Nowhere is this more evident than in the matter of career decisions. We—my circle, at any rate—tend to despise those who take the “easy option” of corporate labor. As opposed to what, though? It seems to me that to earn a free pass from today’s moralizers all you need to do is not sell out. It’s considered absolutely fine, for instance, to while away your twenties in grad school playing video games, watching reality TV and occasionally turning your thoughts to the writings of some obscure author. A life like that actually gives you some kind of moral purchase vis-à-vis a banker or a lawyer—at least you’re not increasing inequality. Even if we ignore the fact that a disdain for materialism has often been a marker of class distinction, it’s clear that there’s something fundamentally warped about this ethic. It tells us what is bad, but as to the good it is silent.