"Think about what you knew and understood at half your
current age. Were you smarter then? Wiser? Why assume it works
differently for anyone else?"
“To all the generations before us,” Cameron Kasky, one of the Parkland survivors recently said on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, “we sincerely accept your apology. And we appreciate that you are willing to let us rebuild the world that you f---ed up.”
I
get the passion. I get the rage and trauma behind it. But this nonsense
is as pernicious as it is obnoxious (I’ve apologized for nothing, by
the way, have you?). It’s also not true.
Young
people today, and particularly young Americans, should be brimming with
gratitude for the world they are inheriting. Lest you think this a
cranky right-wing sentiment, let me align myself with Barack Obama: “If
you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human
history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or
what gender or what your economic status might be, you’d choose today.”
Kasky
is standing on a soapbox built with the toil of previous
generations and he’s taking a sledgehammer to it — because he doesn’t
know better. "
And then:
"And that brings me to the second problem with the
glorification of youth: It invariably involves powerful adults finding
kids who agree with them on some issue and then claiming that all young
people think this way (and then hiding behind the myth that we must
listen to “the children”). If these Parkland kids came out for
concealed-carry or arming teachers, you can be sure MSNBC would not be
touting them in commercials.
But the most galling
thing about adult partisans hiding behind kids is that it amounts to a
kind of power-worship."
He really doesn't get it. Or chooses not to; I'm not sure which. He understands it as a bunch of snot-nosed kids trying to tell their elders and betters what is what. And being encouraged by that old bugaboo, outside agitators; adults who ought to know better, but who have their own agenda.
It really isn't that complicated. This isn't a youth glorification moment; it's an "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" moment.
In Margaret Steinfels' previous post, we were talking about the Vietnam War era. There is a similarity between the present protests about school shootings, and the student protests of those days. The youth of both eras felt and feel themselves to be in the crosshairs. Their wish is simple; they don't want to die for no good reason.
About Goldberg's objection to the adults who are helping the youths in their protests, I would mention another demonstration involving a lot of young people which occurs every year. That would be the March for Life in January. There are quite a few high school kids who go to that from here. Yes, they definitely have adult sponsors who go with them on the bus. No parents are going to let their teens go to DC unaccompanied by responsible adults. And yes, adults contribute money for expenses. And yes, the adults involved agree with the mission of the march. Otherwise it wouldn't happen.
The Parkland kids saw their classmates and friends mowed down by automatic weapons. Some of them suffered injury themselves. Are there adults helping with the protest march? I would certainly hope so.
"Cameron Kasky, one of the Parkland survivors recently said on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, “we sincerely accept your apology. And we appreciate that you are willing to let us rebuild the world that you f---ed up.”
ReplyDeleteYeah...Well...probably said something like that in my late youth...though without the "f----ed up."
The idea that adults did this to the coming generation is a partial half-truth. But mostly it is ignorant with a touch of arrogance.
The ignorance has to do with the probability that the coming generation of whatever generation usually knows a minimum of history--how it was back then when their parents and grandparents had to make choices, usually not the same choices that the new generation will be making.
I am coming to think that every coming generation knows less history than the one before it, which probably accounts for most of the ignorance. The arrogance is an age-related defect. IMHO
I agree that there is ignorance and arrogance there, and that is probably what Goldberg is reacting to. But I don't think he gets what is driving them.
DeleteThey're angry. Isn't that's what driving them? They should be angry at what happened in their schools to their friends and teachers.
ReplyDeleteBut anger has a short shelf-life and usually a short self-life too. So I am hoping that others of these students are giving thought to what they will choose to study in college because of this; what they might choose to work at after college. One thing I hope they learn that being given a platoform by the likes of Bill Maher or Anderson Cooper or Laura Ingraham is part of the problem they will face in working for gun-control, if that's what they choose to do.
I am attending the March in DC on the 24th. The Episcopal Diocese of Washington DC is organizing and they will also have a vigil the night before at the Washington National Cathedral. Parishes are sending groups, and busloads are being organized from out of this area.
ReplyDeleteAre Catholic parishes or schools doing anything? Anywhere? Are the Catholic bishops doing anything besides offering "thoughts and prayers"?
I am praying that the kids will NOT let this go. I am praying that they will begin to do the hard work of registering those who are already 18, and set up a plan to register each group of high school kids when they come of age. I am praying that they will vote and organize Get out the Vote campaigns when they get to college.
The anti-Viet Nam protests eventually did make a difference. Sometimes I forget what a terrible time that was also in America. Not just the marches and protests but the violence. Sometimes we forget about the students shot and killed at Kent State, shot by the Ohio National Guard. We forget about the bombings on college campuses carried out by the extreme left Weather Underground.
I hope this generation does NOT resort to violence, but I hope they stay angry - very angry. Americans are 25 times more likely to die from guns than the citizens of any other "civilized" and "developed" nation, most of whom allow gun purchases, but these purchases are tightly regulated and monitored.
The adults need to get as angry as the kids, and support them, guide them into becoming voices that will continue to be heard. They made progress in Florida. Do there have to be shootings in schools in every single state before people will protest? Isn't it better to do it NOW?
