Posted on 01/15/2009 6:47:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
With his soft voice and unassuming manner, Mark Bauerlein seems an unlikely prospect for penning an ostentatious book like The Dumbest Generation. The title immediately brings to mind the Greatest Generation, the idol of 20th century American history that weathered the Great Depression, beat the Nazis at Normandy, and brought us swing music. But the generation that Bauerlein writes of is very different. Ignorant of politics and government, art and music, prose and poetry, the Dumbest Generation is content to turn up its iPods and tune out the realities of the adult world. It is brash, pampered, young, and dumb -- and content to stay that way.
Or so argues Bauerlein, an Emory University English professor and baby boomer. It would be an easy accusation for my generation (I'm 23) to ignore. After all, the fogies have always railed against the ignorance and excesses of youth. What's the point of reading a book or going to a museum in the age of Wikipedia? Why bother knowing who the Speaker of the House is or voting for president when the only vote that matters is the hit count on my latest YouTube video? Being able to locate Mexico on a world map or name the Axis powers during World War II won't help me score a date on Friday night or get tapped for the high school football team.
But something is different this time. In past generations, the young had fewer opportunities to fritter away their lives. Two-parent households and a generally religious culture made sure of it. Today, half of teens grow up in single-parent households and secularism dominates society. Undergirding that is the digital culture, the 24/7 rush of information and entertainment that young adults thrive on. Bauerlein says it's a rush that's killing their intellectual development.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Anyone see that movie Idiocracy?
Anyone see that movie Idiocracy?
Yet these entertainment mediums are just that -- mediums that can be used for either good or evil. How an individual chooses to use the tool is the moral question, not the tool itself.
But Marshall McLuhan might disagree. Sticking an ipod in your ears, chatting with total strangers on MySpace, etc. -- it's pretty central to this sort of lifestyle that you're not interacting with the world that's in front of you -- you're off in your own world. The author seems to be making this point, but the reviewer seems not to be getting the point. Maybe that's because he's part of the Dumbest Generation.
—bflr-
Bundesanstalt fur Landeskunde und Raumen…?
It doesn’t matter. There are still plenty of smart kids who read, understand abstract concepts and are willing to work their butts off.
This thread relates:
THIS KID’S A TEXT MANIAC OMG! 14,528 MESSAGES IN A MONTH!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2163104/posts
I supervise people who fit into this category and say:
“the world needs ditch diggers too.”
It does matter. The idiots will drag the smart ones down. Higher taxes because the idiots can’t take care of themselves. Higher crime because idiots are more likely to turn to drugs and crime. Higher out of wedlock births because idiots don’t think about consequences to their own offspring let alone society. More idiots in public office because idiots can be easily persuaded and bought by shiny baubles and “free” money.
bttt
Thats where we are headed
Anecdotal but from speaking to younger people at work they have no idea of the evils of Communism or Socialism, they think of these systems as viable alternate forms of government. This is scary.
Xer Ping
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 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.
My wife is 28. I am 35 — She has an IPOD, I do not. I have no degree — only about 90 credits toward a History degree. My wife has a bachelor’s in speech language pathology and is on her way to a Master’s. She graduated summa cum laude and currently has a 3.9 GPA — she has less than a year left. All while working full-time with our child who is now two years old.
Dumb? Disinterested? Swamped by digital media? I don’t think so! People need to be careful when they paint with such broad strokes. There are slackers in all generations.
Oh. Like all those men and women who are serving in the Armed Forces and defending the asses of people like the author?
—my Geramn is limited to “nein”-— bump for later reading—
Slackers are not exceptions when their numbers rise to the level of pandemic. I admire you and your defense of the nuclear family you have built but based on my own annecdotal sampling, you are the exception, not them. Sorry.
I don't think technology and smart, hard working, well read kids are always at odds w/each other.
Our 20 year old has an iTouch iPod, does the Facebook thing (well so do I for that matter), texts his friends, a lot, yet he's graduated from college and has one year of his graduate work under his belt. He reads voraciously, and is forever coming home with new books that his dad and I read after he's finished with them (LOL), this is in addition to the reading he has to do for his classes. He works on campus as a GA...yet he doesn't seem to lack time for any of these activities.
I think there's plenty of time in the day to read, use technology (heck look how much time we sometimes spend on FR), work, and socialize.
My 16 year old niece works on the student newspaper at her public high school. She did a survey of fellow students if they knew what the Bill of Rights are. Unfortunately, most failed. Most of her peers thought healthcare, housing, minimum wage, and college education were a part of the Bill of Rights.
I’ve seen the “smart ones.” Many of them are either the kids of immigrants or the kids of hyper-intelligent professional parents. It looks to me, they’re the kids who’ll grow up to run things.
Of course, there’s also the overseas competition — about a billion kids in India and China all willing to work their butts off 24/7 for a house in the suburbs, a decent mid-sized car and a chance to send their kids to college
Yeah I know we’re a dying breed. But you know what?
