Resume Virtues versus Eulogy Virtues

I have nothing snide to say about the following. I thought it was interesting and kind of sad. It should make you want to teach PSR

 

From Maggie Gallagher and the National Review article, "Why Are Palo Alto Kids Killing Themselves?"

 

Stress in itself is not what causes people misery, anxiety, or depression, and fun is not what keeps people from wanting to kill themselves. Listening to these voices made me think again of David Brooks’s astute comment that there are the Résumé Virtues and the Eulogy Virtues. The résumé virtues are what create success in status competitions. The eulogy virtues are what gives meaning to life in the face of the inevitability of that ultimate failure, death...

 

The elite Creative Class in America prides itself mostly on its brains, and the amazing things that, with hard work and perseverance, one can contribute to the world through intelligence; all true and good as far as it goes. That is why elite parents try so hard to pass on their class advantages to their children through relentless development of their little human capital, from violin lessons to SAT tutoring. It is the same reason why so many elite stay-at-home mothers I know value their own mothering to the extent it produces daughters who succeed in the world of education and work. My daughter’s getting into Harvard validates my mothering. We seemed to have turned our very children into résumé virtues. To be a B student is to become a B human being. None of us would say that out loud to our children, or even to ourselves. But the gods of the résumé virtues are relentless and unforgiving, unless their godlike status is contested, unless there is a world outside of work and achievement, some other definition of being human and worthy of love, some glimpse of the human soul.