside of the box at all, thinking creatively, coming up with new solutions, maybe challenging authority a bit and thinking for themselves. Granted, it’s true that it’s not random anarchist rebels who are completely against society and all that it stands for who are on the list (or at least on my list) either, but usually it’s people in between – people who had the “proper” respect for the tradition of their profession, who worked their way up, and then did something exceptional once they had proven themselves. Looking forward then, I’d say I hope for myself to find some sort of balance between these two extremes.