Posted on 01/21/2020 2:10:45 PM PST by Kaslin
Here are some unhappy statistics:
-- In America between 1946 and 2006, the suicide rate quadrupled for males ages 15 to 24 and doubled for females the same age.
-- In 1950, the suicide rate per 100,000 Americans was 11.4. In 2017, it was 14.
-- According to Grant Duwe, director of research and evaluation at the Minnesota Department of Corrections, in the 1980s, there were 32 mass public shootings (which he defines as incidents in which four or more people are killed publicly with guns within 24 hours). In the 1990s, there were 42. In the first decade of this century, there were 28. In all the 1950s, when there were fewer controls on guns, there was one. Fifty years before that, in the 1900s, there were none.
-- Reuters Health reported in 2019, "Suicidal thinking, severe depression and rates of self-injury among U.S. college students more than doubled over less than a decade, a nationwide study suggests." The study co-author Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, said, "It suggests that something is seriously wrong in the lives of young people."
This data is not only applicable to Americans. As social commentator Kay Hymowitz wrote in City Journal in 2019: "Loneliness, public-health experts tell us, is killing as many people as obesity and smoking. ... Germans are lonely, the bon vivant French are lonely, and even the Scandinavians -- the happiest people in the world, according to the UN's World Happiness Report -- are lonely, too. British prime minister Theresa May recently appointed a 'Minister of Loneliness.' ... consider Japan, a country now in the throes of an epidemic of kodokushi, roughly translated as 'lonely deaths.' Local Japanese papers regularly publish stories about kinless elderly whose deaths go unnoticed until the telltale smell of maggot-eaten flesh alerts neighbors."
Though people have more money, better health care, better health, better housing and more education, and live longer than at any time in history, they -- especially young people -- are unhappier than at any time since data collection began.
Why has this happened?
There are any number of reasons. Increased use of illicit drugs and prescription drug abuse, and less human interaction because of constant cellphone use are two widely offered, valid explanations. Less valid explanations include competition, grades anxiety, capitalism and income inequality. And then there are young people's fears that because of global warming, they have a bleak, and perhaps no, future.
But the biggest reason may be the almost-complete loss of values and meaning over the last half-century.
Let's begin with values.
America -- and much of the rest of the West, but I will confine my discussion to America -- was founded on two sets of values: Judeo-Christian and American. This combination created the freest, most opportunity-giving, most affluent country in world history. This is not chauvinism. It is fact. And it was regarded as such throughout the world. That is why France gave America -- and only America -- the Statue of Liberty. That's why people from every country on Earth so wanted to immigrate to America -- and still do.
Chief among American values was keeping government as small as possible. This enabled nongovernmental institutions -- Kiwanis International, Rotary International and Lions Clubs International; book clubs; the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts; bowling leagues; music societies; and, of course, churches -- to provide Americans with friends and to provide the neediest Americans with help. But as government has gotten ever larger, many of these nongovernmental groups have dwindled in number or simply disappeared.
Another set of values is what is referred to as "middle-class" or "bourgeois" values. These include getting married before one has a child; making a family; getting a job so as to be self-sustaining and sustain one's family; self-discipline; delayed gratification; and patriotism.
All of these have been under attack by America's elites, with the following results:
One in 5 young Americans has no contact with his or her father (not including fathers who have died).
In 2011, 72% of black children were born to unmarried mothers. In 1965, it was 24%. In 2012, 29% of white children were born to unmarried women. In 1965, it was 3.1%.
The majority of births to millennials are to unmarried women. Yet, according to a 2018 Cigna study, single parents are generally the loneliest Americans.
Marriage and family are the single greatest sources of happiness for most people. Yet, the percentage of American adults who have never been married is at a historic high. More Americans than ever will not get married, or they will marry so late they will not have children. In 1960, 9% of blacks ages 25 and older had never been married. In 2012, it was nearly 40%.
And I haven't even mentioned the biggest problem: the loss of meaning in young people's lives. I will discuss that in part two.
Quite simple! As God is removed and being Christian they become chastised when their trying to fit in, you’re hopeless. How exactly are you happy when your hopeless?
Absence of belief in God.
They think happiness can be had by what is on the other side of a screen.
bttt
Send these numbskulls back to 1520 and let them see. 1820. They live in the time of greatest ease and leisure in human history and still they complain. Ooh, dat evil capitalism. Producing poor people who are fat and have iPhones. It’s sad, though, because they’re iPhone 7s and not 11s.
I’m very happy ! And young - 50 !
Hee hee
Though people have more money, better health care, better health, better housing and more education, and live longer than at any time in history, they — especially young people — are unhappier than at any time since data collection began.
Why has this happened?
...
Democrats and liberals.
Don’t forget the coronavirus. That’s going to kill us all too.
BINGO. Children abandoned by their mothers are more often suicidal. It’s really sad to see mothers chatting about their desperate small children trying to keep them from leaving every day. How cold the mothers are is what strikes me.
Young people are told that there are too many people on the planet. A young woman has no hope of finding a trustworthy young man who will take care of her if she wants children. A young man has no hope of finding a woman who doesn’t resent him for some reason. They are taught that capitalism is cruel and that religions have caused more wars than all other causes. I could go on, but basically it gets hard to work up a smile when you have a head full of bad news and no faith to cut through it.
That reminds me of how many things were going to before. Other diseases were sure to do it, according to some folks.
Hype...
In America between 1946 and 2006, the suicide rate quadrupled for males ages 15 to 24 and doubled for females the same age.
— In 1950, the suicide rate per 100,000 Americans was 11.4. In 2017, it was 14.
First it is using two different date ranges. 2006 and 2017 are significantly different data points. I suspect that although suicide rates may have increased between 1950 and 2006/2017, that there were probably a lot of suicides not reported as such back in the 1940/50s.
My youngest daughter was 19 when we lost her to suicide. She had a history of drug use and I believe that contributed greatly.
Because our educators tell them they are.
Democrats and other flavors of leftists, preaching hate for themselves. Running down who you are. Telling you how you must feel guilty and bad.
Piss on all of them.
NEA, single parent or no parent homes, poor parenting...no work ethic, drugs, casual sex, video games, greatly reduced outdoor activity, social media, participation trophies, lgbtqrsp agendas pushed onto them, too much given to them for no work in all households, denigration of military service, grade inflation, loss of spiritualism, academia-financial extortion complex, leftist propaganda from aoc, Bernie, and all the other liberals—->everything for free, and etc...imo...
Many are raised by LIB loser parents.
Many are “educated” by LIB loser “educators”.
Many believe what the leftist LIB losers tell them about the world...and their potential.
Many are brainwashed by the “climate change” anti-science idiocy.
Many believe either taking RX drugs or illicit drugs is the answer.
Many have no moral and/or religious sense.
Many are perpetually weak.
Children abandoned by their mothers suffer unresolved grief in a majority of cases I would guess.
Anyone who thinks leaving a baby with anyone but their mothers or fathers for any length of time and on a regular basis is not abandonment needs to re think.
This country is suffering over it and permanently.
We've taught them to be?
24/7/365 drumbeat of "You deserve this" from media, and I do NOT have it; would make even ME 'unhappy'!!
Available abortion allows males to have unprotected sex without any need for romance, commitment or financial responsibility. Why marry?
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