Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Peter Pan Nation
Campus Report ^ | December 12, 2007 | Malcolm Kline

Posted on 12/11/2007 7:03:56 AM PST by bs9021

Peter Pan Nation

by: Malcolm A. Kline, December 11, 2007

If it seems that America’s establishment figures have been getting increasingly immature as the years go by, you are not imagining things. Gifted writer Diana West catalogues this trend to a fare-thee-well in her admirable book, The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.

“More than a syllabus is at stake; more than the ethnic makeup of college students is at issue; more than the feminization of the hard sciences is under consideration,” she writes. “Looking back, it becomes clear that there was a great luxury in fighting a culture war in the classroom or boardroom.”

“But if the settings were somehow artificial, the hits taken were very real, disabling faculties of judgment and discernment, and undermining confidence and authority.” The daughter of a distinct cultural minority—a conservative Hollywood screenwriter—West has fought those battles from a very tender age.

Currently, she is a columnist for The Washington Times. “In other words, it came as no shock to learn, for example, that in our public elementary school in Westchester County, New York, third-graders devote a hefty part of a semester to studying Kenya,” West remembers. “They don’t know who discovered the Hudson River, who is buried in Grant’s Tomb, or where the Battle of White Plains was fought, but they come home with plaudits for Kenya’s health care system—which, incredible as it may seem, I had never heard of.”

“This, I recognized, was par for the PC course, as were the stories that came home about cow’s-blood cuisine and earlobe enhancement, which the kids found relishingly disgusting.” West shows just how disabled our “faculties of judgment and discernment” have become.

We make F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Lost Generation look level-headed. Consider:

(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: adolescence; america; genx; maturity; westernculture
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-54 last
To: Sherman Logan

Yes, I suppose you’re right about that.

Maybe what I was really trying to say but not so well was the level of violence has been translated into an impersonal, technical, and assembly-line style of murder of an industrial scale. No clubs or spiked mace from a yard away, etc, but rockets and bombs and artillery, automatic weapons, chemical and biological agents, and of course nuclear fission.


41 posted on 12/11/2007 12:52:56 PM PST by Freedom4US
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

That’s acutally how liberals think. I never really wanted to believe it either, but it’s just how it is. REALLY.

Religion: militant Islam and Christianity are basically one and the same. So what if Islam is stuck in the 7th century, their reasoning is “Christians did horrible things too”.

So ALL religion is kooky. Some of the loons I work with at work have a bumper sticker that says ‘coexist’. Each letter is a sympbol of some significant religion. As if only NON-religious people are the ones even so much as able to coexist!

Militaty: ALL soldiers are blood thirsty. I got into a tiff with a liberal and he blabbered about my “need to kill” when I was in the Air Force because I supported the overthrow of Uncle So-dam-Insane. I pointed out that I was a medic for 10 years, a non-combatant. He got mad. I couldn’t explain that an army in one country isn’t like an army in another, but he just wouldn’t hear of it. GI’s did terrible things to the Japanese and Germans so in his mind nazis and our GI’s were no different whatsoever. When we fire-bombed Dresden we were guilty of genocide and war crimes, etc. When we bombed Japan with nukes, we proved beyond any shadow of a doubt we really WERE the great satan henceforth.

The fact that it saved far more lives, and ESPECIALLY that a democrat made the decision was and always will be irrelevant. And to this day he beleives vietnam was all Nixon’s fault to the point I actually think somewhere in his mind Nixon got us into Vietnam back in the early 60’s!

Police: Police aren’t a bit different than criminals. Much like world armies, they’re ALL violent. In most cases the police are worse.

When arguing about Iraq, I asked the same lib. what he would prefer if he were getting his brains beaten out by a pack of thugs:

1. Cops that came on the scene and radioed back for several minutes about what to do next gaining a concensus (like the UN did over 13 years with 18 resolutions)

2. Not even bother picking up the phone when he dialed 911...OR when they did answer blamed HIM! (like the pack of hypocrats he supports)

3. Cops that were there quick and rescued him from his beating before he was killed. (The sane response.)

He was so furious he could no longer even speak to me.

George Clooney with a straight face, criticized Condi Rice and W for doing nothing about Darfur, AFTER bashing the administration endlessly for doing EXACTLY what he was asking in Darfur for what W did in Iraq for the Kurds and various others in Iraq.

Naturally war for oil creeps back in, and when you bring up it’s $3 a gallon, that doesn’t matter, Cheney/Halliburton just inflate prices to stay rich.

You know Cheney has a ray-gun he used to create hurricane Katrina don’t you?

Once in a while he gets on a aub and patrols under the Gulf of Mexico with it. Once martial law is claimed and Bush cancels the 2008 elections, he’ll do it again!

That’s whenever he’s not waterboarding Hugo Chavez.


42 posted on 12/11/2007 12:54:03 PM PST by tpanther
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: tpanther
George Clooney with a straight face, criticized Condi Rice and W for doing nothing about Darfur, AFTER bashing the administration endlessly for doing EXACTLY what he was asking in Darfur for what W did in Iraq for the Kurds and various others in Iraq.

To be fair, most liberals criticize the Pres for not doing enough to stop the Darfur massacres, while carefully avoiding any definition of what they think he should do. Most of them would be against military intervention, but do not say why anything else would be likely to be effective.

Apparently they believe the Janjaweed live in constant terror of a presidential address or a UN resolution.

43 posted on 12/11/2007 1:01:02 PM PST by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

Yeah, I know...they want to have it both ways.

