Published November 20, 2024
In the late 1960s, the University of Notre Dame was still an all-male institution. The Vietnam War was in full swing. So were the campus protests. The draft still applied. Illegal drugs were just starting to make an appearance. And South Bend winters had all the charm of a Soviet gulag camp in the Arctic.
Into the bleak wasteland of February 1969 – my junior year – came a ray of implausibly weird light: a hardcore ND pornography conference. Somehow it had managed to get organized without being killed by the school’s administration. For thousands of desperate, women-deprived male students (including me at the time), it had the magnetic pull of a Star Trek tractor beam.
Not for long, though. It was raided by police with pepper spray. Then it was canceled.
Over the next few decades, I married, had kids, and found a good job. And I marveled that so many of us in my class, despite the turmoil of the 1960s, had actually grown into reasonably responsible, happy adults. But of course, we weren’t lucky. We were blessed. We had the benefit of being formed in a culture that was still, in many ways, healthy and sane; a culture biased toward intact marriages and families; a culture with a more or less biblical moral sense.
What my age cohort did with that culture is another matter. We now have a nation where a female Supreme Court justice is unable or unwilling to define what a woman is.
We’re now a very long way from the (relative) innocence of the 1960s. Which is why a tool like The Young Adult Playbook: Living Like It Matters is so valuable. We live in a moment of intense cultural confusion and relentless noise. For exactly that reason, the Playbook primarily targets young, college-aged adults, though it makes essential reading for parents as well.
It’s quite literally a practical roadmap to shaping a meaningful life in a world of career anxiety, emotional anarchy, and constant material distractions. In the words of the authors, Playbook “offers a hopeful vision of a good life and the courage to walk a new path;” a path more mature and fulfilling than relentless work, escalating but empty appetites, and relationships without intimacy. And they deliver on that promise.
The authors know their material from long personal experience. Each is a spouse and a parent. Each is a veteran, university-level educator. Anna Moreland is a Villanova University professor and director of its honors program. Thomas W. Smith, a former Villanova professor and Moreland colleague, is now dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the Catholic University of America.
Each is deeply committed to the Catholic faith, its moral wisdom, and its intellectual tradition. Each was an articulate resource for the local Church and Archbishop Charles Chaput during his Philadelphia tenure. And each has the skill to communicate vital things clearly, simply, and engagingly – a gift on display throughout the Playbook and critical to keeping the interest of a young adult reader.
Structurally the book is broken into three areas of focus: work, leisure, and love. Key questions emerge: What constitutes real success? How should one pursue it? How can one use time intentionally – for work, rest, and renewal – without wasting it? How does one cultivate real intimacy? The authors approach each area through “compelling stories, sound practical advice, elevated expectations, and renewed habits,” along with specific journal exercises.
Briefly put, the Playbook is a concise, accessible, and effective workbook designed to help young adults reorient their aspirations and habits toward a life of real happiness. In other words, it’s a small book with a very big impact on those who – to borrow a thought from the authors – want to connect with their deeper hopes and dreams, and uncover what they really want out of life.
The American character has a deep streak of individualism. When that combines with a consumer economy dependent on creating endlessly new appetites, we get a 24/7 catechesis in acquisitiveness and self-focus; a permanently restless society. Nothing sells better than sex in our entertainment and in the work of hawking new products. So we’re now flooded with explicit sexual imagery that would have been unimaginable in the 1960s – not just on the Internet, but in our commerce and mainstream media. And the result is predictable.
U.S. rates of loneliness, porn usage, sexually transmitted disease, and gender dysphoria among young people have all increased. Meanwhile, actual, flesh and blood, “partnered” sexual activity in all its forms has declined at the same time. What we’ve created is a culture of exquisitely fractured self-interest.
A culture that sees relationships as transitory and children as expensive, scary, and demanding. Which of course they are – except they’re also vastly more than that. The social impact of all these combined factors is an increase in anxiety, anger, depression, and other health negatives, along with widespread abuse of language – consider expressions like “reproductive rights” – to disguise the damage being done.
The lesson here is pretty simple. We can’t pervert the order of Creation – the nature of the created world – without nature eventually biting back. And that includes human nature, which includes our sexuality and its design.
To borrow a thought from Wendell Berry, our sexuality can’t be prostituted for commercial or entertainment use – “prostituted” is Berry’s deliberate choice of words – without also destroying romance, courtship, enduring love, family life, household integrity, and even a basic respect and courtesy between the sexes.
The devaluation of sexuality is like the devaluation of a monetary currency. It destroys any related values. Instead of liberation, we get conflict and suffering.
This is the world young adults now face. My generation helped shape it, and it falls to all of us now to help young people survive, mature in virtue and character, and build something better for themselves and the lives they touch going forward.
In the end, that’s why The Young Adult Playbook matters. It’s why the authors have given us something important.
Francis X. Maier is a Senior Fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Maier’s work focuses on the intersection of Christian faith, culture, and public life, with special attention to lay formation and action.
