Posted on 05/22/2009 4:29:17 PM PDT by bdeaner
When the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics recently released its 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the results were not pretty.
The survey of nearly 30,000 high school students nationwide found that 64 percent had cheated on a test in the past year (up from 60 percent two years earlier) and 38 percent had cheated more than once. More than a third had used the Internet to plagiarize. And lest they get credit for coming clean on the anonymous survey, which also tracked rising rates of teen lying and stealing, more than a quarter confessed to lying on at least one survey question.
Despite their dishonesty, the students had a high view of their own ethics. More than nine in 10 said they were "satisfied with my own ethics and character," and nearly eight in 10 affirmed that, "When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know."
Those incongruous rates of self-satisfaction among lying and cheating teens shocked many parents and pundits, but they probably did not surprise research psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell. In their new book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, they marshal an impressive array of statistical and anecdotal evidence to prove that Americans, especially the young, are suffering from "corrosive narcissism."
A fixation on indulging and exalting oneself, narcissism is linked to vanity, materialism, relationship troubles and rule breaking. Its cultural consequences are easy to spot. Just look at the five-fold increase in plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures performed in the past decade, the greedy overconfidence that drove our mortgage meltdown and the self-absorption that leads senators, celebrities and ordinary citizens to habitually post their most trivial musings on Twitter and believe that the rest of us care which game show they watched on television or which burrito they ordered at Taco Bell.
Narcissism particularly afflicts many teenagers and young adults. Among other data, Twenge and Campbell cite a study of 37,000 college students that found narcissistic personality traits rising as fast as obesity rates from the 1980s to the present, with one in four college students in 2006 agreeing with the majority of the items on a standard measure of narcissistic traits. As for narcissistic personality disorder, a severe, clinically diagnosed version of the trait, nearly 10 percent of Americans in their 20s have experienced its symptoms, as compared with only 3 percent of Americans 65 and older. That's a stark disparity, since older adults have had many more years to experience the disorder and it can be diagnosed only in adulthood.
It's significant that young Americans vulnerable to narcissism were raised in the heyday of the self-esteem movement, when well-meaning baby boomer parents, teachers and media gurus incessantly urged them to "love yourself first," "let nothing come between you and your dreams" and believe that "you're the best." Rather than stoking healthy self-confidence, such messages may have dampened work ethic while fueling unrealistic expectations and inflated egos. Neither is much use in the real world, where believing in yourself cannot guarantee success and putting your own immediate desires ahead of all other concerns can be a recipe for disaster in work, love and life.
Twenge and Campbell have taken some heat for their diagnosis of America's ills, but they are getting a better hearing today than they would have a year ago. The economic downturn already has forced many Americans to cultivate virtues that are keys to kicking the narcissism habit: humility, simplicity and connection to community. If ever we hope to transform our me-first culture into one that better serves our children, now is the time to start.
The revenge of the me-first, self-esteem culture. Another gift from the Boomers.
Hey, we all think that thousands of other FReepers care about our deep thoughts, don’t we?
>>Hey, we all think that thousands of other FReepers care about our deep thoughts, don’t we?
Well, mine, anyway... ;)
We’ve forgotten about the concept of ‘process.’ That it takes time and steps to build a successful (according to perspective) life and relationships.
It’s epitomized by the woman who always goes after the finished product in a man. She wants the one who is already established, but doesn’t realize that unless she is an heiress or businesswoman on the same level, Mr. Fortune 500 isn’t going to come knocking.
Everyone forgets that in order to go anywhere you have to work for it, not just market yourself. People view moving forward as a matter of luck and marketing, not having actual credentials.
I blame Hollywood for promoting that idea.
There’s a certain amount of silver bullet instant gratification, too. The things worth doing just don’t operate that way.
A lot of people laugh when I say this, but the movie “Groundhog Day” has a great ethic. The guy lives his life over and over, day after day, in the same hell. But when he finally begins to work on self-control, being disciplined, and focusing on helping others, he achieves a level of virtue that gives him happiness and fulfillment only after no longer strives for those things as ends in themselves. It’s a brilliant allegory.
No, I was simply observing that here we are - you, me, and every other poster - hanging around on the internet assuming a bunch of other people care about what we think, whether we composed it ourselves or referenced someone else's composition. Yet it's only "others" who are self-absorbed ...
It’s the original temptation - to put something or someone other than God in the place of God.
I think it would be more accurate to say that WE as a species are self-absorbed. Authors who think that human nature was different at some point - other than before the Fall - tend to be romanticising!
Yep. Every single one of us.
It is clear in the Bible that,
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” (Psa 34:18)
(Luke 18:13) “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.”
And so we are exhorted,
(1 Pet 5:5) “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”
The 60’s sex revolution, which had its roots further back, was in reality rebellion, that of the exaltation of man against the Almighty, in yielding to the flesh, which by nature cannot be subject to the law of God. (Rm. 8:7) Thus those are led it by “take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” (Ps. 2:2,3)
Also note that this rebellion, which liberalism thinks was a success, was first against God (Ex. 20:1-11) and then against parents (Ex. 20:12) and authority in general, and so 1 Pet 5:5 begins with the command to submit to elders. The war protests of the 60’s were not overall principled dissent, any more than the sex revolution was salvific liberation, but rebellion toward moral authority, which began in Gn. 3. America is even now reaping the costs of this war against God. http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html
The generation who were in that rebellion are parents now, and the young are a product of the ever morphing morality than resulted from said rebellion. And as this exaltation of self is antithetical to salvation, something must happen if this nation will humble itself under the mighty hand of God, and if they will yet be a great turning to the Lord. And yet judgment must begin at the house of God.
And so we must humble ourselves, and pray, and seek God’s face, and preach the truth.
Thanks for this analysis — well done.
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