FaceFucked (Or: I Saw It In A Movie So It Must Be True)

by DAVID BROOKS

Remember that capitalist system that I can't stop writing hopeless loveletters to, like some delirious school girl who's seen Twilight way too many times? Well it turns out that there is a downside to capitalism: ambition.

And the center of this new nightmare is Harvard: Once upon a time, it was a classy place where upper class WASPy children could drink, fornicate and knock up the girl they were then obliged to marry or at least pay for the abortion before going off to work for one of daddy's friends.

But nowadays Harvard is no longer a breeding ground for upper class inbred twits but a horribly serious place for extremely ambitious very NON-REAL Americans (cf. Elena Kagan).  In other words, not my beloved REAL AMERICANS, people who want to live sober lives industrious lives of chip-counting, union-busting, and church-going conformity.  Instead of being an elitist institution for the non-elite children of the elite (cf. Dubya), it is now an elitist institution for children fighting to their way into the elite.  Which is to say, people who rise on 'merit'.  (Many of whom come from NON-REAL-AMERICAN, ahem, "cultures".)

And as anyone who has read my columns knows, I've pretty much risen without any discernible merit or talent of any kind.  In fact my only noticeable skill is this: Turning everything in American culture into yet another dull treatise on how the world was so much better in 1959 and how much happier we would be if we would just accept that a certain amount of tuberculosis, lead paint, radioactive waste, and overt racism is good for you.

But that's not our world today--fortunately for me. I mean, what the hell else would I write about?  And as irrefutable evidence in this week's "What's wrong with modern America?", I submit a movie with a character named Zuckerberg.  Based on a real person, this movie is doubtless real, because as we all know Hollywood is the best place to learn about reality.  (Exactly why I crossed the Mines of Moria off of my places-to-visit checklist.)

So. Is  Zuckerberg, the FaceBook billionaire really an emotional cripple who cannot connect to other human beings and therefore is a living indictment of what's wrong with our Elitist Meritocracy?  Well, of course, it's everything I've been saying for years.  Because everyone was so happy in 1959.



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