Daily Events on 1/14/2014 carried an article from her blog site, Don't Forget the Avocados.
Anna seems to write articles on culture, and she is a great writer and extremely articulate. The article that she wrote and which I will critique is: "Millennials Think Authority Figures Are Untrustworthy Idiots, And Modern Culture Is To Blame".
I imagine that what she writes in the title of her article is true, but I have read no research supporting her view. But, intuitively, it seems right. Since the 1950s the Left has been preaching to successive generations of the young not to trust the Man, and that the peer group is everything.
Modern culture is to blame for not providing young people enough dads in residence, with letting kids operate on the street, in the malls and on Twitter with limited adult guidance. Modern society is to blame how intellectuals, through popular culture, have urged the young to turn their back on traditional values, and family values so vital to rearing healthy Millennial children. If the children are mixed up and half-sick morally, they are not to blame; we adults are for failing to provide the right value system for them.
Regarding authority figures: my attitude towards them even at the age of 59 is complicated. On one hand I have been a rebel and anti-establishment all my life. As a conservative, I realize that children must respect, be courteous towards and obey authority figures like parents, pastors, teachers, doctors, deputies, etc. All of the elderly and other adults should be treated with respect. To raise civilized Millennial children, respect for authority is basic to their being well-reared.
Here is where I veer off a bit. I would like to introduce young people to my Mavellonialist value system. Under that the rational individual, would be trained from early on to live as a self-actualizer as her life quest. While such individuators would remain courteous, respectful and work with all authority figures, as they grew and matured, and demonstrated the ability to handle their own affairs, liberty criticial to the life of self-development requires that the individual write her own laws, write her own categorical imperatives. What this signifies is that she becomes her own authority figure that lays down the law, and she become her own follower, obeying the laws laid down by the law-giver, herself.
She does not serve as her own authority figure, or self-legislate in a social, cultural or political vacuum. She would consult with tradition, family, the pastor, peers and what is the law of the land. She wants to do her own thing, without trampling the rights of her neighbor, and insists that the neighbor respect her rights at the same time. Disputes normally should be amicably resolved as these high-caliber, super-citizens negotiate and compromise with one another to make sure all get what they need, even while they will not get all that they want.
Anna's article is long but let me quote some salient sections from it: "The myths, folk tales, and fiction of every culture are part of a feedback loop that both reflects and also shapes cultural values. Such tales provide their listeners with heroes to be imitated and enemies to be despised, with dreams to be chased and errors to be avoided, and, above all, with a sense of what is normal in the world world. Through stories comes a sense of shared culture and a shared way of interpreting life. . .These stories all helped shape the social outlook of young people and to prepare them for entrance into the adult world. In the last forty years, the stories that our culture provides for our youth have acquired a strangely regressive message. It is a change that both reveals and contributes to the tribalism and generational isolation of our era."
This woman is sharp and, boy, is she eloquent. We are born both cursed and blessed by original sin. We are cursed in that this spiritual burden makes suffering in life unavoidable. It is a blessing in that there is not greater satisfaction than serving God, and overcoming our fell natures, by making what we have done with what God has provided us with, a gift being returned to God. Our self-realized lives are this gift at the higher end of worth to God.
Millennial youth, then, have been indoctrinated with poor cultural values that alienate them from all previous generations in a most serious, disturbing manner. These lost youth see merit only within the subculture of their own tribal members. Where a coming generation is utterly severed from the wonderful American culture passed down from previous generations, it is time to sit up and take notice.
If concerned adults and authority figures do not respond well, then soon then our way of life will be lost, and these leaders of tomorrow will live in dystopia. As Anna writes, for Millennnials the elders seem "inept, absent, evil or unable to understand". Anna writes that these youth perceive the world as a jungle (It is and can be, but there are effective ways of minimizing that.) and that loyalty to a few friends will see them through, and only these peers are reliable.
Anna notes that current stories reinforce the warning that adults are untrustworthy, and that the young must find their own answers. As an advocate of individuation, freeing up youth from adults with old-fashioned values, can liberate these youth--if they believe in hard work, self-discipline and are didicated to self-realizing their potential.
If they are lazy, group-oriented slugs without vision, imagination or a sense of purpose, then they are much better off like collectivists in a traditional, historical setting that learn to live as their grandparents lived. That way at least they will lead normal, productive lives as average adults.
A coming generation without connections to and honor for those from the past is not acceptable. There needs now more than ever, for the young to have other influences in their life besides the peer group. My solution is radically conservative. I would see coming generations raised in relative isolation from their peers. Their normal contact would be mostly with adults and authority figures. We cannot enter the Mavellonialist Age unless the peer group is much downsized and deemphasized. The rise of the rational, ambitious individual as a cultural ideal for each youth is a standard that needs to be upsized and emphasized. Self-actualizing youngsters will easily and readily be more mature and serious, so relating to older adults and authority figures will not be so difficult for them.
Anna concludes by advising us that the films and books in popular culture must leave the modern young with a sense of warmth as they consider the presence of family and community. Such fictional heroes and heroines must model behavior that lead children to strive after truth, beauty and goodness. These ideals are exalted by the traditional community, and all the authority figures upholding all that is good and decent. The tribal peer group and gang-living is no place for Millennials to find out how to live or how to grow up.
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