I grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood on Long Island. After graduating high school, there was something of an expectation that you’d go to a four-year college and then become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or something similarly prestigious.
Furthermore, there were other expectations: get married, buy a single-family detached house in the suburbs, have two kids, send your kids to summer camp, vacation in Boca or Cancun, have dinner dates with other couples at trendy restaurants on weekends, watch Netflix before bed during the week.
Gross, I know. One way I conceptualize this is using object-oriented programming as a metaphor. It’s as if there’s some UpperMiddleClassSuburbanAdult subclass, and most people I went to high school with are instances of that class with very few overrides.
Maybe Alice is a little frisky and likes to vacation in Vietnam instead of Cancun. That’s an override. Maybe Bob takes his family camping over the weekend. Maybe Carol loves food and opened a restaurant. Maybe Dave reads books before bed instead of watching Netflix. These are all overrides. It feels to me like the more overrides you have, and the more meaningful they are, the more… agent-y you are as a person. And interesting. Sometimes I’ll meet someone and think, “Damn, they sure do have a lot of overrides. I love it.”
Well, that’s not quite the right framing, and that’s why this is a shortform post.
The local culture is a shortcut to the good life, there’s not infinite time to explore your way to life perfection so you copy those around you who are doing well.
You are right though, those people deviating from it probably are more agentic. Or copying a different culture.
I grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood on Long Island. After graduating high school, there was something of an expectation that you’d go to a four-year college and then become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or something similarly prestigious.
Furthermore, there were other expectations: get married, buy a single-family detached house in the suburbs, have two kids, send your kids to summer camp, vacation in Boca or Cancun, have dinner dates with other couples at trendy restaurants on weekends, watch Netflix before bed during the week.
Gross, I know. One way I conceptualize this is using object-oriented programming as a metaphor. It’s as if there’s some
UpperMiddleClassSuburbanAdultsubclass, and most people I went to high school with are instances of that class with very few overrides.Maybe Alice is a little frisky and likes to vacation in Vietnam instead of Cancun. That’s an override. Maybe Bob takes his family camping over the weekend. Maybe Carol loves food and opened a restaurant. Maybe Dave reads books before bed instead of watching Netflix. These are all overrides. It feels to me like the more overrides you have, and the more meaningful they are, the more… agent-y you are as a person. And interesting. Sometimes I’ll meet someone and think, “Damn, they sure do have a lot of overrides. I love it.”
Well, that’s not quite the right framing, and that’s why this is a shortform post.
The local culture is a shortcut to the good life, there’s not infinite time to explore your way to life perfection so you copy those around you who are doing well.
You are right though, those people deviating from it probably are more agentic. Or copying a different culture.