Posted on 06/26/2010 6:33:30 AM PDT by reaganaut1
I think this generation of young people is going to face some serious challenges and will be substantially changed by the experience. Just as the depression and WWII molded people, I believe young people today will be molded by the inevitable changes coming to our society. Our current unsustainable economic path will lead to changes and dislocations, and they will be greatly affected as they go into their earning and family building years. I pray that we will be re-building a strong and prosperous America rather than enduring a spiraling decline under communism. Whichever way it goes in the next couple of years, things will change.
Our boys are in high school, and our niece and nephew are in their 20's. My experiences with young people in recent years have been largely positive. Yes, they are being misled by liberal teachers and society, and they have some ideas that I think are just plain wrong. However, young people tend to rebel against indoctrination by their elders. I wouldn't rule out rejection of some of this idiocy. I see it among many of them already, but of course the media won't report it, and young people are careful not to offend those who control their future. Many students quite consciously "go along to get along" regarding climate change curricula, feminism, and ethnic interpretations of history while they're in school. It doesn't mean they believe everything they're regurgitating for exams. We will always have conformists and fools, but we also have critical thinking future leaders.
Contrary to what this research is saying, I find many young people in our community to be hard working, responsible, and service minded. In many cases, they are less materialistic than their elders, and while their green agenda is in some ways flawed, living more simply and gently isn't such a crazy notion.
As far as just plain-old lack of courtesy goes, I don’t really see much difference between young people and older people, except in one area — I sometimes teach high school & college-age classes at my church and some of these nearly-adult kids are really disrespectful — not in a surly or hostile way, they just have no qualms about having their own normal-volume side conversations going on while the teacher is trying to talk with the whole group in a formal class setting. I suspect work ethic is worse with this age group, too.
In other areas, though, I see just as much rudeness from older people. Walk through any grocery store, and you’ll see all sorts of people (mainly women, but maybe that’s just because there are more women there at all) parking their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle and looking at something, oblivious to anybody that needs room to get by. Well, oblivious is probably too charitable... they obviously know you’re there, and that you’re clearly waiting for them to move, but there’s no resulting impetus to do so before they’ve finished sorting their coupons, reading labels, curing cancer or whatever the heck it is they’re doing.
The “Voight-Kampf test” keeps popping up in my mind whenever I hear this sort of thing. In greater detail in the book, it was a super-sophisticated sort of polygraph machine that could tell the time-delay difference between someone who was reacting emotionally and someone who had to pretend.
Tyrell asks in the book and the movie if human sociopaths would flunk the test and if Deckard and his colleagues had ever mistakenly killed a real person and Deckard says no.
Real sociopaths exist all right. The prisons are full of them but the slickest go into politics. We could certainly use a real-life Voight-Kampf test if such a thing could be built.
The androids lacked enough memories to help hide their lack of empathy. If you read the book you’ll know that the goal of the Rosen Corporation (aka Tyrell Corp. in the movie) was to make the androids so human-like that they could not be detected by any empathy test. The motto in the movie for the Tyrell Corp. was “More human than human.”
A secular society has the goal of creating a human being without a conscience - a sociopath, an animal that cannot govern himself which requires constant external government by those more enlightened.
There is no room for God in this new secular dark age that is fast approaching. If it continues unabated I think we could see something similar to what it was like before the Flood. We’ll all become throwbacks.
You too, huh?
I, for one, am done giving gifts I can’t really afford
with not so much as a thank you.
When my daughter was 12 she received a very nice gift in the form of Rosary Beads and Cross. This was not some run of the mill piece it was very old and was brought over to this country by the Great Grandmother of the gift giver.
I told Wife and Daughter that this one should this particular gift would need a little more than a thank you card. I was poohpoohed on my old fashioned ideas, but I put my foot down and said if they wouldn't take care of it I would. (I explained it was a family heirloom and it meant more than a card). I finally had to resort to blackmail in the form of the threat to sell the laptop she used if they wouldn't do something nice. They settled on a nice planter of flowers a hand written thank you note and a drawing my daughter did of Golden Retriever.(The Lady owns a beautiful Golder Retriever and my Daughter is a very good artist and has won several blue ribbons at local art shows.)
When they took the gift to the lady's house it brought here to tears. She explained her Daughters would not go to Church nor her Grand Daughters and she felt giving them the heirloom was wrong and she noticed our Daughter was good to "serve" (for us Non-Catholics she helps the Priest during the service) on many Sundays and Saturdays. She wanted that heirloom to go to someone young who would stay with the Church.
My wife sheepishly told me later if I had not insisted that poor lady might have thought her gesture went for naught.
I’ve thought about doing the same.
How difficult can it be for young people, who seem to constantly text and talk on their cellphones, to take a moment and let you know, with a quick phone call or an email, that they received their gift and to say thank you?
We’re in the same path as Europe. The individual does not give charity or support, that’s the government’s job.
May God have mercy on us.
She surely would have wondered. She probably would have been happy with only a thank you note. As it happened, you made her day and provided a special memory for her by showing that her heartfelt gesture was worthwhile and was appreciated. I know that her appreciation must have made your day too. : )
I’m hearing that from more and more people these days.
It’s sad in a lot of ways, but, it’s certainly understandable. No one wants to feel as though they’ve wasted time, effort, and money that could have been used elsewhere.
I find it really disturbing, the stuff I see on television. Like a seventeen year old mouthing at her parents and the stuff they’re wearing, it’s revolting. And how ruthlessly materialistic and lacking in empathy.
Like how they bully people, like Phoebe Prince. Phoebe was no threat to them and a good life, but they didn’t rest until she was dead and through suicide no less.
My daughter was raised by me (not daycare) and was homeschooled for most of her education.
She’s not the softest female in the patch. She believes that men should only cry if they loose a close relative or their dog. She thinks that the unemployed should get a job - any job - and be prepared to work their way up (again, if necessary). She thinks that gov’t handouts are for sissies. She loves to hunt, kill and skin Bambi and she’s got the guts to cut the head off a dead rabbit without flinching.
She’s going to be a fierce mother someday. :-)
There’s a difference between sincere sympathy for a person in honest trouble and a bleeding-heart. Two days ago a friend went missing and my daughter put together a search party for the girl. When the girl was found, my daughter ripped her a new one for making everyone worry. “You have an obligation to the people who love you!”
It’s not that she doesn’t care about others, but she’s the tough love type.
With luck, that’s what the next generation is turning into. Maybe this country needs a little less “empathy” and “sympathy” and a little more “get up. Yes, it’s hard. yes, it hurts, but I know you can do it.”
I think part of the reason my daughter is the way she is is because of the way I raised her. Part of it comes from three foot surgeries to correct deformities. She’s recovering from the latest one right now.
I’ve done a lot of, “yes, it hurts. You still need to stretch it.” Yelled at her friends, “Don’t help her!” I never was mean to her, but a lot of people wouldn’t see it that way.
And from that, she’s gotten stronger, tougher and well-earned pride. But she will hold others to her same standard.
Here’s a comment from the article that illustrates my point:
“For example, “When I see someone who badly needs help in an emergency, I go to pieces.””
Now what good it that? My kids don’t “go to pieces”. They act.
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