I endured a party recently where the attendees were, on average, five years younger than us. Among the fresh, young, graduates all of them were either working at Amazon, Microsoft, or Boeing. They all came together for Cinco de Mayo with the sole purpose of getting wasted. I haven’t been to a party like that in a while. While Josh found it refreshing, I found it uncomfortable and immature. Perhaps I burned out on the endless waving of middle fingers, the shrill screaming of the newly drunk, and the constant reference to things being ‘gay.’ Another thing I found amusing was that so many of these techies consistently used the phrase, “What do you want from me? I’m a NERD.” This was the response to any remotely vague criticism, whether it a question upon their integrity or a request for more tequila. At one point, one of the drunken nerds protested against the accusation of his crush on the neighbor with, “No way! I don’t like her, dude, she’s OLD.” I realized that by old, he probably meant someone my age, and I immediately looked around for the door.
OK, so the party wasn’t all that bad, there was something intriguing about sitting around with a bunch of twenty-three year-old software developers, computer scientists, and I.T. business graduates. The gatherings I usually attend are much milder, a group of teachers sitting around with a slowly sipped beer in one hand, the other hand waving in heated gesture regarding a recent quibble with the “higher-ups.” Politics are frequently discussed, maybe books if we feel like it, and always, always, we return to the subject of teaching. We rail against the current administration, the lack of funding, and our joint struggles of finding work in a country that values education on such a sliding scale. Sitting around watching a bunch of engineers and computer techies hooting and hollering about how someone was recently fired because they weren’t a ‘team player’ and ’slow in the field’ is probably the equivalent to teachers complaining about not getting rehired at the school we’ve all been slaving for the past ten months. The difference is largely monetary, as these individuals are working for giant tech companies at preposterous salaries. When it was revealed that I had a Theater and Dance degree someone said something to the tune of, “We could never do that, being nerds and all.”
I found myself sitting on the leather couch flipping through 100 Classic Recipes , heavily engrossed in the correct way to bake a ham. Suddenly, I was reminded of something I saw in The Squid And The Whale: One of the sons questions the term “Philistine.” The term is officially defined by Wikipedia as is a derogatory term used to describe a particular attitude or set of values. When a person is called a Philistine (in the relevant sense), he is said to despise or undervalue art, beauty, intellectual content, and/or spiritual values. Philistines are also said to be materialistic, to favor conventional social values unthinkingly, and to favor forms of art that have a cheap and easy appeal (i.e. kitsch). Let’s say I was being dramatic, but perhaps this term could loosely be applied to the majority of the people at the party. I say this until I remember the hostess of the party reflecting on the single piece of art she has hanging above her fireplace. It was a painting she had been eyeing for a while at a local sushi restaurant. She finally contacted the artist with a plea for the painting at a lowered price, the current cost coming close to her monthly rent and student loan bills. Eventually the artist sympathized with her and allowed the painting to be sold at a lower sum. So, my dear hostess was not a Philistine, but I would probably figure the guy with the sombrero screaming at his tequila shot was. Or perhaps his artistic side has yet to be cultivated; either way it’s an interesting term to ponder. My family was largely opposed to the Philistine idea, although my parents have nice works of art hanging alongside several humble framed photos of our cats. With age, I’ve lapsed into my cookbook reading, opera listening, comic book drawing self…the person who was once comfortable sitting next to a keg discussing another person’s sexual exploits while inhaling second hand smoke is no longer. My patience for Philistines is low and while I know I need to be nice and show up to Josh’s work related events, it doesn’t change the fact that I have very little in common with these “technical” folks.