----never in the history of this country has there been such an evil generation.----
"Narcissistic and selfish", certainly, which ultimately leads to the same thing.
-Dan
Posted on 06/15/2005 6:43:04 PM PDT by CHARLITE
In his new book, Porn Generation, Ben Shapiro mocks the absurdity of some common liberal solutions to society’s ills. He exposes the outrageous advice of liberal celebrities and media figures, detailing how liberals have transformed the overthrow of traditional values into an art: by methodically watering down religion, undermining parental authority, and giving all views equal legitimacy, they’ve produced the cultural crisis that we see today.
This approach has left my generation plagued with moral relativism, narcissism, and many other unintended consequences that the hippie generation is unwilling to take responsibility for and which the aging leftists that now control academia are still trying to promote. By detailing this, Shapiro provides the slap in the face that America needs.
Perhaps my experiences at Wellesley College make me especially ready to embrace Shapiro’s ideas, but I would argue that anyone would consider this book a quick read and (if they have the stomach for it) hard to put down.
Porn Generation has all of the bite and harshness of a young conservative who has been pushed to the edge by the constant force of liberal propaganda within our education system, yet it also presents arguments which are thorough and unavoidably convincing for even the most liberally-minded.
Shapiro details the chronology of society’s moral breakdown – explaining how today’s trends can be traced back to the Kinsey study in the ‘40s, the Clinton scandal in the ‘90s, and other prominent events that changed our understanding of sexuality and culture.
Loaded with quality conservative sarcasm, this book analyzes the hypocrisy enveloping the liberal machine and looks at the various aspects of our culture – teen magazines, pop celebrities, and commercial marketing – that influence our youth.
The one warning that I must issue before encouraging you to read this book is that it does have very provocative titles and explicit language. The irony, however, is that this language is nothing that we do not see or hear every day watching the news, listening to the radio, reading popular magazines, or attending university seminars. Shapiro calls conservatives and liberals alike on their hypocrisy for buying into the new culture that they condemn in principle, yet support with their wallets.
Shapiro points out the craziness of a society which turns criminals into multi-millionaire rap stars, especially when they teach boys “that it’s okay to treat women like dirt” and that these “contemporary buffoons, vulgarians and misogynists are…the ones who are ‘keeping it real’,” while teaching young girls that boys only want strippers and prostitutes.
He argues that youth cling to “gangsta’ rap” because it “distances them from their parents, and in some sense, serves as a rejection of their parents’ culture and their race itself.” This new mentality, according to Shapiro, has only served to promote moral relativism and give young whites the “false impression that [gangsta’ rap] actually represents mainstream black America.” This highlights the hypocrisy of multiculturalism and empowerment within my generation. As the Rev. Al Sharpton said, “Civil rights marchers didn’t march so that a rapper ‘has the right to call your mama a ho.’”
Shapiro looks with disdain at the careers of pop idols Madonna; the former-Mouseketeers-turned-Madonna-wannabes Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera; and newest Disney “pop tarts” Hillary Duff (who hasn’t sold out yet) and Lindsay Lohan (who has). He also looks at the lyrics from such “artists” as Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Ozzy Osbourne (who compared Bush to Hitler just months after the President complimented him on his music success), and Marilyn Manson.
He lauds these artists on a few points, praising Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder for declaring that “any generation that would pick Kurt [Cobain] or [Eddie Vedder] as its spokesman… must be a pretty f–up generation” and admitting that Britney Spears is right about one thing: “It’s a fantasy world that [she’s] doing…It’s up to the parents to explain that to their children.”
Shapiro highlights a critical disconnect between parents and the current generation, citing such figures as: “While only 15 percent of surveyed parents believed that their teens had gone beyond kissing, 27 percent of teens reported being with someone in an intimate or sexual way.”
The recurring theme of this book is that parents are increasingly being cut out of the loop, with schools replacing their authority in sex ed, teenybopper magazines telling their kids what to think and “how to exploit…‘rents into letting [them] date,” and music contributing to the clash of generations. He summarizes his view of teenybopper magazines with the question “Where the hell are your parents?”
