Posted on 05/29/2010 12:03:17 PM PDT by AtlasStalled
In Brooklyn, NY 18-year-old Kendale Robinson has been arrested for the alleged execution-style murder of a 16-year-old girl as reported by Joe Jackson and Jonathan Lemire for the Daily News:
Kendale Robinson allegedly put a gun to the head of Al-Taya Coners, 16, and pulled the trigger even though the terrified teenager screamed "No! No! No!" and begged for her life, police said. * * * As Conyers tearfully asked to be spared, the do-rag wearing gunman shot her in the head, chest and stomach, witnesses told police. * * * Robinson has a lengthy rap sheet with 16 prior arrests, as well as convictions for assault, drug possession and drunk driving, according to records.
Meanwhile, "research presented at the conference of the Association for Psychological Science found that today's college students are far less empathic than their counterparts 30 years ago" as reported by Christie Nicholson for Scientific American:
[A] study of 14,000 college students found that today’s young people are 40 percent less empathetic than college kids from 30 years ago. * * * Researchers analyzed data from studies conducted between 1979 and 2009, and found the sharpest drop in empathy occurred in the last nine years. For instance, today's students are less likely to agree with statements like, "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."
Perhaps this is why the emotionless sound and nihilistic lyrics of Lady Gaga are so popular today.
(Excerpt) Read more at bitterqueen.typepad.com ...
“I remember similar arguments about how the suggestive pelvis twisting of Elvis Presley and the shocking hair styles of the Beatles would add to our downfall as a society.”
I would hardly compare Elvis Presley and the Beatles to Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga has an emotionless sound and nihilistic lyrics (indeed, she views her muse as some robot from outerspace). In contrast, Elvis Presley and the Beatles were full of emotion and passion — you know, human qualities. Culture does reflect the values of its consumers, and I think you can learn a lot about a person by the music he or she listens to. I don’t have a problem with Lady Gaga’s exhibitionism — which is a far cry from a few pelvis thrusts from Elvis or the mop hair of the Beatles — but with the utter lack of humanity in her music. Can you really envision Lady Gaga singing Love Me Tender or Hey Jude? It unfortunately would be humanly impossible for her, and it’s odd that so many in today’s generation connect to Lady Gaga precisely because of her seeming absence of human emotion.
“sociopaths were executing other human beings long before Lady GaGa”
Really? Wow, I learn something new every day.
I agree that our schools are indoctrination centers that must be shut down.
However, I would add that personality disordered children are often believed to be most severely damaged in early childhood. Pressure on families to work harder in order to provide ‘more’ for their children (e.g. saving for college while the child is an infant) and our materialistic push to ‘have more’ as a society and as we are encouraged to ‘be more’ (self actualization) all lessen both the quality and quantity of time spent bonding with and parenting infants and young children.
I believe our society needs parenting class broadcasts (not mandatory, but well promoted) instead of Reality TV broadcasts. The coarsening of the country, the pace and push of material needs and wants - these are diminishing the value and therefore, time spent rearing children in positive ways. The Columbine shooters’ parents really didn’t know what was going on their sons’ lives and I don’t think that started in their teens. With incomplete parenting, toxic educational settings, and then a vulgar, violent culture -yes, we as a society are in VERY big trouble as 40% less compassionate students reach adulthood.
PS: While I believe a real problem exists - the data seems more extreme than I expected. I wonder how accurate the test is. Did kids 30 years ago lie on the test more because being a gentle, considerate person was held up as a moral ideal more whereas now, being tough, strong, flinty in self preservation is now admired?
Another article suggests he killed her in retaliation for assault charges:
“Glover, 20, who had been arrested twice for assaulting Conyers, and for violating an order of protection, was questioned by cops and released.
“I’m nothing without her. She was trying to make me a better person,” he said from the Gowanus Houses. “She was my heart.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/05/27/2010-05-27_16yearold_brooklyn_girl_gunned_down_in_possible_retaliation_for_school_assault_c.html#ixzz0pM1dE9cR
“
PS: FWIW, that news article spells it as ‘doo rag’
sociopaths were executing other human beings long before Lady GaGa
This writer is caught in a bad romance - with his own intellect
That is not what the article said. It said todays youth are 40% less empathic according to similar test taken years apart. It says nothing about ALL or NONE. Why, then, would you cast the argument the way you did?
Did you want to make it so extreme as to discredit the idea? If so, why?
Defend yourself from such an accusation, one that wasn't made? If so, you have a weak ego.
Unable to grasp logic and are easily led to false conclusions by others?
Just curious.
Well, he's 18 years old, and after all that, he's out on the streets able to take someone's life.
Who's fault is this again? Cold-hearted, callous youth or a cold-hearted, callous judicial system?
The article tries to link the action of one brutal killer with people listening to and liking Lady Gaga and some study that suggests that fewer students are wasting their time trying to advance douchey left wing causes than they were 20 years ago.
There is no tangible logic in what that article is attempting to do, its just a vacuous rant against young people today by an old fart, of the sort that is best confined to internet forums like FR, and not a journalistic medium were said ranter is being paid good money for excreting this BS....
Hold your horses, fr! In the '30s, jazz was considered the 'Devil's music' by some. And Elvis flouting societal conventions? I guess Ann Margaret is just as guilty.
There is lots of violence in Wagner's operas. Where do we start (or stop) with the blame game?
Oh wait, its a blog and whoever wrote it therefore was probably not being paid to write it. They can join the multitude of other loonies spouting their nonsense on an internet blog I suppose...
Yeah, I miss the good old days when there was no such thing as a brutal, remorseless murderer... Young people today eh?
The article didn't say " ... the good old days when there was no such thing as a brutal, remorseless murderer ... " but you did. You may take issue with the article but you erected a straw man to destroy rather debating what was actually said.
I am not arguing the worth of the article or the lack thereof. I was just criticizing your tactic.
I was making a sarcastic point about the stupidity of the author’s attempts to link a brutal murder with modern day pop-culture, in which the author tried to imply that heartless violence was somehow a feature particular to this generation of young people because they listen to Lady Gaga and on the basis of some pointless study which is probably contradicted in some other, equally pointless study which claims the opposite.
Clearly some people need this explaining to them explicitly, which is a lot more effort on my part than the content of the article in the OP deserves....
Maybe I am just a FAN of Lady Gaga music. As long as I don’t have to watch her perverted videos
and suggestion- stop being so aggressive about someone else’s OPINION.
“Defend yourself”....indeed. LOLOLOL!
And I explicitly said I was not addressing that at all. I was simply being critical of your tactic of extending the argument by implying the article said something it did not say.
What ever you think you are trying to explain to me has nothing to do with what I said, and I said it more than once! Just as you were arguing with the author about something not said, so are you arguing with me about something I did not say.
Basically, you are arguing with yourself so I will leave you to it.
I was not even addressing someone else's opinion. I was simply criticizing the logic involved. I say to you what I said to sinsoftheempirefan.
And I explicitly said I was not addressing that at all. I was simply being critical of your tactic of extending the argument by implying the article said something it did not say.
What ever you think you are trying to explain to me has nothing to do with what I said, and I said it more than once! Just as you were arguing with the author about something not said, so are you arguing with me about something I did not say.
Basically, you are arguing with yourself so I will leave you to it.
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