This generation of kids...

[Puzzicato]

I'd like to share an observation here. I'm someone who knows many homeschooling families.

Most of the ills that we see among today's generation; i.e. selfishness, rudeness, lack of responsibility,etc...are, in general, significantly diminished among the homeschooling community. These kids are polite, helpful, industrious and well mannered. It's really amazing to behold.

I leads me to suspect that the root of the problem is having taken the raising of children out of the home.

I think there is something in that, but I am not sure what the connection is. To home school you have to be actively seeking the best for your child, you are engaged with them and spend many hours in their company reading, thinking and talking (I assume...). I feel that a parent who is actively seeking the best for their child, is engaged with them and spends many hours in their company is going to be on a good track to produce wonderful young people whether they homeschool or put their child in whatever school the local district can offer.

 

[LizzieMaine]

MisterGrey, you are to be commended.

My comment about "the mass media" and its role in the raising of the generations since the Baby Boom had nothing to do with the usual handwringing over "violence in TV/Video Games/Rap" etc. That stuff annoys me, personally, but it's only a small part of what I was thinking of -- namely, the whole concept of a complete, packaged youth culture being sold to directly to kids thru the media. The Boomer kids were really the first generation to experience this -- there had certainly been media products targeted to youth in earlier decades, from series-character books to radio serials, to swing music to comics. But not until television and rock-and-roll came along was there a complete lifestyle package pitched to kids and teens, and what was really different about it was the emphasis on rebelliousness for the sake of rebelliousness. If you weren't rebelling against something, you were a square and a drip and a nerd -- an outcast among your peers. The peer group became far more influential a force than the family -- and the Boys From Marketing knew this and exploited it for all it was worth. And they still do, right down to today. Walk right into any mall, and you can buy all the rebelliousness you want.

Now, before people start yelling about flappers, we all know there was plenty of rebelliousness in the twenties, but this wasn't a specifically teenage thing. The concept of "teenage" as a culture didn't even exist then -- in fact, if you have access to a 1920s dictionary, you'll find "teenage" defined as "brushwood used for hedges and fences." Most of the Flaming Youth in the twenties were college age or older, young adults in their twenties -- teens might have aped the fashions and the slang, nipped at the occasional flask, or experimented in the back of a Ford, but by and large they weren't out to rebel against the social order, and they kept their noses clean at home and in school. For every Peaches Heenan there were thousands of kids who behaved themselves, did well in school, and stayed away from Daddy Browning. The culture that surrounded them inculcated this -- the generation of kids who grew up on Tom Swift and Polly Brewster tended to be the type who kept out of trouble. Most of them grew up to be Archie and Betty, not Bonnie and Clyde.

In contrast, the cult of Youth Rebellion took off in the fifties, and it's been escalating ever since, even though every "rebelliousness" trend that's come along has ended up being co-opted and mass merchandised by the very forces that the kids think they're rebelling against. The Man is always one step ahead of them -- so who's fooling who?

 

[Chas]

I think there are several issues being discussed here.

The youth of today are facing some pretty tough challenges- much more so than any generation before it. There are so many things competing for their attention all at the same time sometimes I think that it's a small wonder they all haven't gone insane. Maybe that's coming down the pipe...

The education system in North America is in big trouble - not just the way it is done, but the motivation for learning for many simply isn't there.
Sir Ken explains this much better and with more clarity than I think that I can.

[video=youtube;36x39hNZ4uY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36x39hNZ4uY[/video]

When I was a kid, the video game/cel phone thing was pure science fiction. The great advantage that we had was that we made up our own fun, with our imagination. That developed in me, I think, a much deeper connection with natural human creativity than the present generation is being allowed. I don't think that this is an accident or not by design, but this isn't necessarily the thread for conspiracy theories.

But it is not just the kids- it's everyone. The whole freaking world is gadget-obsessed.

THE MORE IPHONES AND XBOXes I SEE, THE MORE I LOVE MY

 

[Foofoogal]

In contrast, the cult of Youth Rebellion took off in the fifties, and it's been escalating ever since, even though every "rebelliousness" trend that's come along has ended up being co-opted and mass merchandised by the very forces that the kids think they're rebelling against. The Man is always one step ahead of them -- so who's fooling who?
----------------------------
Absolutely. Amazing. Watch some of the cartoons now and shows on cartoon channels. Some are towards younger than teen. Make parents out to be complete morons and a kids duty in life to rebel against.

 

[Chas]

I think that they have plenty to rebel against. Modern western civilization is doing the youth a great disservice. They are being conned and ripped off.

Like Brando answering the question "what are you rebelling against?" the answer is "what have you got?"

It's just too bad they have such crap music for the soundtrack for their rebellion; they don't have a band that can even approach The Clash.
[video=youtube;JVygiX0KEEw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVygiX0KEEw[/video]

 

[Foofoogal]

I think that they have plenty to rebel against.

The problem is the line is blurring as to who is rebelling the most. The parents seem to be in denial of growing up and beating the kids to the punch.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or more to the point, the rebellion itself is a marketing-driven fraud. I wonder how much money Viking Press has made over the past fifty years selling Kerouac to disaffected college boys?

 

[Chas]

The corporations making a killing off of disaffection with a world dominated by corporate culture. Incredibly ironic.

As long as the kids are suckers for it, the thing is self perpetuating.

Somebody needs to start off a new hippie thing; different from the last one. A mass migration to the countryside would be my suggestion; they should all go into organic farming or sustainable small scale cottage industries.

 

[Zamyatin]

I think a quote from my namesake is in order:

"Every today is at the same time a cradle and a shroud: a shroud for yesterday, a cradle for tomorrow.... Today is doomed to die-- because yesterday died, and because tomorrow will be born. Such is the wise and cruel law. Cruel, because it condemns to eternal dissatisfaction those who already today see the distant peaks of tomorrow; wise, because eternal dissatisfaction is the only pledge of eternal movement forward, eternal creation. He who has found his ideal today is, like Lot's wife, already turned to a pillar of salt, has already sunk into the earth and does not move ahead. The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy: tomorrow is an inevitable heresy of today, which has turned into a pillar of salt, and to yesterday, which has scattered to dust. Today denies yesterday, but is a denial of denial tomorrow. This is the constant dialectic path which in a grandiose parabola sweeps the world into infinity."

Nothing is ever the same as it was, time is truly another dimension, and yet nothing is divisible from its origins. I give thanks to those to have gone before, I wouldn't be possible without them, and yet there is no Final Revolution, just as there is no Final Number.

A big problem with these generalizations is just how general they are. I've worked with some incredibly lazy entitled older people, and some dedicated and selfless young people and vise versa. I reserve final judgment for a comprehensive double blind study, which is impossible.

 

[Chas]

Are you sure that isn't from a Pink Floyd song? From the album "Dark Side Of The Moon" , I think.

 

[CopperNY]

Or more to the point, the rebellion itself is a marketing-driven fraud. I wonder how much money Viking Press has made over the past fifty years selling Kerouac to disaffected college boys?

heh, that would be me.

i didn't figure out the whole "i'm different/special, just like all my friends" cliche until i was in my late 20's.

 

[Zamyatin]

I don't think so, I've listened to that album a bunch of times, and it doesn't ring any bells. Which line did you think was a Pink Floyd quote?

 

[MisterGrey]

I'm grateful for the kind words, but I'm not perfect-- probably "in between" real and ideal, a bit better than most of my generation but still with room for improvement. I've been guilty of being party to the "helicopter parenting" mentioned earlier in this thread-- my mother coming into my last place of employment to make a stink about an incident that happened there. I'll have to admit that I partially encouraged it-- but it was an ugly incident all around, and without going into drawn-out detail, involved a superior accusing me of stealing from the company and then making remarks disparaging my ethnic heritage and remarks personally disparaging members of my family (based on their ethnicity) when I produced evidence that I had not committed the theft. I'd like to think it'd not have happened if he hadn't have informed me that he found delight in the idea of her family starving in the USSR.

Also, as my wife and I were accepted to different colleges, several cities apart, I'm living with my parents until graduation; except for a summer that my brother and I shared a place, I've not lived on my own yet. My wife and I had planned to get married once I'd graduated, but she was disowned by her family for dating outside of their religion, felt there was a threat to her safety if she were to try to return home between semesters, and so we married ahead of schedule so that she would be afforded the legal protection of marriage as well as a place to stay without entering any moral gray area (ie, cohabitation). I do contribute to the household pot, though; and as I'll be graduating ahead of my wife, I'll be moving out and we'll be getting off-campus housing.

I'm just saying all of this because I don't want my last post to have painted a picture of myself as some sort of MTV-Generation paradigm, and I'd feel wrong for other loungers to only have a positive image of me without any room for judgment.

 

[Pompidou]

I'm grateful for the kind words, but I'm not perfect-- probably "in between" real and ideal, a bit better than most of my generation but still with room for improvement. I've been guilty of being party to the "helicopter parenting" mentioned earlier in this thread-- my mother coming into my last place of employment to make a stink about an incident that happened there. I'll have to admit that I partially encouraged it-- but it was an ugly incident all around, and without going into drawn-out detail, involved a superior accusing me of stealing from the company and then making remarks disparaging my ethnic heritage and remarks personally disparaging members of my family (based on their ethnicity) when I produced evidence that I had not committed the theft. I'd like to think it'd not have happened if he hadn't have informed me that he found delight in the idea of her family starving in the USSR.

Also, as my wife and I were accepted to different colleges, several cities apart, I'm living with my parents until graduation; except for a summer that my brother and I shared a place, I've not lived on my own yet. My wife and I had planned to get married once I'd graduated, but she was disowned by her family for dating outside of their religion, felt there was a threat to her safety if she were to try to return home between semesters, and so we married ahead of schedule so that she would be afforded the legal protection of marriage as well as a place to stay without entering any moral gray area (ie, cohabitation). I do contribute to the household pot, though; and as I'll be graduating ahead of my wife, I'll be moving out and we'll be getting off-campus housing.

I'm just saying all of this because I don't want my last post to have painted a picture of myself as some sort of MTV-Generation paradigm, and I'd feel wrong for other loungers to only have a positive image of me without any room for judgment.

These days, especially during the recession, there's no shame in living with parents late. Me, I live with mine while I start up a cafe. I've begun talking to a log cabin company to have my own house built shortly after. A lot of my friends, and I'd even say, my sister, raced to independence early and the quality of life suffered for it, with 90% of their incomes going towards sheer survival. Like the ketchup commercial always said - good things come to those who wait. It's good you're setting yourself up for long term success, rather than achieving a few short term goals. That's how I operate, as well. I deserve an incredible life. Doesn't everybody?

 

[p71towny]

Somebody needs to start off a new hippie thing; different from the last one. A mass migration to the countryside would be my suggestion; they should all go into organic farming or sustainable small scale cottage industries.

They did. They were called communes and they sucked. Hippies are too lazy to make anything happen. Let them make the music and art and leave the real work for the rest of us.

 

[jamespowers]

They did. They were called communes and they sucked. Hippies are too lazy to make anything happen. Let them make the music and art and leave the real work for the rest of us.

lol lol lol lol lol :eusa_clap

 

[Yeps]

Somebody needs to start off a new hippie thing; different from the last one. A mass migration to the countryside would be my suggestion; they should all go into organic farming or sustainable small scale cottage industries.

There has been a trend recently.

 

[Fletch]

I lost my saxophone technician in Brooklyn when he and the missus went to the Raleigh, NC area to be semi-sustaining gentlefolk farmavores. I told him I thought there might be an overabundance of sax repair pros in NC - he said, "Nothing like there was in Brooklyn."

You might call him a hipster except that he is a craftsman par excellence. The only YNOTBOM thing about him is that he works for himself. But he paid his dues in someone else's store (his shop tho).

Sure wish there was as much work playing saxes as there is fixing them - or that it could be done in as many places. As it is you spend most of your time traveling, but have to make it in (and stay around) New York to do even that.

Apologies to friends who don't consider anything connected with the arts to be real work. You may take some satisfaction in that such work doesn't usually doesn't earn real pay.

 

[Chas]

The arts IS real work. I do both "real" work (hospitals) and music. The arts is far more demanding in different ways, but gets much lest respect. It gets love, but little respect.

Like Gil Scott Heron said, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".

[video=youtube;BS3QOtbW4m0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3QOtbW4m0[/video]

Oh, and I know hippies that work. Hard. My sister and Brother in Law are unapologetic hippies that are always working and always will, as long as they have breath in their bodies.

 

[jamespowers]

There has been a trend recently.

Great. Just what I need--to have to see and smell hippies again on the second go round.:eusa_doh: