I think the dynamic between the “adult” culture and the “teen/youth” permanently changed for the worse around the end of WWII.
Once young people became a major source of income for business, all bets were off.
I live in a military town. I meet polite and respectful young people everyday. They always call me “sir” and wait in line quietly. I am lucky.
Such decadence!..................
I think we have already narrowed the bad ones down to “snowflakes”.
In Book III of Odes, circa 20 BC, Horace wrote:
“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more
worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt”
They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things — and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning — all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything — they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.
(Aristotle)
“”Your mother and I work hard to send you to scribe school, and do you study? No! You’re hanging around on the street corner with the wrong kind of friends instead of coming home and doing schoolwork.” -Ancient Sumerian tablet
My dad was a trouble maker as a teen in the 1950’s. Greased back hair, rolled up smokes in his t-shirt sleeve, motorcycle. The whole stereotyped she-bang. My mom’s parents were horrified when they met him. Went on to become an architect, start a business, raise 4 kids, hunting and fishing nut in retirement.
My own kids are in their teens now and I have to bite the bullet sometimes. I more or less followed in my dad’s footsteps and my kids are following mine. There are certainly rules and boundaries, but those teen years can be a little rough.
Adjusted for “demographic” factors, millennials are less liberal than older baby boomers were at the same age. But the people in between were more conservative than either group when they were young.
They are guilty of ruining rock music. That’s a fact!
I think this is the first time in history when society ensured their young will have no assets whatsoever to fend for themselves.
I blame the hula hoop,45 records and obviously the moptop.
Oh,and elvis’s gyrating hips.
And the McBugerler!
They are not bad people. The problem is they are so thoroughly well versed in emotionalism as a counter to modernism and rational thought. They are also totally “all in” with the whole gender confusion nonsense.
I had to actually ask my young daughters what God says about homosexuality. They had the right answer, but definitely no passion on the issue.
Without intervention millenials are doomed to grow up to be easily offended snowflakes. The First Amendment is really at stake in the future.
Trying to characterize a generation of people by shared traits is a fools errand. There will always be exceptions to the shared traits. I deal with a lot of the so called millennials and generally speaking they’re perfectly fine people. Although there is a sense of having been screwed over by the political class. Which they have been.
Politics is a scam and we’re suckers for playing.
I teach them at the university level; most of them are a product of our fraked up K12 system who pushes them to the college/university level when most cannot even put a simple paragraph together. To be blunt, most are self-indulged idiots....I could go on, and on, and on...
It’s not an age thing. I just detest the stupid.
“Why couldn’t they be like we were, perfect in every way
What’s the matter with kids today?”
Millennials are mocked by those younger.
The past “bad” generations did not have Facebook and twitter - I work with Millennials and they drive me crazy. They refuse to listen to people my age and instead goggle everything before they believe it. If their I-Phone told them to jump off a tall bridge they would be over the hand rail in a second. This is a different bunch from past generations.
Kids! What the devil’s wrong with these kids today? Kids! Who could guess the they would turn out that way! Why can’t they be like we were,. Perfect in every way
Remember the “copybook headings” immortalized by Kipling. The proverbs of Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. The Northwest Ordinance enshrined universal education as a responsibility of the new republic, and its goal was explicitly to produce moral and responsible citizens for the Nation.The series of McGuffey Readers inculcated JudeoChristian ethics into reading and writing assignments. Through the fifties, despite the predations of Dewey’s “Progressive education,” patriotism was considered a civic good that went without saying.
All these things, and others as well, including a consensus about respect for religious observance, have been systematically attacked by the Marxist project. The destruction of civic education and organized religion have been their greatest achievements. The destruction of the family is a close second or third, still in process. Obliteration of history has begun.
It is idle to blame the snowflakes for being the way they are, when they are only what the “institutions” have made them.
What is different now, as a result, is this: previous generations grew up, came of age and found their way back. Too many of the recent generations have begun to leave orbit, and not come back.