Don Jon and the 'Demise of Guys'

I’m a fan of independent movies.  They don’t offer the escapist relief from daily drudgery that many

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Don Jon

mainstream movies do.  But, they challenge your thinking and sometimes your sensibilities in ways that mainstream movies don’t.

Recently, we watched a movie written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  TV buffs may remember him playing the youngest son on the hit series Third Rock from the Sun.  Since then, he’s demonstrated a broader range as an actor is such films as 50/50 and (500) Days of Summer.

His new movie, Don Jon, is a disturbing portrait.  Playing the title role, Mr. Gordon-Levitt also narrates the proceedings.  An avid fan of Internet pornography, his character confesses – or perhaps brags – that he would rather watch porn than have sex with a real woman. 

We’re so out of touch with what goes on outside our tidy suburban existence that we didn’t know what to make of it.  So, we forgot about it.

A few days later, I was poking at TED.com and came across a short talk titled “The Demise of Guys”.  The speaker, Phil Zimbardo, is a past professor of psychology at Stanford University and a past president of the American Psychological Association.

He outlines his case by citing statistics.  Girls outperform boys at every level of education.  Boys are more likely to drop out, more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and more likely to be spending their time in front of a flat screen than with other boys. 

“Boys’ brains are being digitally rewired for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal,” claims Zimbardo.  “That means they’re totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, interactively passive.”

He doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to say that young men watch Internet porn an average of 50 times per week.  It seems they would rather watch porn than run the risk of having to relate to a real woman.

By now, I am beginning to think of Don Jon as a documentary not a work of fiction.

But, Zimbardo offers no solutions, just observations.  For solutions, I turn to David Altshuler.  David helps students and their families prepare for and apply to colleges.  A former teacher, he also holds advanced degrees in educational psychology.

Writing in his blog, David poses two alternative realities.  In one, parents spend time showing their young children how to create something edible in the kitchen, enjoy a day at the park or throw a Frisbee with the family dog.  They make messes, get dirty, get bitten by bugs and overhear adults utter a four-letter word from time to time. 

In the alternate reality, parents plant their children in front of the flat screen TV where they can watch shows about cooking, pets and nature.  No mess, no bother.

I am beginning to see a connection between the Frisbee and Don Jon. 

Lest you think that David’s theory is a bit melodramatic, he draws parallels between the flat screen watchers and an experiment performed by Harry Harlow.  Harlow was a psychologist famous for his experiments on social isolation.  Using rhesus monkeys as his subjects, he raised a generation of them in cages with no contact with others of their species.  Their behavior turned psychotic.  Moreover, they were irredeemable. 

As I said at the outset, we sometimes feel as though we are out of touch and, indeed, we have not had the experience of raising a child in the 21^st Century.  In the pre-smartphone era when the twins were young, we were anti-Disney.  We went on hikes, took ski trips, went white water rafting and spent hours in boats not catching fish.

Peter Calia on the bow and brother Dan, both age 12

Kids need the experience of scraping a knee, breaking a bone, contracting poison ivy and occasionally failing at something to grow up to be healthy adults.  That experience doesn’t come from connecting to friends via an electronic device.  Boys have a need to be with other boys.  It’s in their DNA – sports teams, clubs, even hanging out watching the game.  It’s Darwinian.  Kings who couldn’t raise armies lost their thrones.  Those who didn’t join armies lost their homes.

My posts to this blog usually focus on institutional LEADERSHIP.  But, parents are LEADERS too.  If you are a busy parent, it’s got to be tough to find the time to get your youngsters out of the house to experience nature or join their friends in an unsupervised activity.

But, it’s necessary to raise adults capable of healthy relationships and good citizenship.

WHO WILL LEAD?

On social mobility: confessions of a former Yuppie

My first Bimmer

Remember Yuppies?  In the early days of demographic stratification, I was classified as a Young
Upwardly-mobile Professional – a Yuppie.  But, I am no longer young or upwardly mobile; so, I don't qualify.

My Dad was a Yuppie, too.  No one was called a Yuppie in his day; but he was young and upwardly mobile.  He was also a businessman.  Today we would call him an entrepreneur.  He and two partners each deposited $2000 in the bank and started a company. 

It was quite an accomplishment given where he started.  When I was born, he was collecting Aid toFamilies with Dependent Children (AFDC, a federal/state financial aid program).  Thank God for the safety net!

Later in life, Dad sold his business to retire.  He would never have been described as wealthy; that was not his goal.  His goal was to be secure in retirement and he achieved that. 

Dad also achieved something I never did.  He transcended his socio-economic class.  He started poor and became upper middle class.  I started upper middle class and became – well – upper middle class. 

Dad worked hard and played by the rules. 

In the context of today’s debate about social mobility, he would be a success story.  He relied on government assistance when he needed it but paid it back many times over by paying his taxes when he was economically successful. 

A Harvard study published last year indicates that there has been little change in social mobility since my Dad’s day.  Still, we are having a debate – which is bound to affect policy, the budget and, eventually, taxes – about how to help those in need move up the economic ladder.  The study pointed to geography as the most important factor in social mobility.  Areas where there was less segregation, more stable families and better education tended to have greater mobility.

Michele and her family

Yet, the debate seems to be about raising the minimum wage.  How will that provide the stable environmental factors that will enable people to move up the economic ladder?

So, I am confused.  We lionize hard working Americans and say we want to help people move up the economic ladder; but, the prescription has nothing to do with hard work.  It is to unilaterally hand more money to people for the same amount of work. 

I support the concept of a social safety net.  My Dad took advantage of it when he really needed to.  But, he succeeded perhaps more than most of his day because he worked hard and made tough choices about how to live his life and support his family.  His success was self-made.  It was not the result of the government reapportioning wealth.

Perhaps, the best perspective I have read on this topic came from my cousin’s daughter, Michele (my first cousin, once removed, if you’re keeping score).  She and her husband are raising three boys on Long Island.  They’re working hard and playing by the rules.  Here is what she said on her Facebook Timeline:

“I usually don't do this on FB but can't help it because it's too irritating. Fast food workers are striking because they want minimum wage to be increased to $15 an hr.?? So after I pay my student loan bills and taxes they will make the same as me??? … So that's what we do now? Protest to make more money?? What happened to making more money based on merit and how good u are? Ok I'm done now:)”

So am I.

WHO WILL LEAD?