Between the storied youth of the '60s and the angry kids of today there was another youth movement that got almost no media attention. There were kids who wanted to be fuddy-duddies. I remember one wannabe leader, on the city bus going to the Milwaukee Brewers' game, putting his National Review carefully into his briefcase and extracting a bologna sandwich. Out for a bit of relaxation.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, that youth movement, if understood, would do a lot to explain Donald J. Trump.
The storied movement of the '60s began with kids who had been taught that holding the truth that all men were created equal is what made Americans American. Then they went to parts of the country where that truth was not held and were scandalized. They also learned that elections decide policies in a democracy, so in 1964 they worked and voted against war, defoliation, "bomb 'em back to the Stone Age," won the election and then got: war, defoliation, "bomb 'em back to the Stone Age."
They felt betrayed. And many of their elders wondered why.
ISTM that it should be self-evident that a civilized nation does not conduct education in self-created war zones. If the kids today feel betrayed to discover that's where they are, well, they have a right to feel that way.
So speaking of Wisconsin: what about the kid who blew up the science building in Madison? Killing one person as I recall.
DeleteYikes, I didn't know about that one. Or maybe I heard about it and forgot. Googled it and came up with Sterling Hall bombing, 1970. Sounds like it was the work of a terrorist gang.
DeleteAs I recall it was the work of a protesting (and perhaps angry, maybe arrogant) student, even a U. of Wisc.(Madison) student. There weren't terrorist gangs back then--certainly not in the Midwest.
DeletePeggy, you're hitting close to home. There were four conspirators. One was Leo Burt. Burt was in my class graduating 1966 from Monsignor Bonner High School in Drexel Hill, PA. I didn't know the guy. There were 600 in that graduating year. He was not in a science section and was an athlete, two things that kept us from crossing paths. His whereabouts since the bombing remain unknown.
DeleteI'm going by what they called themselves, which was the "New Year's Gang". According to the Wiki article, there were four of them. Sounds like they carried out various and assorted mayhem and vandalism prior to arrest.
DeleteMargaret, the bombing was in Madison in 1970. I was talking about Milwaukee in circa 1974. (The kid was wearing a sport coat to a baseball game, for heaven's sake. Wore it to class, too. Like a professor.)
DeleteBut if we are going to talk bombings, what about the town house that blew up in Greenwich Village in 1971 while being turned into a bomb factory?
Still and all: Crabbed age and youth/Cannot live together;
ReplyDeleteYouth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
youth like summer brave, age like winter bare...
Jonah always wanted to be a fuddy-duddy.
GenXers, between Boomers and Millennial. I had them as college students 30+ years ago. Generally, their writing skills were sub-par, and they were incurious and uncritical. If their papers had no outright errors, they demanded to know why they didn't get an A.
ReplyDeleteThey joined sororities and frats. They traveled in packs. They saw college as job training. They liked President Reagan because he was a Successful Person.
They trusted business enterprises and were impressed by people with luxury items. They wanted to learn to play golf.
They liked talking about investments--investing their money, investing in the future, investing their time, investing in their wardrobes, investing in a starter home, investing in their children. They drank a lot, and when they had the money, they enjoyed recreational cocaine. Marijuana was low rent.
They veered between mean-spirited satire and extreme sentimentality. They couldn't ever get their tone right.
They believed self-help books, and they were very sincere about being their "best selves." They believed competition was good. They enjoyed organizing and raising money for charities with boundless energy.
They had expensive weddings, often more than one. They read books about better sex. They read books about childbirth. They read books about childrearing. They hovered over their kids and drove teachers crazy. (I know because I had their kids in college at the end of my teaching careers.)
Boomers were raised in a pressure cooker--the Bomb, Jim Crow, riots, Vietnam, Nixon.
The GenXers put themselves in a pressure cooker with high material expectations.
Or maybe this is all just me being a curmudgeon.
Not sure what "gen" my kids fall in, born in 74 and 78. I'm thankful, though, that they don't fit that description!
DeleteThey're GenXers. And I bet they know some of these people. I'd be interested to see if they think I'm just way off base.
DeleteI liked many of my GenX students, so don't want to stereotype.
But there is a real antipathy GenXers feel towards Boomers, resentment that Boomers hogged all the good jobs, dominated the culture, and generally talked about how great the 60s were. There was a swing to the right among those born between 1964 and 1984. I still sense a certain amount of ageism in this group. ("Why hasn't she retired? With her health problems, she owes it to herself and younger people to call it quits. She uses a cane, for heaven's sake!")
Millennials, no such problems. We like the same books and movies. They thank me for teaching them things. They all voted for Bernie. They drink mass quantities of coffee. They want to start farms in Detroit. They shop at thrift stores. What's not to like?
Jean, I'm sure they do know some of those people. My oldest son's wife is an academic counselor at one of the state universities. The helicopter parents of some of her students drive her up a wall. Not to mention the children of these parents are maturity-challenged. Gee, could there be a connection?
