Being one of three brothers who came of age in the 1990s—the golden age of watching ribald, edited-for-television comedies on basic cable—I was constantly exposed to humorous quips and one-liners from hilarious movies.  One perennial favorite was the raunchy (again, edited for television) comedy classic Caddyshack (1980), about a bunch of blue-collar kids working at a tony country club’s golf course (and Bill Murray trying to blow up a gopher).

My brothers and I still reference one brief but oft-quoted scene:

Judge Smails irate handling of his ingrate nephew is a classic, and something I have probably said to a student.  My older brother loves saying it to my younger brother’s kids, who, while not rotten, and definitely spoiled (a good bit by their Uncle Portly).

My older nephew, is nearly six, likes to invert the phrase, shouting at his other uncle, “You’ll get everything and not like it.”  It’s one of his many (unintentionally?) Zen utterances.

I was contemplating this amusing bit of familial banter on the way to work yesterday.  My sweet little nephew is right—we Westerners do have everything—and we’re miserable!

The great promise of the Enlightenment and modernity was simple:  through scientific materialism and hyper rationalism, we can conquer and control Creation and extract maximum prosperity from it.  All we had to do was give up our traditional ways of living, move to the cities, and punch a clock for fourteen hours a day.

We realized that was a pretty bum deal after awhile, but were assured that if we just kept working with our shorter, easier workdays, we’d achieve unlimited prosperity in no time.

I’m not opposed to hard work—I love it, especially when it’s my own enterprises—and premodern people worked exceptionally hard.  But there was a sense of purpose to their work, a sense that working hard and living righteously were pleasing to God, and ensured the security of future generations.  People wanted to propagate future generations.

Now, that sense of purpose seems to be missing for many Americans.  Ironically, we’ve achieved the prosperity that the earliest civilizations literally killed merely to attempt to achieve.  It turns out, however, that pizza at 2 AM and nonstop streaming services aren’t the key to greater happiness.

To clarify again:  I’m thankful—incredibly so—for the ability to get pizza at 2 AM; for an abundance of food and energy (despite the best efforts of the Biden administration); for easy access to medicine; for hot water piped directly into my home.  These have vastly improved the quality of life, but they’ve also preserved life (well, maybe not the 2 AM pizza, but the fact that it’s available suggests a society with plenty of material wealth).  I don’t want to see these disappear.

But these things don’t provide meaning or purpose.  Their ready availability should encourage us to both preserve our material wealth and to pursue our purpose(s).

That was essentially the premise of Star Trek (and Marxism—gulp!):  in a world in which all needs are provided, we’d be free to pursue our strengths, to grow and expand as a civilization.  We’d explore the stars and write poetry and sculpt statues.

Instead, the lack of struggle has made us soft and indolent.  We watch too much television (myself and included) and eat too much food (also guilty).  Loads of young men go to work, do the bare minimum, then persist on pot and pornography until their next soul-deadening shift.

Struggle is good.  Getting nothing and liking it is good for us, personally and civilizationally.

Getting everything sounds pleasant, but it costs more than we realize.