Great piece on today's youth.

[Highmark]

This is Bruce Thornton, Shillman Journalism Fellow, David Horowitz Freedom Center. This is from FrontPageMag.com. “Teenagers Make Great Progressive Shock Troops.”  Even just read the bold.  

“Once upon a time, experience in a hard, indifferent world, the virtues like self-reliance and impulse-control nourished by faith and tradition, and an education based on mental skills and the lessons of history taught the young that their feelings and ‘self-esteem’ don’t amount to a hill of beans in this flawed world.”

Once upon a time experience mattered, virtue, self-reliance, impulse control nourished by faith and tradition and an education system that taught people how to think, taught the lessons of history, taught young people that feelings were no substitute for knowledge and experience.

“Once upon a time people learned that good deeds are more important than fine words, that acting on their impulses and seeking instant gratification carry a high price, and that duty and obligation and responsibility to others in the end are the foundations of our political and social order.

“Starting in the postwar fifties, increasing wealth, more time spent in school rather than factories and fields, consumer capitalism’s promotion of impulse-buying, and a culture of materialism that defines the self through fashion, consumption, and popular culture rather than through education, challenges, and character — all exacerbated the flaws of youth that the larger culture once tried to correct, but now indulged.”

So he’s saying that the descent into current pop culture can be traced back to the economic boom of the postwar fifties. He’s not blaming economic booms. He’s not blaming a good economy. What he says is that with the increased wealth per capita, family income, more time spent in school rather than in factories and fields, so more professional training rather than vocational, consumer advertising promoting impulse buying and a culture of materialism as a definition of yourself. And of course yourself is defined by fashion, consumption, pop culture. That’s when it all began.

Movies, music, and soon the therapeutic curricula of schools reinforced and glorified these flaws rather than disciplining and correcting them. The ‘human sciences’ replaced the doctrines of faith and wisdom of tradition in explaining human nature and its proper aims. The last three generations have been marinated in these social and cultural dysfunctions –” So he’s talking about anywhere from 60 to 75 years. So the last 60 to 75 years people have marinated, kids have “marinated in these social and cultural dysfunctions that have resulted in a sense of entitlement and outlandish expectations. Adolescence has been extended far beyond the traditional beginning of adulthood.”

That means parents are perfectly fine with their kids not growing up. Parents are perfectly fine with their kids remaining kids. I have a story in the Stack today, 75% of Millennials, mom and dad are still paying most of the bills, even after they’ve left the house. Because their parents say, “It’s so hard out there.” Good Lord. But, anyway, Mr. Thornton here is exactly right. Adolescence has been extended far beyond the traditional beginning of adulthood. What would you say that is, 21? Graduating from college, you’re an adult, you strike out on your own.

Anyway, it’s a great point here that parents have willingly accepted that their adult kids are still their kids, they’re still adolescents. This has been “increasingly shaped by a leftist political ideology that rationalizes and exculpates bad character and destructive choices as the fault of a corrupt political, economic, and social system. But the old-left call for the violent overthrow of such an evil establishment is now merely a rhetorical flourish. Symbolic politics like marches and demonstrations that occasionally stray into vandalism and petty thuggery are preferred, for they are relatively risk-free, and draw the attention of sympathetic media and like-minded adults who praise the youngsters’ ‘passion’ and ‘commitment’ to ‘change’ and a ‘better world.'”

Take David [‘Camera’] Hogg, who was present during the attack last month on the high school in Parkland. The 17-year-old appears with four other Stoneman Douglas students on the cover of Time [magazine], and has become a darling of the anti-gun crowd for his profanity-laced tantrums that demonstrate perfectly the portrait sketched above…” Adolescents not being reined in. Profane language and behavior being applauded.

Isn’t he cute? Don’t we want to reward his passion and commitment? You know, I ask people who have kids, “Would you let your kid be doin’ this?  Would you let your kid go on national TV at a march and make YouTube videos, and every other word be the F-bomb?”  “No way!  No way!”  See, every parent that I ask… Where are this kid’s parents?  I don’t know.  I don’t know anything about him.  I don’t know if they’re applauding.  I don’t know if they’re troubled by it.

He’s out there calling the people that he’s upset with “‘The pathetic f—ers that want to keep killing our children, they could have blood from children splattered all over their faces and they wouldn’t take action because they all still see those dollar signs,’ [Hogg] said of the NRA and” people like Marco Rubio. “Notice how this…” I’m reading now Mr. Thornton. “Notice how this callow youth simply regurgitates the stale clichés of the gun-control fundamentalists. [This kid] obviously has no clue that the NRA has political clout not because of the pittance it gives politicians compared to, say, public-employee unions…”

No! “[T]he NRA has political clout … because millions” and millions and millions of Americans support it to defend a constitutional right they cherish.  “Nor does [this kid]  realize that a young person dying in a mass school shooting by a psychopath with a rifle is a rare occurrence, compared to dying in a car accident, or being beaten to death, or being killed by a motorist while walking or biking to school. He has no clue that the demonized, perfectly legal AR-15 was already banned from 1994-2004, without lowering gun-deaths…

“Like his equally addled elders, he can’t fathom that more regulations of guns do nothing to keep them out of the hands of” bad guys.  In other words, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about — and it was that long ago where people that didn’t know what they were talking about were not given pedestals, and were not proclaimed experts, and the rest of the country was not required to agree and shut up.  The rest of the country was not required to applaud and say, “Isn’t that cute!”

And the rest of the country was not prohibited from calling out that whoever didn’t know what they were talking about.  But all of that’s changed.  We can’t criticize it! We have to respect it. We have to applaud it for reasons that have nothing to do with fact, reasons that have nothing to do with truth.  “This same juvenile thinking characterizes another high-school teen, this one interviewed by The Wall Street Journal:

“‘I make it a point to tell my mother I love her every day, because I want that to be the last thing I say to her in case anything happens to me at school,’ [the student] said, adding that gun violence ‘is something I don’t want to have to think about on a daily basis.’ While the young [student] is obsessing over the rare deaths from school shootings, 11 teens die every day from texting while driving. But we see no mass-movement to hold cell-phone manufacturers, and their billions spent in lobbying po[itician]s, responsible for the carnage their products cause.”

And likewise my old standby: We don’t see anybody protesting the automobile companies because the number of people killed every year by the wheel dwarfs the number of students shot in school.  “Throw in drug overdoses and drunk-drivers, and kids and their parents have much more likely risks to worry about when a child leaves for school.” He’s the thing: “But we can’t blame the young. The progressive transformation of our culture has been directed at creating just such students, whose natural inclinations to self-drama and emotion rather than thinking make them perfect constituents for an ideology that flourishes among those who obsess over their feelings, and who demand the elimination of the sad constants of risk and suffering.

“The tragic wisdom that flawed humans are free to choose wickedness, and that the utopia of a world without risk or suffering is impossible, contradicts the pipe dreams of the left,” and all they are teaching. “So those who believe traditional wisdom must be trained from an early age to [give up] their freedom and autonomy to the technocratic elite that needs them to remain children.”  So his point is that those kids are who they are because somebody has a design that it stay that way, that they become useful, that they become trained not to think but rather as sponges.

And they grow up to be exactly who they are as 17-year-olds, and they never change.

And they end up being incapable of self-reliance, incapable of thinking for themselves, incapable of being moved by facts.

 

[NaturallyAspirated]

Lots of conjecture and assuming in that article.

Neal

[Kivalo]

A lot of good points in it as well.

[Anler]

3 hours ago, NaturallyAspirated said:

Lots of conjecture and assuming in that article.

Neal

Definitely. Kids today are a product of growing up with technology that didnt exist in their parents or grandparents day, of course that culture is going to be different. And that doesnt have to be a bad thing. I am noticing that the older people I once looked up to are mostly all idiots now in their twilight years. Stuck in the old way of doing things and practically incapable of learning new things. My son at age 14 is light years ahead of my wife and i in using technology and making it work for him far more efficiently than we can do. And my wife was an executive for a technology company for 20 years.  

[Highmark]

3 minutes ago, Nazipigdog said:

Definitely. Kids today are a product of growing up with technology that didnt exist in their parents or grandparents day, of course that culture is going to be different. And that doesnt have to be a bad thing. I am noticing that the older people I once looked up to are mostly all idiots now in their twilight years. Stuck in the old way of doing things and practically incapable of learning new things. My son at age 14 is light years ahead of my wife and i in using technology and making it work for him far more efficiently than we can do. And my wife was an executive for a technology company for 20 years.  

   Technology had little to do with the article.  In fact its not mentioned.    

Edited March 29, 2018 by Highmark

[snoughnut]

5 minutes ago, Nazipigdog said:

Definitely. Kids today are a product of growing up with technology that didnt exist in their parents or grandparents day, of course that culture is going to be different. And that doesnt have to be a bad thing. I am noticing that the older people I once looked up to are mostly all idiots now in their twilight years. Stuck in the old way of doing things and practically incapable of learning new things. My son at age 14 is light years ahead of my wife and i in using technology and making it work for him far more efficiently than we can do. And my wife was an executive for a technology company for 20 years.  

Your son more than likely thinks you're one of those useless older people.

[Anler]

Just now, snoughnut said:

Your son more than likely thinks you're one of those useless older people.

Didnt we all when we were teenagers?  

[Anler]

4 minutes ago, Highmark said:

   Technology had little to do with the article.  In fact its not mentioned.    

Well it looks like the article has an agenda about stupid kids and their newest cause and obviously something is wrong. Im sure similar arguments were made about kids protesting the Vietnam war. Times have changed and people have changed with them and technology and the information that is being made available thru that technology has changed us as a culture. Your "great piece on todays youth" is a neocon beat off piece. In fact that would be a better title for the OP.  

 

[MiSledder]

We all had the answers to life in our late teens and 20s, I think back on what my dad has told me and everything seems to be true

Since when are you an idiot because you don't follow tech. Dumb

[Mileage Psycho]

7 minutes ago, MiSledder said:

We all had the answers to life in our late teens and 20s, I think back on what my dad has told me and everything seems to be true

Since when are you an idiot because you don't follow tech. Dumb

Look in the mirror  

I make it a point to keep up with tech, it's a competitive world out there and you better keep up with tech or get ran over. 

[SnowRider]

Each generation is smarter, better, more accomplished, and an improvement over the current and last.  Only insecure mindless dummies suggest otherwise. 

[Anler]

6 minutes ago, Mileage Psycho said:

Look in the mirror  

I make it a point to keep up with tech, it's a competitive world out there and you better keep up with tech or get ran over. 

No shit, eh? if you want your business to stay productive and relevant you need to invest and stay current with newer technologies and methods of production. 

These "back in my day" assholes are the people that need to die off already.

 

 

[Highmark]

Yes because CC debt or debt in general isn't an issue.   We constantly are hearing about kids unable to make it on their own and live with mommy and daddy.  Hardly one person on here would disagree that parents are a huge issue in this country.   The article is more a criticism on them than the kids themselves yet no surprise people think its solely to slam kids.

  That means parents are perfectly fine with their kids not growing up. Parents are perfectly fine with their kids remaining kids. I have a story in the Stack today, 75% of Millennials, mom and dad are still paying most of the bills, even after they’ve left the house. Because their parents say, “It’s so hard out there.” Good Lord. But, anyway, Mr. Thornton here is exactly right. Adolescence has been extended far beyond the traditional beginning of adulthood. What would you say that is, 21? Graduating from college, you’re an adult, you strike out on your own. 

[SnowRider]

25 minutes ago, MiSledder said:

We all had the answers to life in our late teens and 20s, I think back on what my dad has told me and everything seems to be true

Since when are you an idiot because you don't follow tech. Dumb

Looks like you made it bigtime on the meme circuit  

[oleroule]

18 minutes ago, SnowRider said:

Each generation is smarter, better, more accomplished, and an improvement over the current and last.

what's your excuse?

[steve from amherst]

19 minutes ago, SnowRider said:

Each generation is smarter, better, more accomplished, and an improvement over the current and last.  Only insecure mindless dummies suggest otherwise. 

Then why is the current one going to be the first one to earn less money then their parents?

[Snake]

4 minutes ago, steve from amherst said:

Then why is the current one going to be the first one to earn less money then their parents?

Because Grammy and Grampy will pay for the grand kids.

[MiSledder]

vince is so smart , no idea what I meant

[spin_dry]

Today’s young people will do just fine despite all the chronic bitching from whiny fucks. 

[spin_dry]

5 hours ago, NaturallyAspirated said:

Lots of conjecture and assuming in that article.

Neal

It’s an over generalized piece that makes some people feel good by legitimizing beliefs supported in chat places like this. 

[xtralettucetomatoe580]

1 hour ago, SnowRider said:

Each generation is smarter, better, more accomplished, and an improvement over the current and last.  Only insecure mindless dummies suggest otherwise. 

Yep. When you take away some conjured up metric of “resilience” or “entitlement” that this author passes as fact and look at real stats like educational ability and performance, it shits all over this whiny drivel. Fact is, kids handle more data, knowledge, and are more capable than ever before. The problem is they are still kids who act like kids always have. To expect full use of that data and knowledge at 15, 18, 22 is fucking moronic. This article is deemed a fail. 

4 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

It’s an over generalized piece that makes some people feel good by legitimizing beliefs supported in chat places like this. 

Yep. The same way every generation before has written the same article with a different spin. 

[Anler]

59 minutes ago, steve from amherst said:

Then why is the current one going to be the first one to earn less money then their parents?

I am looking for a college grad to hire and train as an estimator. I was thinking I can get one on the cheap being as they are right out of school. So I called one of my buds with a fairly large GC that we work for (who hires a shitload of college grads) and asked him how much they are paying these kids. He said $50-$60k a year starting. I dont know how much you made in your first job out of school but I wasnt making that much. And that was more than I was expecting but I am probably still going to do it because I need young healthy people in here to replace all of the old fat unhealthy people that are costing me a fortune in health insurance premiums!!11

[Anler]

17 minutes ago, xtralettucetomatoe580 said:

Yep. When you take away some conjured up metric of “resilience” or “entitlement” that this author passes as fact and look at real stats like educational ability and performance, it shits all over this whiny drivel. Fact is, kids handle more data, knowledge, and are more capable than ever before. The problem is they are still kids who act like kids always have. To expect full use of that data and knowledge at 15, 18, 22 is fucking moronic. This article is deemed a fail. 

Yep. The same way every generation before has written the same article with a different spin. 

Thanks millennial hipster!

[xtralettucetomatoe580]

1 minute ago, Nazipigdog said:

Thanks millennial hipster!

Just here making sure everyone knows, that as a millennial, I know everything. 

[steve from amherst]

4 minutes ago, Nazipigdog said:

I am looking for a college grad to hire and train as an estimator. I was thinking I can get one on the cheap being as they are right out of school. So I called one of my buds with a fairly large GC that we work for (who hires a shitload of college grads) and asked him how much they are paying these kids. He said $50-$60k a year starting. I dont know how much you made in your first job out of school but I wasnt making that much. And that was more than I was expecting but I am probably still going to do it because I need young healthy people in here to replace all of the old fat unhealthy people that are costing me a fortune in health insurance premiums!!11

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/13/millennials-falling-behind-boomer-parents/96530338/