:17:05
( Continues )
:17:16
( Tom ) I'm not sure I wanna go back to Princeton
next year. It's too much of a country club for me.
:17:20
You really shouldn't
treat Serena that way.
:17:22
- What?
- Giving her the silent treatment.
:17:25
- I'm not giving her the silent treatment.
- ( Chuckles ) Come on.
:17:28
I'm not giving her the silent treatment.
I just don't have anything to say to her.
:17:31
Listen, I know you're angry with her.
You're probably right to be.
:17:34
But it's still not right to treat her that way.
I think Serena really feels hurt by it.
:17:37
Oh, give me a break!
:17:39
Serena Slocum, a real feeling?
:17:41
- Serena's basically a good person.
- ( Scoffs )
:17:44
- She has feelings like anybody else.
- I find that very hard to believe.
:17:48
All this is - is pretty deceptive.
:17:51
- All what?
- Well, I -
:17:54
I think that - that -
that we are all, in a sense, doomed.
:17:57
What are you talking about?
:17:59
Downward social mobility.
:18:01
We hear a lot about
the great social mobility in America...
:18:04
with the focus usually on
the comparative ease of moving upwards.
:18:08
What's less discussed is
how easy it is to - to go down.
:18:12
I think that's the -
the direction that we're all heading in.
:18:15
And I think that the downward fall
is gonna be very fast.
:18:18
Not just for us as individuals,
but the whole preppy class.
:18:23
Where do you get all this?
:18:25
Well,just look around. Take those
of our fathers who grew up very well off.
:18:29
Maybe their careers
started out well enough...
:18:32
butjust as their contemporaries
really began to accomplish things...
:18:35
they started to quit...
:18:37
on rising above office politics...
:18:39
or- or refusing to compete
and risk open failure.
:18:42
Or not - not doing
the humdrum part of the job.
:18:45
Or only doing the humdrum part.
:18:47
Or gradually spending more and more time
on something more interesting -
:18:51
um, conservation, or the arts...
:18:53
where even if they were total failures
no one would know it.
:18:56
Okay.
:18:58
I guess we all know
who you're talking about.