Seduced since boyhood by an alluring ode to achievement, this generation of American men were programmed to meet society’s needs by aiming for success. Trained for a world that no longer exists, they discover at mid-life that the values they believed in have cither disappeared or been discredited: Job security is a thing of the past; climbing up the ladder becomes impossible after forty; and hard work gets you nowhere today. Worse still, in the middle years excessively hard work often produces anxiety, depression, ulcers, alcoholism, and heart attacks.
It is time to face the facts: In America today some of our most prized values are poisonous, and some of our most beloved legends are lies. The standards we have imposed on men as the yardstick by which they must measure their masculinity are crudely based on economics. They serve the national interest—the growth of our country and our corporations—but not the individual.
The success ethic may have been valid, even personally rewarding, when America was on the frontier of industrial expansion. But in our technologically advanced society, the idea of dedication to production and progress as a national virtue is rapidly becoming obsolete. As an individual virtue it has already become destructive.
Today the imperatives of the work ethic twist men’s lives into a combative, competitive struggle, leaving little time or energy for pleasurable pursuits that cannot be measured. The traditional male role, which says a man must be a superachiever, striving incessantly for power and success, leads too often to the death of the human spirit. Or to death itself.
In this age of dramatic social change, marked by growing malaise and discontent among American workers, it is becoming increasingly clear that our corporations will have to respond to these facts—and revise their values. Success at any cost is becoming too costly, in human lives and ultimately in business dollars.
Until that day of enlightenment dawns, men in their middle years face a solitary challenge. Goaded by a sense of defeat, they arc being forced to reconcile fantasy and fact, and come to terms with an unreliable marketplace that no longer delivers on promises implicit in the American Dream.
Their disillusionment is prodding them to reappraise their frenzy to achieve, and to reorder their priorities. In the process they are abandoning their dedication to goals that society has imposed on them—and beginning to ask what they want to achieve for themselves.
This reshuffling represents a significant reversal: Though many men begin the mid-life period by waiting for society to pass judgment on them, they often end up to their own surprise passing judgment on society. Their verdict? Horatio Alger lied.
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