The Decline of the Protestant Work Ethic

The good old Protestant work ethic is dead in the water. Perhaps not entirely, but it is surely on life support. 

Witness the following from Cambridge University, one of the world’s greatest universities. A physical sciences professor Eugene Terentjev sent out the following email to Freshman students. He wanted them to know that if they wanted to succeed in physics, they would have to work very, very hard. And that they should cut out carousing. Life is not a party. Physicists do not learn physics by partying. 

You might have considered this advice to be well-meant. You might have thought that today's college students should be advised to drink less and to study more. You would have been wrong. 

Immediately, those who pretend to be selling mental health were out in force attacking the professor… for promoting mental illness. Happily, Terentjev’s college has refused to condemn him.

The story appears in The New York Post (via Maggie’s Farm). The text appears on a site called Varsity. Here are some excerpts:

Terentjev writes: “There are things that need to be said, and these first few weeks of your Cambridge experience are quite critical in the way your path forms.”

And also:

It says: “Please be careful how you handle yourselves here in these early weeks: remember that you are NOT at any other uni, where students do drink a lot and do have what they regard as a “good time” – and you are NOT on a course, as some Cambridge courses sadly are, where such a behaviour pattern in possible or acceptable.”

“Physical Sciences is a VERY hard subject, which will require ALL of your attention and your FULL brain capacity (and for a large fraction of you, even that will not be quite enough). You can ONLY do well (i.e. achieve your potential, which rightly or wrongly several people here assumed you have) I you are completely focused, and learn to enjoy the course. People who just TAKE the course, but enjoy their social life, can easily survive in many subjects -- but not in this one.”

If you read this carefully, the good professor was advising against drunkenness. Is this really such a bad idea? Is it really a bad idea to promote excellence?

Some people thought so. By their lights, if you do not take your medicine—the alcoholic variety—you are likely to become mentally ill. Note well: working too hard will make you mentally ill. It's an astonishing message:

Student-run mental health campaigning group Student Minds Cambridge were quick to condemn the email, posting on their Facebook page: “We want to stress that this is not an appropriate or acceptable message to spread to students.”

“No matter how much work you have, no matter your current levels of attainment, there is nothing more important than your mental health”

They added: “We are very concerned that this could be extremely damaging to the mental well-being of the students in concern, and potentially others as well. This could enforce feelings "imposter syndrome" commonly experienced by Cambridge students. It is important to remember that there are many reasons different people get different grades, and it does not mean that they do not deserve their place here.”

One notes the bow toward diversity. True enough, some people do better and some do worse at physics. Does this have anything to do with affirmative action programs? Apparently, you ought not to think so, lest it harm your mental health. Does it have anything to do with whether or not you spend too much of your time at university partying? Apparently not, because people who party have achieved work/life balance. In that case it does not matter whether they succeed or fail. They may become second-rate. They may even become third-rate. At least they will be mentally healthy… according to the standards set by this group. Do you smell a faint odor of decadence emanating from the therapy culture?

Apparently, the latest dogma in the therapy culture is work/life balance. It’s supporters insist that the professor is telling students never to socialize. In fact, he was advising them not to go our carousing, drinking with their buddies. As it happens, drinking too much is a problem in American universities too.

Anyway, the proponents of work/life balance have their say:

CUSU Welfare and Rights Officer, Micha Frazer-Carroll, also took to social media to condemn the email, saying: “There are pertinent remarks to be made regarding student wellbeing in Cambridge. To offer support regarding drinking culture in Cambridge could have been a positive thing - words of wisdom on work/life balance, or getting enough rest among social commitments might be another. But the email sent last week took neither opportunity - it only looked to criticise the very premise of having a social life, or any sort of life, outside of study.

“CUSU Welfare and Rights supports students in prioritising their own wellbeing - and not simply because it 'enables you to work better', but wellbeing for wellbeing's sake.”

Much is expected of college students these days. They are competing against their peers in foreign countries, like Asia. Apparently, the Asian students do not have work/life balance. And this means that they are outcompeting their Western counterparts in math and science. Surely, this is true among high school students. As for American millennials, they perform worse than just about everyone. When you make college into a therapeutic experience, students end up learning nothing. They suffer from intractable depression when they discover that their high self-esteem does not translate into excellence.

Yet another British academic has rushed out to defend student partying:

Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, said the professor’s message scaremongers the students rather than helping them to learn to live a balanced lifestyle. “Frightening impressionable undergraduates into believing that work alone is all-important is irresponsible, unkind and wrong-headed,” he told the newspaper.

The university’s student union welfare officer, Micha Frazer-Carroll, also criticized the content of the email, claiming it criticized “the very premise of having a social life, or any sort of life, outside of study.”

“The university believes that all first-year students in all disciplines, having undergone the thorough admissions process that Cambridge requires, have the capacity to succeed academically,” a spokesperson for the University told the Times.

Work/life balance guarantees mediocrity. Apparently, some people think that it’s good enough.

[Addendum: As though it was sent by the gods, the follow study from the University of Texas at Galveston confirms the good professor's point: drinking too much alcohol causes damages brain cells. Link here.]