“The world tells them to be a good consumer, but they want to be the one consumed—by a moral cause. The world tells them to want independence, but they want interdependence—to be enmeshed in a web of warm relationships. The world tells them to want individual freedom, but they want intimacy, responsibility, and commitment. The world wants them to climb the ladder and pursue success, but they want to be a person for others.”

One of Brooks’s major themes involves the rebellion against a mainstream culture premised on individual consumption and individual achievement. Part of the initial ascent up the second mountain, after the period of suffering in the valley, involves a rejection of the values of mainstream American culture. Instead, the second-mountain person seeks meaningful networks of personal connection.

“There’s always a tension between self and society. If things are too tightly bound, then the urge to rebel is strong. But we’ve got the opposite problem. In a culture of ‘I’m Free to Be Myself,’ individuals are lonely and loosely attached. Community is attenuated, connects are dissolved, and loneliness spreads. This situation makes it difficult to be good—to fulfill the deep human desires for love and connection.”

Brooks believes that contemporary American society is overly individualistic, which leads to an unnatural state of isolation and loneliness. The fabric of society is so loosely coherent in this view that taking moral action (in the sense established through the second-mountain ethos) is difficult. In other words, the structure of society and its attendant moral ethos are antithetical to the pursuit of the good life as Brooks conceives it.

“You will notice that our answers take all the difficulties of living in your twenties and make them worse. The graduates are in limbo, and we give them uncertainty. They want to know why they should do this as opposed to that. And we have nothing to say except, Figure it out yourself based on no criteria outside yourself. They are floundering in a formless desert. Not only do we not give them a compass, we take a bucket of sand and throw it all over their heads!”

Brooks criticizes the supposedly sage advice that members of elder generations pass down to young adults in modern American society. This advice, which essentially instructs people to follow their authentic path without indicating what that means, is useless. In fact, according to Brooks, it makes the tough existential problems of young adult life even worse because of a lack of mentorship.