Word: beltways
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...happy and productive life does not require knowing that Trent Lott is the Senate majority leader. Not knowing may even help. But anyone inside the Washington Beltway could tell you who Trent Lott is, just as anyone inside the Other Beltway knows the difference between Pathfinder and Netscape. And each would be struck by the other's ignorance. The "incomprehension" between the Two Beltways, in Snow's term, does run in both directions...
...Other Beltway's language does have the edge in one respect: informality. I felt no qualm about E-mailing "Hi Joel" to someone I had never met. ("Hi Jon," I E-mailed to Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley when he announced that he'd gone online, adding helpfully, "This is the proper form of salutation in cyberspace." Yardley answered, jokingly, "Dear Mr. Kinsley: This is the proper form of salutation in Washington.") The same informality applies to dress, which in this world--where style is set by barely socialized young computer geeks--has moved beyond the studied informality...
...indeed combined doing well and doing good--getting rich and making the world a better place--with more success, probably, than any similar-size group of people in the history of the world. And for biotech, especially, the miracles are just beginning. If the citizens of this Other Beltway wish to believe they're doing more good for the world than their counterparts in the Washington Beltway, they can make a good case...
...moral equation is not so simple. The Washington Beltway is full of people who went there with the intention of making the world better, by their own lights. They may have failed at this or abandoned it, or their vision of a better world may be faulty. But some form of idealism is part of what brought them to Washington, and often some of it remains. That counts for something. A comically touching example of Washington idealism is the group that might be called celibates of the church of greed: denizens of conservative think tanks who have selflessly devoted their...
That Other Beltway, by contrast, gets part of its flavor from the naive egocentrism of brainy teenage boys. (Bellenson and Sasson are not good examples. Check out the Website of software billionaire Paul Allen if you want a taste.) Inside this Beltway some grownups in their 20s and 30s are still obsessed with Captain Kirk. If they have any political interest, it's a lingering passion for Ayn Rand. And this Beltway's spectacular success keeps it, and them, every bit as isolated from the rest of the country as the Beltway at the other end of Highway 50. Neither...