I have no fear. The cream always rises to the top.
Just 1 preliminary comment/observation:
If this professor is really “Boomer” (perhaps of the Hippie genre, specifically), I find it all so typical that he’d insult yet another younger generation.
Not that he is, or it’s so terrible, or totally wrong. Just can’t help observing how the Hippie Boomers are so good at calling everyone else “bad” in 1 way or another.
Funny you mention that. I saw it a year ago and in some ways was intrigued.
Just last night I looked it up on IMDB to see if anyone was scared by it the way I was.
Oh, they’re scared, alright, but “they” see it the opposite - that the country is full of idiots who are “right” leaning, voting for Bush, etc.
The irony is the stupidity and baseness and shallowness of the people in the movie is set in the amoral landscape that Leftists as them so love.
Broad strokes here? At F.R.? Surely you jest.
I'm a retired union member. Wanna see broad strokes? Just wait.
Actually, we need less “smart” than we do honest, moral and hard-working.
exactly, there was nothing right-leaning about that future.
I’m 38, but it’s the nature of my life and work that I interact with a lot of people in their early twenties on a daily basis. I see some of what the author describes, but I don’t see it as pandemic at all. Virtually everyone of that generation uses the media in question, but I haven’t observed use of such as being a factor in whether or not they are smart and hardworking or dumb and complacent. In those respects, they seem to be no different than any other group of people, meaning that some of them are the former group, and some the latter. Certainly this isn’t scientific, just my own anecdotal observations. I’d be interested in reading the book once it becomes available at the library. Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing I’d spend money on.
Agree. Lots of people take great offense to things that are, unfortunately, all too true, just because they happen to belong to that group. (Remind us of anything?)
The “don’t use such broad brush strokes/generalizations” is a common protest.
Happens all the time with the Hippie generation. So many Boomers are offended how so many come in and speak the truth that Boomers altered the nation in a bad way, etc.
It goes without saying that tons of “Boomers” are good solid people, and many willingly fought a war, etc, but the truth is far too many spoke out loudly and wielded heavy influence the wrong way.
I’m pretty sure that the first person I knew who owned an iPod was my father. He was about 60.
All those “idiot” reviewers/posters could whine about was the “corporatism” of Big Evil Companies getting their stuff out everywhere and everyone only able to get their things! As always. They never worry about the real power - government. Communists.
lol. I’m going to leave a review of the critics
Anecdotal but from speaking to younger people at work they have no idea of the evils of Communism or Socialism, they think of these systems as viable alternate forms of government. This is scary.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Tell me about it! The worst part is they have absolutely no clue to the fact that they are totally ignorant and they DON’T WANT TO LEARN! They think they are smart! Most of them are little more than zombies in that department. The poll results from the Obama voters plainly showed that they had no clue what they were voting for. We have millions who are beyond hope or help but they vote anyway and they are producing more zombies every day. I am reminded of a short story I read long ago, I think it was titled,”The Marching Morons”.
Chatting with strangers on myspace? Except for two trivia/book group kinds of friends, I have met every person who is on my myspace list. Then, again, I’m over 30.
Yeah, we should leave smart to China and the EU s/
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
~SOCRATES (469–399 B.C.)"
The idiots will drag the smart ones down.
&&&
Indeed. I encountered this many times in the classroom.
Judge Smeales
They don't give a ##ck. As long as they've got their little Myspace page, their little earphones, their little insignificant and meaningless world --- who cares?
Suppose that’s a nice positive spin on it...
Hell given the chance most generations is like that. 90% of kids don’t want to learn fractions and read Moby Dick be it 1955 when they was into hot rods,rock and roll and drive in movies or today.
The big difference was that the baby boomers had to learn things in school or else. Now that the baby boomers are the teachers, principals, and professors they have let the education standards slide in the name of self esteem and other education fads. These kids isn’t going to be picking up this stuff on their own, they have to be educated.
This generation isn’t dumb it is ignorant.
Maybe the realization among some people that we needed a book like that (e.g. a dietary supplement because our regular diet was no longer balanced and adequate) was the beginning of the end.
Richard Vernon: You think about this: when you get old, these kids - when *I* get old - they’re going to be running the country.
Carl: Yeah.
Richard Vernon: Now this is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That when I get older, these kids are going to take care of me.
Carl: I wouldn’t count on it.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Well sad to say but anymore when I go into Barnes and Noble or other bookstores I wonder if this was what it was like during the decline of the Roman Empire.
Every year the number of well written interesting books declines in my opinion. Hell the fiction authors of just ten or twenty years ago seems like giants compared with now and I knew that the Steven King’s and Tom Clancy’s of that era was just hacks compared Steinbeck and others of earlier eras.
As for kids reading newspapers, most adults have given up on the newspapers. The typical newspaper of say the 1970’s read like Shakespeare compared with the trash that is called journalism nowadays.
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