They think irrational violence can somehow be ultimately dealt with by:

“talking things through”

“Getting to know them”

“resolutions”

“Simply stop doing (insert here whatever’s on their mind at that particular moment...killing trees, starving children, killing whales, clubbing baby seals...)”

If WE would just stop being evil there wouldn’t BE any problems.

Ironically, we’re the only force of evil in the world to begin with. UNTIL you bring up they just acknowledged there even IS evil...then the get into a contortion and huff off....end of discussion. THEY can’t talk to YOU ‘cause YOU twist THEIR words...

and so on...

Ann Coulter needs a new book...You simply can’t talk to a liberal EVEN when you must.

You’d have better success with a pickle.


44 posted on 12/11/2007 1:19:44 PM PST by tpanther
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Cogadh na Sith

Ame to everything you said, especially your last point...is the point *I* keep trying to drive home. Its like the younger generations are all agog over the hippie/70s fashion/calling cards....and I keep having to tell them “I REMEMBER what it was like...even NOW they cant pretty it up...it was ugly then and its ugly now...fashions, attitudes, culture ALL.” But what do I know...I was a latch-key kid...a baby buster. Adopted to boot. No one listened to us then, few listen now.


45 posted on 12/11/2007 1:30:39 PM PST by Alkhin (star dust contemplating star dust)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Alkhin
But what do I know...I was a latch-key kid...a baby buster. Adopted to boot. No one listened to us then, few listen now.

The whole country is about Led Zeppelin on one end and Hanna Montana on the other end.

Any 'grown up' culture is a molecule thin layer squashed between those to leviathans....

I'd like to go out for a three martini lunch with a cigar, but the boomers have taken that away too: The 60' Generation in beclowning themselves have infantilized my culture.

I'm 40 and I'm the 'kid' in the office....

46 posted on 12/11/2007 1:50:45 PM PST by Cogadh na Sith (Peace Through Light)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Tax-chick
Hey, TC. Thanks for the ping! The Anarthrous Professional Signifier Ping List has kept me so busy lately that I missed this one.

I do see that lexicography experts Merriam-Webster held a vote for their 2007 Word of the Year:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071211-the-wisdom-of-crowds-w00t-voted-word-of-the-year.html
47 posted on 12/12/2007 6:39:54 AM PST by clyde asbury (Please continue your petty bickering. I find it amusing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: clyde asbury; Mrs. Don-o

I know how it is, Clyde. There’s so much anarthricity going on that it’s hard to keep up. I thought this example showed a particularly poor choice of adjective: How does he know she’s a “gifted writer”? She might just be a hard-working writer with a good editor!

“w00t”? What kind of cruddy word is that? It totally lacks the class of my suggestion, “Rr0aaGaaK.” (Raucous round of applause, a Guinness, and a kitten.)

Gotta go, Bill’s practicing for his cooking show by doing unfortunate stunts with the kitchen knives.


48 posted on 12/12/2007 7:55:56 AM PST by Tax-chick (Every committee wants to take over the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Tax-chick; clyde asbury

“Rr0aaGaaK.”

Snarfle. Now it’s mine.


49 posted on 12/12/2007 8:40:47 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o (Vernie was underdressed for this foul weather; her black, rain-soaked tank top clinging to her torso)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Mrs. Don-o

Use is wisely.

I’ve found that some people don’t want the kitten. What’s up with that?


50 posted on 12/12/2007 8:49:45 AM PST by Tax-chick (Every committee wants to take over the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: qam1

As I have incurred reverse age discrimination for my entire career (I am still considered a “kid” although in my 40s and with decades of hard work and experience) I am the anti Peter Pan. Writ large.


51 posted on 12/24/2007 11:50:05 AM PST by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
In practice the Left is highly judgmental.

Agree. I've worked with liberals most of my life and have consistently observed their propensity for being judgmental. My theory is that this behavior serves to reinforce their elitist belief that they are intellectually and morally superior. Aren't liberals always trying to tell everyone else how to live? A second observation is that liberals resent "ordinary people" in society who have achieved more than they have, especially in a material sense. They are condescending and derisive toward those who prosper under our economic system. Most of the liberals I know secretly obsesse over money and possessions. Of course, the country that allows "common folk" to live better than liberal elitists is hated.

You are also correct that liberals don't really give a rats behind about most social social causes. They just want to espouse their pious opinions to bolster their own distorted sense of superiority.

52 posted on 12/24/2007 12:35:03 PM PST by Starboard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

There was/is a plan. You’ve probably seen it before. It’s outlined here.......

http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm


53 posted on 12/24/2007 1:39:40 PM PST by abigailsmybaby (I was born with nothing. So far I have most of it left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Starboard

Thanks for agreeing.

I think most Leftists conciously believe their antagonism towards their own society is a logical reaction, given its great evil. At root, subconciously, I think their antagonism is visceral and emotional. As such, it cannot be reasoned away. At most, all you (or events) can do is convince them that socialism (or whatever other rationale they’re using at the moment) won’t work. If so, they’ll just drop that rationale for hating America and pick up another.

It’s like trying to convince a divorcing spouse that the other really isn’t such a horrible person, after all. Since the hatred isn’t based on reason, trying to convince the person not to hate is a waste of time.

10 or 20 years ago, global warming may be indisputably shown to not be an issue. Won’t phase them a bit, any more than the indisputable failure of Communism did.


54 posted on 12/24/2007 10:51:17 PM PST by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-54 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson