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This is an excerpt from Helen Joyce’s essay published in The Critic. It poses some answers to questions as to why our society is going the way it is, and what happened to the notion of people debating topics like adults and having adult sensibilities.
“More generally, this is a culture that encourages young people to regard themselves as traumatised. According to Jonathan Haidt, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, US schools and universities have started to promote three pernicious falsehoods: that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; that feelings are a good guide to reality and action; and that life is a battle between good people and evil ones.
These dysfunctional beliefs, which Haidt dubs “anti-cognitive behavioural therapy”, promote mental fragility. They encourage people to feel fearful of ordinary words and to regard censorship as virtuous. The logic goes like this: being dis-agreed with makes you a victim; victims are good; people saying things you disagree with therefore deserve to be silenced and punished. This is the culture of “crybullying”: using claims of victimhood to harass others.
Haidt thinks social media, with its polarising and conflict-inducing algorithms, is largely to blame. Another culprit is the “post-modern turn” that was underway before the internet era, in which academics, activists and political theorists stopped thinking of reality as something that could be described objectively and studied empirically, embracing a radical subjectivity instead.”
The fragility of the next generation will be the doom of us all.
I’m pretty happy right now firmly in my middle age. Extending this period if I could…I think I would.
I’m not buying into the idea that there is some sort of perfect way of living one’s life – some ways are better than others, and those various ways appeal to different people…and so on and so forth. We’re not here talking about *your* choices and and preferences, but rather mine.
I’m getting old. Not super old yet, like JZ [:)], but old enough to start seeing a few patterns and beginning to see how choices fit together. One motif that crops up frequently is the notion of standards (being cut from the Teacher cloth and what not). Standards are fucking important in my line of work, I need to set them high and demonstrate them on a daily basis so students can see why they are important.
There is a life lesson right there – Show, Do, Demonstrate, as your ‘go to’ plan – talking about issues and concepts is important, but doing the thing is so much more important that pontificating about it. Is critical thinking important in your classroom? Then show how it is done every day with your students (and friends outside of school an academia) so often that the people around you have to learn, if by nothing else, osmosis. (The world is filled with dull people, help them, please.)
The osmosis strategy works for music as well, and the related life-concept of perfect practice makes perfect. Can you make those four boring quarter notes into a phrase? Demonstrate it, practice doing it, everyday. Make it a thing that just becomes automatic. The practice list is long, and ever increasing, of the musical qualities and practices that need to become second nature, and not requiring conscious thought (looking at you vocal resonance *grrr*) to enact.
I think the wisdom that can sometimes come with age kicks in when you realize the standards you hold dear informs your perceptions and how you take on life. It is very easy to become your chosen ‘standards’ and stop thinking about how to interact with the turbulent flow of life around you. Sticking to your version of what is correct is necessary to certain extent, as being the leaf in the wind isn’t exactly my idea of an ideal life state. But life, as much as we try to manage it, will gleefully toss monkey poop filled situations at you that will force you to make decisions that call into question the frameworks you’ve built for dealing with the world.
The problem with monkey poop (and most poop really) is that its sticky and tends to foul up the most carefully constructed frameworks and ideas you have about the world. Borrowing a phrase from Gordan Ramsey, you often find yourself to be ‘in the shit’ – so what do you do? For a good portion of my existence, the answer has been to soldier on, head down, pushing back against the shit and working it and reworking it with the tools at hand until the situation has become tolerable (a nice loamy compost, after all is said and done). Confidence in my structures has been unfailing.
But what if my structures and methods are wrong? Yeah, its thoughts like these that gets the monkeys (of the anxiety and doubt kind) agitated and a-chattering. When do you step back from the ramparts and reconsider the stand(s) you’ve taken and reexamine the thought process that brought you to your current state?
It is said that it takes courage to stand by your convictions – I’m calling bullshit on that – standing tall on the fortifications of your beliefs is easy-peasy, made in shade, level of challenge. Taking a step back, reevaluating your convictions and realizing that they aren’t serving you as they once did, and then changing them – that friends, takes courage. Because with change comes vulnerability and instability, the rebuilding your convictions – what makes you -“you”.
Relax, I haven’t found jebus, or allah or drank the libertarian kool-aid, I’m still the pinko-lefty rad fem ally you all know and love. Rather, I’m just in a slightly different theoretical spot having taken a small reflective step back and have begun looking at my structures and ideology and how they shape my perception of life.
Good, if somewhat unsettling, times. :)
Most of the articles on Cracked.com induce you into becoming a crazed euphoria-seeking serial-clicking monkey. Not necessarily a bad permutation, but almost always a drain on the productive use of ones time. However, I really enjoyed this article on the misconceptions we hold about what will make us happy in life and found it to be quite thought provoking and informative. The first bit is here, the rest can be found at Cracked.com.
5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won’t)
By: Jane Jones, David Wong February 17, 200
“If 80s movies taught us anything, it’s that at some point you’re going to run into a mysterious relic that lets you switch bodies with other people.
Would you use it? Would you choose to switch lives with, say, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie or Dale DeBone? Most people would.
But let’s say the artifact doesn’t let you choose, but will instead switch you randomly with one of the other six billion people on the planet. Virtually nobody will take that deal, for fear they’d switch with some poor villager in Nigeria.
So what does that say about us? Well, according to experts, it says almost everything we think about what would make us happy is dead wrong. Let’s look at the five things we’re most wrong about, with some pictures of adorable animals for good measure.”
Go to the little girls’ aisle at the department store, if you’re not there already. On the shelves you’ll see the dominant little girl fantasy isn’t Cinderella or even Dora the Explorer. It’s Hannah Montana. Playsets come complete with a camera, makeup and a mirror for Hannah to admire herself in.
The girls play with that when they’re eight, and by 16 they’re on MySpace, pouting at the camera in their underwear and watching the friend requests pour in. In a recent survey of high school kids, 51 percent said their ultimate goal was to become famous.
This is brand new to humanity; for thousands of years, material goods and security dominated. Now, fame is at the top. Obviously part of the reason is the perception that anybody can get famous these days–reality TV and YouTube have proven that you can become a celebrity for doing not a goddamned thing. But there’s another, less obvious factor. And it explains why so many famous people are miserable.
So What’s the Problem?
Experts say where you find kids who desperately want to be famous, you find a history of neglect at home.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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