Must confess to being a bit baffled by your reaction, Simon. Where in that article do you see people undergoing QLC pushing their middle-class guilt onto anyone else? What precisely has James Not-His-Real-Name Arvanitakis done to deserve your ire?

I think what he's saying is that there is an unspoken agenda in these stories saying that striving for achievement in the working world isn't good, one needs to apply oneself to more "lofty" pursuits. And that if you don't, you're somehow missing the boat.

By the way, this in no way replaces mid-life crisis. They'll have that one too, perhaps harder than everyone else.

They are people in transition, from idealism to reality, and they don't like what they see, they want to escape back to what they feel they had at one time. You see, it's not that they're changing, it's that they're refusing to complete the change that they started years before.

Interesting article covering this and other parts of "growing up".

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/825grtdi.asp

I think what he's saying is that there is an unspoken agenda in these stories saying that striving for achievement in the working world isn't good, one needs to apply oneself to more "lofty" pursuits. And that if you don't, you're somehow missing the boat.

Oh nonsense. I think this is one case where the agenda is unspoken because it is nonexistent. Show me where there's any textual evidence to the contrary.

I think I said it was "unspoken" for a reason. But it is there, even if you are culturally incapable of seeing it.

If I read an article and see something in it that you don't, I might be wrong. Or I might be right and you just don't see it. Or maybe you're just one of those who can't stand someone having a different opinion.

You see, I don't really care whether you agree that it's there. I certainly don't feel any responsibility to point it out to you because you'd never see it regardless.

You asked a question, I answered it. I thought you were looking for an answer when all you really wanted to do is to make condescending remarks.

Gotta say I'm with bigdoc on this one, Nicholas. It is a clear implication of the article as a whole and of that example in particular. It's implicit - this man is "doing good", whereas you, the reader, are likely not.

big doc, the heart of this is that I don't consider something an answer if it isn't also accompanied by a little thing called substantiation. If of course you're quote-unquote culturally incapable of providing that, I suppose I can't very well blame you.

Simon, three things:

1) The slant of the article does nothing at all to reflect on the man himself, yet you say 'He made a personal choice and now wants the world to applaud him. . . keep on doing it, buddy, but don't push your middle-class guilt onto everyone else.'

2) That this specific man is doing something good while the reader is not seems to me to be quite a reasonable proposition. That all people undergoing QLC are doing something good while the reader is not seems to me to be a proposition that doesn't exist in the article.

3) I'm having particular difficulty seeing this implication in the example of the guy who went on the dole. I mean, really: '. . . Johnston soon realised the unhappiness reached into other areas of his life. He quit and drove around Queensland for three months until his money ran out. Then he went on the dole.' Positive spin this ain't! Maybe a poet or nihilist would find it admirable, but I don't see how anyone else is supposed to.

Nicholas, you've been missed.

Let me address each in turn.
1. The slant of the article does everything to reflect on himself. Let me put it to you like this: if the article hadn't mentioned his previous life as a banker with a Merc and plenty of big bucks he wouldn't be included in the article. That he made the change is great. The article is about QLC - crises of confidence in 20 somethings. He has been interviewed for the article as an example of someone who is doing something "worthwhile". To me the implication is clear and exactly what I stated in the original post.
2. The article itself does not directly imply the proposition. It is implied by being carried in a newspaper (and its website) that is widely read by the middle class masses. I do not say that all people undergoing QLC end up doing something good while the reader doesn't. On that I agree with you. In fact I'm saying people undergoing QLC should grow up and get a life - which is in fact what they are doing.
3. "Maybe a poet or nihilist would find it admirable..." plus the large majority of the target of this articele, being 20 somethings feeling bogged down by real life. Bumming around Queensland on the dole for a while sounds like paradise compared to making a crust working 8 hours day in a crummy job.

Hopefully I will continue to be missed except on weekends and when I'm ill at home. ;)

1) All very well, but what I mean is: how does that translate into 'He made a personal choice and now wants the world to applaud him'? What leads you to conclude that he wants the world to applaud him, particularly when he isn't even being credited under his real name?

2) That's a strange argument. If the article were carried in a venue read largely by 70-year-old billionaires or 40-year-old housewives, would that implied proposition then cease to exist? Why?

Also, you say that growing up and getting a life is exactly what people undergoing QLC are doing. How does this contradict what the article is saying?

3) They might find it desirable, but surely not admirable. And they clearly don't (mostly) find it desirable enough to seek it for themselves.

Sorry for prolonging this rather pointless (even by blogospherical standards) argument, but I badly need an argument--any argument--after all that mindless running about and doing push-ups.