Posted on 01/15/2009 6:47:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
With his soft voice and unassuming manner, Mark Bauerlein seems an unlikely prospect for penning an ostentatious book like The Dumbest Generation. The title immediately brings to mind the Greatest Generation, the idol of 20th century American history that weathered the Great Depression, beat the Nazis at Normandy, and brought us swing music. But the generation that Bauerlein writes of is very different. Ignorant of politics and government, art and music, prose and poetry, the Dumbest Generation is content to turn up its iPods and tune out the realities of the adult world. It is brash, pampered, young, and dumb -- and content to stay that way.
Or so argues Bauerlein, an Emory University English professor and baby boomer. It would be an easy accusation for my generation (I'm 23) to ignore. After all, the fogies have always railed against the ignorance and excesses of youth. What's the point of reading a book or going to a museum in the age of Wikipedia? Why bother knowing who the Speaker of the House is or voting for president when the only vote that matters is the hit count on my latest YouTube video? Being able to locate Mexico on a world map or name the Axis powers during World War II won't help me score a date on Friday night or get tapped for the high school football team.
But something is different this time. In past generations, the young had fewer opportunities to fritter away their lives. Two-parent households and a generally religious culture made sure of it. Today, half of teens grow up in single-parent households and secularism dominates society. Undergirding that is the digital culture, the 24/7 rush of information and entertainment that young adults thrive on. Bauerlein says it's a rush that's killing their intellectual development.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Thank you. Heavens we should ever call something what it actually is en masse. It’s common sense, meanwhile, that not EVERY person ...what you said.
I am a boomer and am ashamed to admit you are right. The majority of us are lazy and don't want to live with the consequences of our decisions. It started in the late 60's when LBJ changed the rules for draft deferment and it's been going downhill since.
I don’t know if I would say the MAJORITY - but definitely a significant minority. And loud. They wielded far too much influence to the bad. To communism.
I wonder what the voting pattern is. I would guess a majority have been voting for the Rats for a long time.
I know it's anecdotal, but the majority of my contemporaries are sissified politically correct followers who don't see John Wayne as a heroic figure. They think everything is "nuanced". Then again most of them are divorced and dissatisfied with the outcomes of their lives.
I thank God everyday that he made me an "outlier" who sacrificed when I was young and blessed me with fruits of this labor as I became older. It's a lesson lost on a sizeable portion of the boomers.
If you look back at any generation, you'll find plenty of dumbasses spending their time engaged in trivial pursuits. Why is texting and talking to people online less intelligent an activity than hanging out at the soda shop (like kid used to do in the 50's) or drinking yourself blind in speakeasies (like young people used to do during Prohibition).
A large percentage of every generation in human history has almost zero interest in engaging in "intellectual" pursuits and would rather spend their free time on leisure activities. It's just that those leisure activites change over time, and older people look at their youthful activities through rose-colored glasses.
You are exactly right.
The hippie and drug culture “let’s-burn-down-the-administration-building!” junior-anarchist revolutionary-wannabees faction of the boomers are the very ones who’ve taken over and ruined the entire US education system over the last 40 years.
Though...I'd argue the generation that brought us hippies, the liberal media, the 60s, Kerry/Obama/Pelosi, and just about everything else wrong with the world today is the "Dumbest Generation."
(I can paint with broad strokes, too)
Unfortunately, the ditch diggers get to vote.
But when it comes to voting, the so-called "greatest generation" isn't doing much better.
You know what? Eff off. Those myspacing, iPod-listening under-30 types are the ones who volunteered to defend your pathetic asses - they weren’t drafted, unlike the so-called “Greatest Generation.”
Hell yes, they gave me a high school degree and everything. Pretty damn scary isn’t it?
Trust me it is a hell of lot harder to learn proper grammar and spelling later on in life. I went to a football factory, didn’t matter if Johnny could read but it was very important that the football team won.
So now if I plan on taking the GMAT or some other test for graduate school I will have to do four times the prep than if my public school teachers had been tougher on me.
What’s scary is that I know my education was better than what is happening in public schools today.
We don’t call the the “dumbest”, just the “worst”. ;-)
Yes, but a) not everyone in that generation ran off to sign up and b) not everyone in the military is actually a great person, either overall or in details like “I’m still voting Dem”.
Truth is every generation has had people willingly sign up to go to the military and war in hard times. Gen X did it as well as Gen Y, and Boomers. Silent as well as so-called “Greatest” (really, just “GI” gen) - they did so willingly in the draft (never mind all the women who signed up; no draft), not burning cards like Hippies.
So, really, you can’t judge a generation by military service, per se.
tell me about it. These Obamanauts (space cases) couldn’t give any real clear reasons to support the ONE
lol
,
Frank,Moran,Jaxson-Lee,Waters,Waxman....Ah ! Forget it, it'll take an hour..LOL
Any soldier who chooses to vote for Obama has earned the right to do so, without being second-guessed by anyone.
So, really, you can’t judge a generation by military service, per se.
No, but you cannot condemn an entire generation either. Which is the thrust of this article.
I tend to think of smart people as moral. Intelligence tends to lead people down a moral path.
I did, and that is where we are headed. Obama really fits in that movie as a “leader”.
I love the movie, and recommend it to anyone that does not understand what is happening.
Who said they didn’t have the right? I said being a soldier doesn’t automatically make you of higher moral authority or greater intelligence, etc.
As for the “condemning” (never mind praising, which no-one seems to worry about, oddly) a generation, see other comments here. Things DO tend to reach critical mass so that it’s valid.
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