Posted on 09/29/2007 7:20:26 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine's brother
Diana West, syndicated colunist for The Washington Times, has written a booke entitled, The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization. Hot Air has posted a two part interview of the author by Michelle Malkin. I believe that the interview is worthy of your attention and time and gives us all something to ponder.
Michell Malkin Part 1 Interview of Diana West about Death of of the Grown-Up
The Death of the Grown-Up, Part 2,
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
America is full of Peter Pan wanabe’s...
In the olden days, people older than 14 or 14 were adults and got married.
Isaac Newton invented calculus at age 20.
Spaming the DC Chapter ping list for self gratification purposes. However, I do know that Albion Wilde might be interested.
read later
No!
Must read now.
ping
However, a society enslaved to perpetual childhood isn't one that solves many problems. In fact, it is one that requires some form of paternalism to survive, be it technological, governmental, or simple isolation; children don't fare well when exposed to the real world's demands. And there's always a price to be paid for eternal adolescence. Think Eloi from Wells' Time Machine.
She’s right of course; or should I say, “She’s Right.”
The ‘60s marked the onset of the first organized all-out assault on maturity, responsibility, and authority in the history of mankind.
The aptly-named “children of the ‘60s,” balding and greying though they are, have maintained their irrational fear of anyone telling them “No!” and manifest this as a refusal to make a value judgment of any sort.
Such as saying that democracy is preferable to dictatorship, or that Christian values are preferable to the murderous degenerate creed of the muslims.
But all too often we’ve allowed these cases of arrested-development to rise to positions of authority in our schools and in our governments, where they can poison the minds of our children, and subvert our institutions.
That’s a good point. The longer the government can keep our kids in public schools, the longer they have to indoctrinate them. Nowadays - every single child is being pushed to go to college. What’s going to happen in a few years when EVERYBODY has a college degree? I would guess you’d have to have a degree to work at McDonalds then.
I don’t like thinking about the future trends we’re looking at now. A permanent third-world class of people that provide labor and manufacture for us. The rest of us working our whole lives away in the pursuit of consumerism - how big of a house? How many cars? The latest electronics? The latest fad fashions? This kind of lifestyle does nothing to build character in people. We will be like Play-doh in the wrong hands.
This is not good.
Everybody doesn’t have to go to college, but the gloves are pretty much off. The fantasy land America experienced following WWII is done and gone. To compete now, you have to compete with the entire world.
The baby-boomers are today’s grandparents. So now we have 3 generations of “MEMEME” and everyone wants to be the cool generation. It is pitiful to watch. Picture the grandfather, braided grey hair down to his waist, wearing Grateful Dead t-shirts and listening to Pink Floyd, probably still one toke over the line. Just how does a kid of 12 go to his grandfather for wisdom and advice? No, there are no more grown-ups. Anyone old enough to have heard “tune in, turn on, and drop out” probably did. And they are in charge of the memories to pass on to future generations? Hell, they were too stoned to remember anything of value.
I’ve noticed that around here where I live, jobs that used to be open for people that didn’t have degrees, like electricians, etc. - now they are offering 2 years degrees at the community college in. Employers are now giving those with the degrees preference.
I guess that’s fine, but I can’t help but wonder about the bigger picture. The more programs like this that the college offers - the more grants and money they get in return. I happen to be taking classes right now at the college & I get these student emails everyday with notices about special speakers that are giving talks at the college. I’ve noticed that 100% of them are liberal speakers.
While the school is making more money getting more students, they are also indoctrinating them into the liberal mind. Liberals like to talk that they’re all about ideas and philosophy - but you can always see a money trail behind their “idealistic” speech.
Some of the problems are:
1. Children are too often denied opportunities for real responsibilities - work - even to a very late “teenage”. In that respect they are treated like infants, babies long after being productive could have already been instilled in them.
2. But when it comes to sexual morality, children are sexualized throughout the advertising, TV, print and film media at younger and younger ages - sexualized toward situations they have neither the mental or emotional maturity to handle. In that respect they are treated like “adults”; when they in fact are not.
So, what is a sexualized adult with no sense of personal responsibility - a narcissist.
Probably within the next decade, the job of electrician will become very complicated, i.e. involving more computer-based circuitry and other new components. The days of just “pulling wire” are coming to an end. So, a degree is a good idea.
My observations lead me to believe that the skill sets required for what are or were semi-skilled jobs are now increasing in complexity. Those jobs that are inherently low-skilled are being done for minimum wage via franchises, such as fast food chains, places like Jiffy Lube and carpet cleaner operations.
The open secret is that colleges have always been “liberal hot beds.”
“Everybody doesn’t have to go to college, but the gloves are pretty much off.”
Most of the most successful people in America today never went to college. Its highly over rated except for the still hard-sciences like medicine and engineering. The vast majority of college courses provide little skills-education and a ton of political indoctrination.
“The fantasy land America experienced following WWII is done and gone.”
And, by “fantasy land”, you are referring to what, exactly, or do you always communicate in cliches?
“Just how does a kid of 12 go to his grandfather for wisdom and advice?”
It’s men in general. Grandfather was likely a man in every sense of the word. That kind of man is denigrated in every fashion today. The common theme in all media today is, “man = dumb barbarian, woman = smart multi-tasker”. Media presented Family Hierarchy: Mom - Kids - Dad, when a Dad is even present.
Grandpa is now a comedic figure to be laughed at in this country. He’s the old non-PC codger that’s stuck in the corner while the fancy dinner party is going on. He’s exactly what it takes to hold this crazy place together, though.
No wisdom can be accumulated and passed down if “ME” is the center of the universe. Nothing can be learned if one thinks he was born with all he needed to know in the form of “feelings”.
We need grandpa back, in a bad way.
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