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The Nation's Pulse
A Can’t-Do President
Why Americans long for Reagan and Clinton.
Recently over several pints of cheap domestic ale, my brother-in-law held forth on the topic of the unnaturalness of men working in offices. Like most guys chained all day to a desk, he confessed to feeling somewhat ambivalent, if not embarrassed, about his desk job.
For once we were in agreement. Consider the following: for most of his existence the male homo sapiens worked chiefly alfresco, first as hunter and fisherman, and more recently as planter, rancher, trader, teamster or builder, often alone, sometimes with his sons, to whom he passed down the values of hard work.
Females, on the other hand, worked mostly indoors, cooking, sewing, nursing, washing, childrearing, which is why even today gals are better than guys at multitasking, experts say. Naturally, there were exceptions — the few big city bankers, lawyers, architects, and CPAs who got through the day by drinking heavily and flirting with secretaries — but by and large men’s work lives were solitary, nasty, brutish, and out of doors.
This began to change in the last century, and for that we can blame Big Government. With the creation of the Federal Interstate Highway System (an idea Ike stole from Adolf) and free college (thanks to the GI Bill) more and more men decamped from small town and rural America and crowded into the cities, exchanging the quiet drudgery of the field for the strident drudgery of the cubicle. By the 1950s, a good many of our formerly strong, taciturn young men were poised uneasily behind desks in such formerly unimaginable jobs as sales manager, marketing specialist, bond trader, and human resources manager. With the advent of the personal computer still more desk jobs opened up (data entry, financial risk manager, software engineer), jobs that were increasingly impossible to explain to one’s children. Meanwhile, employment in agriculture and industry declined or was supplanted by machines.
WAS THIS MORE OF THE same Men’s Movement baloney? Uneasy, mid-life crises guys blubbering about how liberated women have stolen their masculinity? Not exactly. That more work has been moved indoors is undeniable; that women are more comfortable in social situations than are men is likewise indisputable. That men were freer and better off in the old days planting and making and fixing things — a barrel that wouldn’t leak, a wheel that could withstand any pothole — is open to debate, though I personally have yet to meet a male desk jockey who doesn’t on occasion feel like an Indian on a reservation.
That includes me. My vision of hell is a morning meeting, surrounded by a dozen chirpy women, cold coffee and stale donuts. Women, of course, thrive in meetings. They prefer a cooperative working structure, whereas men prefer to simply give or take orders and get on with it. Meetings give gals an opportunity to chitchat, and, best of all, to hear themselves talk. I suspect that for every female seated round a conference table you can add an extra 15 minutes to the meeting. (Women are also distinguished in their ability to sit for incredibly long periods of time without getting up, i.e. nesting.) If anything, these evolutionary quirks give women a competitive advantage in the indoor business world.
Men, in general, can grin and bear their way through an occasional social event (a PTA meeting, a high school reunion), but it is simply cruel and inhuman to require us to collaborate and be sociable eight hours a day, five days a week. The ideal American man has always been the strong, silent type, a stoic Gary Cooper in High Noon who sees what needs to be done and does it without making a fuss. His contemporary opposite is someone like Michael Douglas in Wall Street, a weasely, manipulative arbitrageur lacking all the traditional male virtues.
This year’s election is between two Harvard-Wall Street types, guys who never plowed a field or skinned a rabbit in their lives. I think that’s why Americans keep harkening back to the days of Ronald Reagan (if you are a Republican), or Bill Clinton (if you are a Democrat). We desire a leader, preferably from America’s heartland, who knows how to do something besides sit behind a big desk and talk.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
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Joellen| 9.20.12 @ 6:47AM
And that is part of the problem, if Americans are longing for Clinton, they still dont get it.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.20.12 @ 8:17PM
I long for the thoroughly opportunistic, lacking-in-core-beliefs Romney to be defeated. Whether Obama, Clinton, Reagan, Ike, Coolidge or Geo. Washington himself were to defeat him is of no importance to me.
Romney knows the business community-- keep him there.
Appleby| 9.20.12 @ 6:51AM
I suspect that the vast army of unemployed men are not longing for jobs in logging camps, although here in Kanukistan a lot of men are heading out to Alberta to work in the oilfields (despite the continued shrieking of the Greenies) and sending the money home to their families back east. In a couple of months, the weather will close in, and everybody will be happy that downtown Toronto is connected by underground walkways and we don't have to go outside again until we walk the two blocks home from the subway. From what I see at night, the men who are walking their dogs in below-zero weather while the snow pelts down on their heads don't really appear to be very happy.
Pecos Pete| 9.20.12 @ 7:48AM
It would be nice if King O would actually sit behind a desk instead of flying around in AF#1. He could watch TV or something.
Moe Blotz| 9.20.12 @ 12:17PM
When he sits behind our desk, he should keep his damn feet off it.
Cat Shot| 9.20.12 @ 3:07PM
Thanks Moe, that needed saying. Real men died for that desk.
THKrupp| 9.20.12 @ 8:56AM
I would agree with this to a certain extent. When I was actively farming I spent a huge amount of time outdoors. Even if I was working ground in a cab tractor with AC at least it was an outdoor office that moved. I actually got a sense of accomplishment. I mostly work in an office now shuffling around bits of paper. I dont miss hauling buckets of hot water to thaw frozen waterers on January mornings . I do miss the sense of accomplishment of doing actual tasks and overcoming physical obstacles. Doing different things according to the seasons and not having to do the same thing day after day. I used to look forward to getting to work. Now its hard to crawl out of bed even though what I do now is substantially easier. I used to be able to see the fruits of my labor, its hard to get excited about a correctly filled out form or spread sheet.
mike 3/505| 9.27.12 @ 5:20PM
Hear! Hear!
Albert Constantine Jr.| 9.20.12 @ 9:02AM
I thought that there were interesting and meritorious points made throughout the article, until the line about Clinton. I can think of nothing “outdoorsy” of note that he ever did or said, with the possible exception of the remark to the autoworkers about the Astroturf he had in the back of his old El Camino. As far as desks go, some of the more notorious moments of his Presidency were on or under one.
RFisher66| 9.20.12 @ 9:05AM
You are absolutely correct, Christopher, about men and women in business. I was in outside sales for 30 years and abhored time spent in the office. Seemed like there was always some meeting to go to and then of course you had to be up on the office gossip. I understand your Ronald Reagan comparison but Bill Clinton? Really? The only thing he knew how to do rather than sit behind a disk was stand in front of one getting a, well you know. Maybe Harry Truman would have been a better example.
Occam's Tool| 9.20.12 @ 10:42AM
Romney is not a wuss.
fmm| 9.20.12 @ 10:51AM
If you can't get as much or more of a sense of accomplishment at a desk job compared to some physical activity, then you are in the wrong desk job and might consider changing what you do. In my experience, a non-thinking desk job (paper shufling as you put it, or busy work) does lead to dissatisfaction, but one which requires a person to use his brain gives one a great feeling of accomplishment. Still smile at the thought of the engineer who, after putting in a full day thinking through a tough problem, told us he had to go home early to rest cause thinking is so damn hard. Coupling a thinking job with the ability to actually put the concepts into action in the field is the best of all worlds. Have to totally agree on your issues with meetings, bloody meetings however.
THKrupp| 9.20.12 @ 11:12AM
Perhaps, but the sense of satisfaction you get from only doing the planning part is insignificant compared to doing the whole thing yourself. Thinking and planning can be tiring and rewarding but not compared to doing it all. I raised 2000-3000 head of pigs without any assistance per year. There is alot of planning and paper shuffling that goes along with that as well as labor. I could actually see what I had accomplished. When I was selling at $40-$65 per 100 I was also making a lot of money. You cannot imagine the satisfaction you get from that. I have never had a job outside of agriculture where I felt the same about what I was doing. I actually pity people who have never had that kind of feeling. Everything else pales in comparison.
THKrupp| 9.20.12 @ 11:29AM
Of course when I was getting $8 a hundred and losing $40-$50 a head the dissatisfaction and stress caused me to have panic attacks and many sleepless nights about how I was going to keep the whole thing afloat lol.
fmm| 9.20.12 @ 5:19PM
Understand. Reread my penultimate sentence. There is nothing better than having the opportunity to do projects from conception through their application in the field with hands on development as well as planning and creation.
Louis Jenkins| 9.20.12 @ 11:21AM
When it comes to Obama, I'd be happy with Howdy Doody.
Joe D.| 9.20.12 @ 12:16PM
Chris, so what does your wife think about this weeks column. And secondly, I wonder what the women think. As for me, I think you are too hard on the men and there adptability.
Houdini| 9.20.12 @ 1:18PM
I sent the article to my wife with my endorsement....I'l be having dinner out.
C. Vernon Crisler | 9.20.12 @ 12:51PM
"evolutionary quirks"
I guess I really hate articles that try to explain everything as a product of a nebulous concept like evolution. The fact is, Christopher, men work at desk jobs because of capitalism. Capitalism puts more and more focus on the mind as opposed to physical labor. You seem to think the Gary Cooper types are the ones who create jobs and the Michael Douglas capitalist types (or Hollywood caricature of capitalists). BTW, when has Hollywood ever met a businessman that it likes, even though all movers and shakers in Hollywood are rich businessmen.
Only agrarians, nature romantics, TR fans, and a few left-over national socialists seem to think physical labor, the soil, and getting dirty and muddy, are better than capitalist specialization.
C. Vernon Crisler | 9.20.12 @ 12:52PM
and NOT the Michael Douglas capitalist types
Seek| 9.20.12 @ 7:00PM
Your "Hollywood hates capitalsist" generalization is shrill and unconvincing like so many others. Here's why.
First, drama by its nature, depends on some depiction of the illicit. Put simply, nobody will see a movie without a bad guy. That's the way it's always been and always will be.
Second, for any sort of dishonesty with money to be convincing, there has to be a sizable pile of funds at stake. And who has the biggest pile? Typically, it's major businessmen.
Third, a good many "anti-business" movies are actually anti-corporatist. You will notice that corrupt businessmen very often in the supposedly offending films act in cahoots with corrupt government officials (e.g., "The International"). These movies just as easily be seen as anti-government.
Fourth, there are anti-capitalists who are depicted in recent films as very bad guys, like "The Dark Knight Rises." Apparently, you didn't read Helen Rittelmeyer's piece too carefully.
There is new movie, "Arbitrage," starring Richard Gere. Yes, he's a wealthy businessman who plays outside the rules. But the film actually is very sympathetic to him. And it's highly well done. Well....you'll have to see for yourself.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 9.20.12 @ 8:10PM
"Put simply, nobody will see a movie without a bad guy. That's the way it's always been and always will be."
Please allow me to register my disagreement with the absolute nature of the above statement. Help me out with who the bad guy was in the film "The Perfect Storm"? Were the bad guys in the original "Poseidon Adventure" the ones who died, or was it God, as Gene Hackman's character seemed to suggest right before he died (I know Stella Stevens played the "bad" girl)?
Now, if you had suggested that conflict was an essential element of drama, and is most easily supplied to a plot by the device of a villain, I might have a more difficult time filing a counterargument. I'm not sure that a rogue wave or converging storm fronts qualify as bad guys, however.
Dave Williams| 9.20.12 @ 2:32PM
...and the huge irony is that Ohblahblah doesn't even TALK that well. Take away his training wheels, whoops, teleprompter, and he reveals himself to be the hateful fuzzy-minded narcissist that he is.
Kwan| 9.20.12 @ 3:16PM
Clint Eastwood summed it up completely: "Barack Obama is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People." This should be Romney's campaign theme.
cicero| 9.20.12 @ 4:52PM
I'll give you Ronald Reagan, but Bill Clinton? The only thing he ever did was tell the people in front of him what they wanted to hear so that they would vote for him. Once elected, he engaged in meetings, telling those in front of him what they wanted to hear, so that they would pass legislation giving more people what they wanted from someone else, so they would elect him again. I am aware of no actual job the man ever held, or any real work that he ever did.
During your good old days, the average life expectancy of your mythical outdoors man was about half of what is is today. I worked in an auto factory many years ago, working midnights to earn enough money to pay for the schooling I got during the day. A large percentage of the men had been injured by machinery in one way or another (me included). The good old days were not all that good. The fact that most men now earn their livings in manners not dangerous or devastating to their bodies is a good thing. Nastalgia is generally good only for those who didn't experience what they think we are all missing.
Paul McGrath| 9.20.12 @ 5:58PM
My career was spent at a desk, or, more accurately, in a cubicle. Not sure if I ever loved it, but I derived a certain amount of satisfaction from coming home at the end of the day with a feeling of accomplishment. Raised a family, have a mortgage, etc. I was content.
But in those days, the managers were men, too. Nobody really gave a flying f*** what you did as long as you showed up for some period of time during the day and got your job done.
Over the years things have changed. Now, it is mostly women who are in management. Better not have a couple of beers at lunch on a Friday. Better not leave early on a Tuesday because you have a ballgame to go to. Better not come in late on a Thursday because you had an all-nighter with some babe.
And meetings. All the time. Every day. Vision plans. Steering meetings. Focus groups. Training. It never ended.
No. No slack anymore. Everything must be done by the book. Or else.
Of course I am generalizing. But the business world has changed. For the worse.
I wish I'd just chopped down trees every day. Something simple, and without bullshit.
MTB| 9.20.12 @ 7:35PM
Yeah, okay, the idea and plannnig for the interstate highway system came well before WWII, so President Eisenhower did not "steal the idea from Hitler." I didn't bother to read the rest of your article after finding that little gem. Yes, it was "Ike" who made the interstate highway system a reality, but he didn't bring it back with him from Germany.
Chris Orlet| 9.20.12 @ 9:38PM
You want sources, I'll give you sources. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/inters.....rstate.htm
Now you can finish the article.