Bring On the New Order
Hello, Richard:
Interesting thoughts indeed.
Susan Faludi says the old order is breaking down. I
agree. She says, "Oh, Dear," and I say "Hooray!!" The only problem I have is
that it's not breaking down nearly fast enough, due to vested interests,
institutional inertia, and lots of uncertainty about the new models of wealth
creation that will replace the industrial leviathan. Gender has a role to play
here too. Men have dominated the old order. Or perhaps it's more accurate to
say that a certain interpretation of masculinity based on dominance has imbued
the old order. Many men feel comfortable with what they know, and it's not
clear that they will be able to enjoy the same kinds of perks from their
masculinity as wealth creation evolves toward new models in the next century.
Fifty years of social science have decried what that old order did to human
beings. A quick glance at my bookshelf tells that story: Alienation and Freedom , Class and
Conformity , The Hidden Injuries of Class
(brilliant, still), The Organization Man ,
The Lonely Crowd ... if we believe what we've been
saying, then we should all be celebrating.
Why is this order breaking down? If you read Faludi the
answer seems to be something like--fickle and inept commercial interests
suddenly turned on to the financial benefits of treating employees like paper
clips. This is simply wrong. U.S. employers have always been arrayed in
something of a normal distribution, with some being quite progressive and
humane, offering great benefits and employment security, and some being right
bastards. Most were somewhere in the middle, treating employees like paper
clips when their balance sheet required them to do so. This situation has not
changed. Today, the really cool companies that make the Fortune cover with their great family policies, benefits, and
security, employ at most about 3 percent of the workforce. The normal
distribution still holds for the rest. Despite all the hype about the end of
loyalty, most of the studies conducted by labor economists show that the length
of time that people spend with an organization and the number of changes they
make during their careers has not varied dramatically over the last
quarter-century. There was an increase in the churn rate for younger, less
experienced managers in the early 1990s, during the recession, but even that
appears to have moderated.
So in what way are things changing? The short answer
here, I think, is "choice." The very success of the old order has created new
choices as well as--educated, informed-- people interested in new choices. The
electronic infrastructure--networks, PCs, the Internet, wireless
communications, satellites, etc.--is increasingly making it possible to
de-center from the old "epicenters," whether those are the cities like Los
Angeles and London and New York or the old organizations themselves in their
skyscrapers and industrial parks. This means new choices for employment and new
choices for consumption. People vote with their feet--and will increasingly.
They don't want to depend upon the old-style institutions for their employment
or their consumption. They are seeking ways to exert more control over their
own lives and in the process to enhance the quality of their lives.
For all the narcissism of those who are busy ringing
around the anthills of Los Angeles and New York in order to be "winners" in
those loony hierarchies, the new boomtowns in the United States are in places
recently regarded as pastureland: places like Douglas, Colo., and Fayette,
Georgia, and yes, even Camden, Maine. Here the old definitions of what's global
and what's local no longer accurately describe the scene. In these new worlds,
people are participating in the global economy while their lives remain
centered in their families and their local communities. Nineteen ninety-seven
was the first year in which there was a net migration away from the cities and
suburbs to so-called rural areas. The United States now has 36.9 million
home-office households, which is 36.5 percent of the total 101.1 million
households. More than two-thirds of those home offices are
income-generating.
In the 18 th century, most
commercial activity was based at home. Craftsmen had their shops out back.
Merchants met clients in their formal parlors. But in the 19 th century, men were plucked out of their homes to go to work in
factories and offices. Perhaps as a way to displace their collective grief,
they decided that the workplace was really important and what went on at home
... well, that newly feminine world was at best a distant second. The only guy
who was allowed to work from home without being regarded suspiciously was the
president, who still conducted business in his White House. Places like Maine
reunite the 18 th century with the
21 st . You're right, it's not like living in New
York or Los Angeles. That's the whole point! And there are vast numbers of
educated people who can now free themselves from the hegemony of the old
"epicenters" to live the life they want without sacrificing their participation
in the global economy.
So where does this leave the "masculinity crisis"? It
brings us right back to "choice." The people making these new choices are the
ones forcing the breakdown of the old order. Yes, it's doing plenty to make
itself vulnerable, but organizations based on the old industrial model are
simply not the first choice of an increasing number of people who work and
consume. The new path they are forging is still in its infancy, but unlike the
edges of the stream that Susan Faludi chose to shine her lights on, these are
the trends on which I place my bets for the future. For the men who are making
these new choices, I don't believe there is a masculinity crisis but rather a
liberation from an identity constrained by the "I am what I do" and the "I am
my status on the totem pole" mentality that dominated the emotional lives of
most men in the 20 th century. These men are
excited about carving out a wider individuality in which they can develop and
enjoy a more spacious and multifaceted sense of self. For those who continue to
pursue the more traditional masculine identity, there is no crisis, but rather
denial. They will work to keep those identities intact until something happens
in their personal or professional lives that profoundly challenges their sense
of meaning. Only then will they choose to change. (I loved the way Faludi
showed Mr. Stallone teetering on this choice. Unfortunately, he didn't know
very much about choosing friends capable of a commitment to the person he could
become, rather than the man he had been.) You called the men Faludi interviewed
"losers." It's a hard word, but there is truth there. They are losers because
the old identity is foreclosed to them while the new choices don't appear to be
accessible. And it is precisely for this reason that, however important their
stories may be, they do not provide a basis for generalizing about the state of
masculinity today.
More tomorrow,
Shoshana Zuboff