This book is the ultimate summary of how we “have been re-defining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized,” while concurrently defining deviancy up so that the normal has been made to be found deviant. It differs from other conservative crisis-of-our-age books in that he doesn’t just scream bloody murder at the problems caused by the liberal hijacking of our culture, but also offers shrewd solutions for how each of us can help restore and transform our culture.
Overall, Porn Generation is well worth reading and very enjoyable -- assuming you can stomach knowing exactly how disgusting our culture is.
Maribeth Armitage is a former Witherspoon Fellow and a graduate of Wellesley College. She managed a congressional campaign in Boston before coming to work for Townhall.com.
I can't wait till Madonna's kids go to school and find Momma's silly book.... Bet they will be so proud, especially about that page with the dog.
liberals refer to that process as being "radicalized".
never in the history of this country has there been such an evil generation.
It is soooo refreshing to read articles like this. Finally, people are stating to realize the hard work that is needed to save our society from utter destruction.
When it comes to marriage: would you go on a cruise ship if 60% of the cruise ships sank?
Why get married, since 60% end in divorce?
If you do get married, be sure you know about the lifeboats.
Generation Reagan ping!
The "consequences" ARE intended. That's the plan from the start.
Wanna bet? Liberals are deliberately dense. No matter how well thought out and factual and convincing of an argument you give them, they simply do not care. To them, it just isn't right that a person who worked 70 hour weeks for 10 years is now worth $10 million dollars while Bubba and Antwone did just enough work to buy Friday's beer and cocaine while being the sperm donors of 7 kids by 5 different women. To the liberal, the guy who worked his butt off OWES Bubba's and Antwone's ho's and sperm donations a living.
Whoa, be careful. Diss porn & about 1/3 of the Freepers will jump down your throat.
Why live when everyone dies?
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
"never in the history of this country has there been such an evil generation."
I don't know, the generations that owned slaves weren't the greatest either. Not that slavery should define those generations that built this country... I'm just glad my "evil" kids still talk to me and tell me how their day went (between rap songs of course). There's alot of bright young people out there who may have the savvy and the guts to make us a greater country. They're the ones that deserve our attention, not the gangsta wannabes.
Char, thanks for the post about PRODIGY Ben Shapiro's new book. The young but intellectually mature Ben Shapiro is one of my heros. His first book BRAINWASHED about academia's leftist proMarxist indoctrination and academia's intolerant "liberal" orthodoxy is an insightful expose.
My mother taught me that movie actors were trashy. There has never before been a society that held any other opinion of entertainers.
"Why get married, since 60% end in divorce?"
Why live when everyone dies?
***!!!
"Narcissistic and selfish", certainly, which ultimately leads to the same thing.
-Dan
uummm, Few Gen-Xers ever picked either of these Bozos as our spokesmen, It was the Baby Boomer writers & suits who gave them that title and forced them on us.
In general I like Ben Shapiro, but he's much better when he's fighting for our country than fighting for (what he believes is) our culture. Culture, by its very definition, changes with each successive generation, while the nature of a nation is fundamentally rooted in its founding principles. In other words, if America's government could fully deal with Islamist terrorism, illegal immigration, and the gross overreach of the federal government, some sleazy singers wouldn't be a big problem. Conversely, ending sleaze and various forms of "immorality" would not do a thing to help terrorism, illegal immigration, or any other of the serious issues with which our government needs to concern itself.
"Few Gen-Xers ever picked either of these Bozos as our spokesmen, It was the Baby Boomer writers & suits who gave them that title and forced them on us."
Bump to that.
I also loved this aside in the article:
"Hillary Duff (who hasn’t sold out yet)"
ROFLMAO. Working for Disney until you're 18, being a Mouseketeer, and doing teensploitation flicks like "Cinderella Story," that's just "stickin' it to the man!"
But...but...he told me if I cancelled my Playboy subscription I'd be helping the war on terror! DAMMIT, Pat Robertson lied to me AGAIN!
