Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will again be rainy with a high of 67. There’s life and beauty in the rain. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset is 6:36 for 11 hours 44 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 72.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1903, the Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. (Boston upsets Pittsburgh five games to three, winning with pitching depth behind Cy Young and Bill Dinneen.)
A recruiter, posting on TikTok, has sparked a national debate in this time of many debates: Should a job candidate bring an iced coffee to an interview? Well. As a question of practicality, the simplest solution for a job-seeker would be to adapt his or her conduct to the interviewer’s expectations. (That is, adapting ordinary, trivial conduct, not principles or truthfulness.)
If the question about iced coffee were, however, merely about adapting ordinary, trivial conduct to a single interview, then discussion of it would not have become so widespread so quickly. It is at bottom a question about cultural expectations between generations, isn’t it?
For myself, if interviewing someone for a position, I would not mind at all if someone brought iced coffee to an interview. In this, my views would be like those of Gov. Pritzker of Illinois:
Yes, indeed. In these or any other times — but certainly in these turbulent times — it’s hard to imagine drawing the line at iced coffee. (Coffee, by the way, is a catalyst for American productivity. That delicious beverage has helped many people and institutions begin the day energetically. Hot or iced, it’s very much part of our society.)
There are cultural conflicts between generations even now over interview drinks, ink, piercings, or a dozen other matters like that. There is not one of those differences that should matter as against a candidate’s abilities and possibilities. On the contrary, trying to inhibit diverse, innocuous cultural differences between one generation and a succeeding one is at best conceited, and at worst oppressive.
Consider markets, broadly and properly working: free and mutually advantageous encounters or transactions between people. Each person comes forward as an individual, and part of that individuality should be freedom of style and presentation (because style and presentation are far more than superficial).
(A quick reminder, however: When someone intentionally tries to adopt a style, especially an older and established person, he should be expected to achieve the look at which he’s aiming. Trump, for example, despite being an octogenarian billionaire, has never managed to dress himself properly for the very style at which he’s aiming. Yet more important: Enough About Trump’s Looks. His Presidency Is Ugly.)
Iced coffee at an interview is about more than iced coffee at an interview — it’s about cultural orthodoxy imposed from one generation onto another.
Much — too much — of the local debate about policy changes in Whitewater seems similarly rooted in a desire to freeze the city in amber, to the benefit of an aging, controlling faction. Part of this desire is a transparent effort to maintain a landlords’ economic oligopoly that treats student renters as a disposable commodity while being indifferent to graduating students’ (or others’) hopes to remain residents or settle here.
Another part of it is simply an aged generation that believes ‘this is the way we talk around here,’ ‘this is our tradition,’ and ‘this is how you do it,’ etc. Whitewater always deserved more than subservience to yesterday’s men, a silly faction of pedigree pushers and bloodline boosters. Old Whitewater — what’s left of it — has had no higher principle than insisting that the best course of action is to do whatever Old Whitewater thinks best. We are not the only town with a version of this problem.
(Note well: This libertarian blogger doesn’t find these types insulting. I find them ludicrous.)
Imposing a standard for culture and style from one generation to another stifles innovation, creativity, and personal liberty. Almost as bad, this imposition reveals an older generation as too weak or too selfish to adapt within a dynamic society. So inflexible, so rigid, that they cannot engage with others while recognizing the fundamental individuality and equality of others.
If someone wants to bring iced coffee, fine. If someone else in the room doesn’t want iced coffee, fine. None of that should stand in the way of a productive and mutually beneficial conversation.
For those so inclined, here’s a recipe for eiskaffee to try. Enjoy.
Swiss glaciers lose more than 5% of ice: