I'm going to permit myself one more comment, then adult responsibilities.
Allan Bloom described and to a very great extent anticipated all this in his Closing of the American Mind. That book is as useful today as it should have been then. He described infantilism, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and all of that, in effect. And it remain…
I'm going to permit myself one more comment, then adult responsibilities.
Allan Bloom described and to a very great extent anticipated all this in his Closing of the American Mind. That book is as useful today as it should have been then. He described infantilism, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and all of that, in effect. And it remains the best treatments of Rousseau and Nietzche that I have read. And all the contemporary condemnations notwithstanding, he was a gay, Jewish, atheist Democrat. He simply loved the life of the mind, and the idiocy even then was ruining all his fun.
In my opinion one solution to all this is to do a better job selling maturity, selling the value of the feelings you get AFTER long hard patient work on a difficult task. This is what Mihaly Csikscentmihalyi (that's close) talked about with Flow. Flow is the happiness of mature people.
And Bloom himself complained then (late 80's) about the cult of the Rock Star. All our emotions, we are told, need to be powerful, easy, and as continual as possible. All successful rock stars are rich. Why are they all on drugs? Because they can't stand not being high all the time. The model, as described by Gene Simmons (who grew up poor and hungry in Israel, and who was likely selling a lifestyle he had enough sense not to embrace fully), is rock and roll all night and party every day.
But Elvis died of constipation on his toilet. You can't be a bigger rock star than Elvis, or die in many worse ways. Jimi Hendrix--top guitarist of all time in most polls--died for all intents and purposes of a sleeping pill overdose he combined with strong liquor, while he was on all accounts in a depression. John Bonham--top rock drummer of all time--drank himself to death.
To state the obvious, these are not really role models for any of us. Far better to master calligraphy, or be a really good Little League coach, or any of thousands of alternatives.
Maturity is happier than immaturity. Differentiation is freedom. Childishness is bondage. These are words people need to hear.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Part of the problem is that the Hippies demanded freedom from responsibility: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." It didn't help that their Greatest Gen parents tried to give them "the childhood they'd never had." In short, childhood was elevated to the ideal state.
But they wanted rights along with their childhood. Rights that historically were given only to adults, in a rights=responsibilities equation that made growing up worth doing.
When you get all those rights without bothering to grow up first, why grow up at all? And why not give younger and younger children the same rights?
This is the societal disaster that has been created.
I like this. As I grow older and hopefully more mature, I find more value in liberty over freedom. Liberty is freedom and responsibility (as someone else define in an earlier comment). If we sell only freedom, I think we will get chaos.
The problem isn’t really all that hard to understand. Until people experience want, they assume that everything is, was, and always will be there. Things like money, food, shelter, cell phones, and video games. Work is optional if someone just gives you everything you want. So, why be productive if food just…happens? Why drive if you can just call Uber? Why study if all it gets you is a grade you don’t need since you’ll never have to work?
Millennials aren’t the first with this attitude. The wealthy have always been diffident about achievement. “A gentleman never knows [or bothers himself to know] the state of his finances.”
Bottom line: as long as people are indulged and never have to be responsible, why bother being “serious”? Probably looks like a boring waste of time to them.
My mother always called this “being hungry.” I’m a college educated GenXer. A lot of my friends who are considered the most “successful” career wise are the ones who had to work harder -- no family money, no genius IQ -- just people who were hungry to do better or prove people wrong.
I'm going to permit myself one more comment, then adult responsibilities.
Allan Bloom described and to a very great extent anticipated all this in his Closing of the American Mind. That book is as useful today as it should have been then. He described infantilism, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and all of that, in effect. And it remains the best treatments of Rousseau and Nietzche that I have read. And all the contemporary condemnations notwithstanding, he was a gay, Jewish, atheist Democrat. He simply loved the life of the mind, and the idiocy even then was ruining all his fun.
In my opinion one solution to all this is to do a better job selling maturity, selling the value of the feelings you get AFTER long hard patient work on a difficult task. This is what Mihaly Csikscentmihalyi (that's close) talked about with Flow. Flow is the happiness of mature people.
And Bloom himself complained then (late 80's) about the cult of the Rock Star. All our emotions, we are told, need to be powerful, easy, and as continual as possible. All successful rock stars are rich. Why are they all on drugs? Because they can't stand not being high all the time. The model, as described by Gene Simmons (who grew up poor and hungry in Israel, and who was likely selling a lifestyle he had enough sense not to embrace fully), is rock and roll all night and party every day.
But Elvis died of constipation on his toilet. You can't be a bigger rock star than Elvis, or die in many worse ways. Jimi Hendrix--top guitarist of all time in most polls--died for all intents and purposes of a sleeping pill overdose he combined with strong liquor, while he was on all accounts in a depression. John Bonham--top rock drummer of all time--drank himself to death.
To state the obvious, these are not really role models for any of us. Far better to master calligraphy, or be a really good Little League coach, or any of thousands of alternatives.
Maturity is happier than immaturity. Differentiation is freedom. Childishness is bondage. These are words people need to hear.
(duplicate)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Some much wisdom in this comment. Thank you for taking the time to write it
Part of the problem is that the Hippies demanded freedom from responsibility: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." It didn't help that their Greatest Gen parents tried to give them "the childhood they'd never had." In short, childhood was elevated to the ideal state.
But they wanted rights along with their childhood. Rights that historically were given only to adults, in a rights=responsibilities equation that made growing up worth doing.
When you get all those rights without bothering to grow up first, why grow up at all? And why not give younger and younger children the same rights?
This is the societal disaster that has been created.
I like this. As I grow older and hopefully more mature, I find more value in liberty over freedom. Liberty is freedom and responsibility (as someone else define in an earlier comment). If we sell only freedom, I think we will get chaos.
See Howard Rheingold on "DISINFORMOCRACY".
Advertising took over politics, in the age of (postmodern) suburban consumerism.
Rights come with responsibilities. They forgot that part.
The problem isn’t really all that hard to understand. Until people experience want, they assume that everything is, was, and always will be there. Things like money, food, shelter, cell phones, and video games. Work is optional if someone just gives you everything you want. So, why be productive if food just…happens? Why drive if you can just call Uber? Why study if all it gets you is a grade you don’t need since you’ll never have to work?
Millennials aren’t the first with this attitude. The wealthy have always been diffident about achievement. “A gentleman never knows [or bothers himself to know] the state of his finances.”
Bottom line: as long as people are indulged and never have to be responsible, why bother being “serious”? Probably looks like a boring waste of time to them.
My mother always called this “being hungry.” I’m a college educated GenXer. A lot of my friends who are considered the most “successful” career wise are the ones who had to work harder -- no family money, no genius IQ -- just people who were hungry to do better or prove people wrong.