BTTT
you know, I think it is a right of passage for the elder generation to BITCH about the younger generation.
It has probably been going on for as long as there have been generations....
Sounds like a good book.
Actually the author of this book Ben Shapiro is only 21!!
LOL
really?
he must be reading some of the threads on FR then :)
Until we run the proponents of Sex Positive teaching out of the schools and libraries (no such thing as "age appropriate" and they consider abstinence to be unhealthy as it is a denial of sexual desires), we will continue on our HOV lane to Babylon.
http://www.allaboutsex.org shows just what these critters are up to (they threw in the towel in advancing the agenda because people gave them some grief, they leave the site up to link to institutional proponents of sexually active minors).
Michael Medved was talking this week about the mature things being pushed on pre-pubescent children with principals and school boards defending the materials. Do pre-kindergarten students really need to learn about semen and its role in AIDS/HIV?
Moral Absolutes Ping.
This is a book I should read. But do I want to be more disgusted than I am?
If anyone has read it, put up a book review!
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
I have never read "60%". But I have read that of first marriages, quite a bit less than 50% fail; what brings up the average of failure is the fact that those who divorce and re-marry often divorce and re-marry again, sometimes several times.
All kids deserve attention, but different kinds.
The good news is both Gen-X & Gen-Y are rejecting the decadent baby boomer ways and despite all the crap you see on T.V. the country will be fine once we get the Baby Boomers out of power.
See...
or the shorter version (Rush Limbaugh on)James Glassman on the Next Generation
Ping!
"...or any other of the serious issues with which our government needs to concern itself."
You're right, the gov't has bigger things to worry about. The people decide what type of culture they live in.
Ditto on the book review request.
"The people" as in the ACLU forcibly removing, on pain of lawsuit and millions of dollars, every symbol or remnant of religious expression in the entire country that isn't locked in a private home or in a house of worship?
Or do you mean leftist judges forcing, via their decisions from on high, "gay" marriage and the like?
Or perhaps you mean the ACLU teamed up with porn magnates forcing porn shops and strip clubs to be in our neighborhoods?
Or maybe you mean the people in Hollywood determining that we must indeed view execrable obscenity, vile language, and offensiveness of every description as the daily fare that passes for entertainment? Or maybe the media executives who lie? Those people?
I know, you mean the rap "artistes" that kids listen to, and the people who invent that gang and slut fashions the every kid wears since it's virtually impossible to buy anything else.
Are these the people you mean?
Or maybe you mean the people in Hollywood determining that we must indeed view execrable obscenity, vile language, and offensiveness of every description as the daily fare that passes for entertainment? Or maybe the media executives who lie? Those people?
We must? Really? What happens if we choose not to? Do they come and beat us up?
With freedom comes personal responsibility. Some people handle it better than others, but removing personal responsibility necessarily means removing freedoms.
Yours is the same argument as:
If you don't like abortion, don't have one.
If you don't like methamphetimine, don't smoke/inject/snort it.
If you don't like spousal abuse, don't practice it.
If you don't like porn shops on the road where your kids walk to school, have them walk a different route.
Etc.
It's not myself I'm worried about. I don't have a TV. But the cultural atmosphere is influenced by the bilge that is on every channel all the time. Even if, for instance, one set of parents carefully monitor what their kids watch, a bunch of other kids don't have such careful parents. So the rest of the kids "stink" up the neighborhood. I know at least one kid who was exposed to very explicit sexual stuff on TV or movies, and wound up molesting another kid.
Have you noticed the many articles about kids molesting other kids? Where do you think they learned that stuff?
If purveyors of sleaze want to turn the whole world into a a stinking landfill, your argument is to just live in it. But it is impossible to live in the midst of a landfill and keep one's house clean - the rats, flies and smell will invade.
Yours is the same argument as:
If you don't like abortion, don't have one.
If you don't like methamphetimine, don't smoke/inject/snort it.
If you don't like spousal abuse, don't practice it.
If you don't like porn shops on the road where your kids walk to school, have them walk a different route.
Etc
It's the "etc." that bothers men. Everyone is offended by something. The list really is endless. And this being America, we can adopt your list. However, then we'd have to adopt everyone else's list as well.
You're spouting moral relativism. Which, in the final analysis, isn't relative at all, but whoever has the power makes the morals. Or lack of them, which is the same thing.
Moral relativists say that all values are equal, and none should be forced on anyone. But their values are always the "real" ones, and those are the ones the moral relativists want enforced.
Like, pornography must be allowed anywhere and everywhere (practically). There must be no censorship in libraries especially library computers. Porn shops and strip clubs must be allowed in areas even if the people living there don't want them.
There are universal moral rules that are in basic agreement. These are extant in all monotheist religions in the world, and some that aren't even monotheist. These guidelines form the basis of what used to be our own laws, but the moral relativists have been very busy for some time dismantling them.
And what have they been replaced with? A situation where even if the majority of people want very much, and vote for, or their elected representatives vote for some kind of restriction on, say, what level of disgusting obscentity or sexually explicit stuff should be allowed in some particular venue, a couple of judges in black robes, assisted by lawyers from the ACLU, tell the citizenry what must be.
This is judicial oligarchy, aided and abetted by organizations who do not have our benefit in mind, such as the ACLU.
You're confusing legality and personal issues/preferences.
Legally all religions are pretty much equal. The law recognizes no difference between Christians, Jews, Wiccans and the annoying airport guys. In private life, I'm sure even the judges hate the airport guys.
(actually, I haven't seen the airport guys in years, but used them as an example of an annoying religion).
If I understand you correctly -- your definition -- then our entire legal system is built on moral relativism.
For instance, in god's eyes it probably makes no difference whether you still a dollar or a million dollars. Under the law, it's the difference between petty larceny and grand theft. And then there's questions of "mens rea," that concerns state of mind of the person who committed the crime.
In order to banish this type of "relativism" from public life, it would mean creating a taliban type theocracy, which nobody really wants. They had a pretty firm grip of absolutism. And it got them nowhere fast.
No, I'm not confusing legality with personal preferences.
For instance, divorce used to be illegal. Then it became legal, but very, very difficult to obtain. Then, moral relativists - in the form of feminists, mostly - demanded easy divorce. Why was divorce originally illegal and then very hard to obtain? Universal religious values, encoded into law, which is where all law originates.
Adultery and fornication used to be illegal. So did birth control, so did abortion. All these are based on religious values, encoded into law. Then they became legal, then accepted, and now promoted. Same thing with homosexuality.
I am not saying that divorce should be illegal.
I am saying that moral absolutes have a universal foundation, and up until very recently were the foundation for law.
Here's another one - there is a universal moral prohibition against murder - how much more basic can you get than "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Well, now abortion is legal, doctor assisted suicide is legal in OR and some countries, now it's legal to deprive handicapped people of nutrition and water in some places, in some countries in Europe terminally ill children are routinely killed and that is being advocated here as well.
So even murder is becoming legal and acceptable. Can't you see the devolution?
Your argument is fallacious. Look at the laws that were in place one or two hundred years ago.
Basically what you're saying is there are only two options - an amoral free for all, or a Taliban-esque dictatorship where the Ministers of Vice control check women in bags to see if they have nail polish on.
I notice that people who like moral relativity always bring in the Taliban as a bogy man.
"Thou Shalt Not Kill"
How about, except if some moron crack head comes into your home to thieve the DVD player? Mostly everyone would agree on the right to protect stuff and the safety of a family, right?
Moral absolutists have a special place in society. Take your typical preist, nun, monk, etc. Or just the guy who dedicates himself to living a "good life." These people are admired and generally held up for admiration.
I don't agree that we're devolving. I see little or no evidence of that.
The Taliban were interesting. A government exercising such power over the individual was something of an historical spectacle. It would have been interesting to see how they played out.
Many of the laws that were in place a century or more ago aren't applicable today.
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