DeleteOne thing I have noticed with my kids and the people they hang out with. They are completely turned off by Trump and his ilk. They are pro immigrant and very comfortable with cultural diversity. Likewise gay or LBGTQ.
I grew up in a different environment, economically, spiritually, socially. I consider myself lucky to have been born into that time and I consider the young to be very unlucky. I'm not sure I have any advice or criticism I can give the young that would be of any use. Who, in the government, is blessed with the wisdom of age? Trump, McConnell? A whole host of corrupt old men making decisions that will affect the presently young for decades. The only advice I can give is to point out that the government is no longer responsive to the needs of the populace and they have to find a way to take it back. I hope they do it and I hope I can help them somehow.
ReplyDeleteDavid Lodge, the Enlgish novleist, essayist, professor, etc., has written several novels that I have loved reading, many of them about the foibles of Catholicism, academic life, and the contrasts between American and British mores.
ReplyDeleteLodge, now in his 80s, has been writing a memoir, (volume 2 just published) Volume 1 is titled "Quite a Good Time to Be Born: A memoir 1935-1975."
Apropos of the leading question on this post, the role of adults in fucking up the current generation's life, and apropos of Stanley's claim to "consider myself lucky to have been born into that time." Doesn't say what time, but can we speculate 1940s? Though Lodge and presumably Stanley (sorry to be taking your name in vain), and I lived in a world where we had access to education and opportunities are parents did not, we still had to make our way in a changing world. Lodge expresses his gratitude and affection to his parents throughout the memoir (so far), and I think it's because he recognizes how much they gave to him, and not primarily materially, but spiritually, culturally, socially, etc. I certainly could say the same. So if there's a problem today, what is it?
Where have parents of today's kids fallen short?
Maybe there are better and worse times to be born and the current generation have come at the wrong time. How it is wrong we can speculate. But like David Lodge and Stanley, I consider I was born in a quite good time and my parents, with whom I did not always agree and who certainly did always agree with me, were nonetheless quite experienced and excellent adults.
Children born of parents who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, as Lodge, Kopacz, and I did, had the good fortune to learn from experts how to deal with calamities, uncertainty, and danger. Indeed, Lodge and his mother had to vacate their home in London at various times during the Blitz. I only had to crawl under my desk during drills for a nuclear attack on Chicago!
My parents also lived through the Depression and WWII, though Dad wasn't old enough to have served in the military then. He has joked that I saved him from going to Korea, because they weren't drafting married men with children at that time. Yes, growing up in the 50s and 60s was a good time. I think it is a lot harder to be a parent now. For sure it is different. I had a lot more freedom, and even our kids had more freedom than it is safe for kids to have now. I am amazed at how well my son and daughter in law who have the three children do with parenting, given the challenges. This son is the youngest, and was never around babies much. He thought his younger cousins were a pain in the neck. But he has been a hands-on dad from day one. It seem to me that the parenting is pretty well shared. Which it should be. But expectations were different for dads of yore. My daughter in law does day care in their home, so she deals not only witb their kids but with other people's too.
DeleteYes, Peggy, I was born in 1948. Everybody seemed to have jobs, middle class ones, even if one worked in a factory. Unions were still strong. I think a large part of the fun was the naivete. It was one big gas guzzler carbon party with maybe some squeaks about global warming buried in esoteric scientific literature. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" had arrived in the early sixties but no real public consciousness yet. My college education, even accounting for inflation, was 20% what they pay today. I started working for the gummint as a co-op in 1968. I retired under the old CSRS system. The people more than 12 years younger than I have the crappy FERS system, the gummint version of IRAs and 401k etc. So even in my own workplace, I could see the downgrading. And now I have it good, to the point of feeling a mite guilty. Yeah, I worked conscientiously, but I consider the timing to be a very large part of it.
DeleteSweeping generalizations carry some risks.
ReplyDeleteI was born in the late 40s, and my parents were not especially wise adults. I learned little about dealing with calamities, uncertainty and danger from my parents. I left for college shortly after my 17th birthday, and was happy to be away from home. My parents were not abusive (my father was cold and distant with no interest in his children, and I seldom saw him growing up, especially after they separated when I was 10), and my mother was a very strict Irish Catholic mother, who loved us, and took care of us, but a woman who did not know how to show warmth and nurturing to her children. I think that is because of how she was raised by her own Irish Catholic parents.
Parents today are facing challenges that our parents did not face in the late 40s and 50s, even though they had made it through the depression and the war. As the youngest, I was part of the Viet Nam generation, with all of the "excitement" of the 60s in my coming of age years.
My children are facing challenges with their own young children (oldest grandchild is 4) that my husband and I did not face. Their children are still very young. I think the world is becoming more dangerous in many ways than it was during the years when my husband and I were raising our own children. We married later than average for our generation, and had kids later, so we were raising them primarily in the 80s and 90s. The youngest graduated from high school in 2003.
I never imagined them having to raise their own children in an America that would vote Trump into office. The west seems to be going backwards.
White nationalist movements are getting stronger in Europe again - in Poland (supported by the Catholic bishops there), in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, and now in western Europe - Italy - and to a degree in the UK. Certainly in the US now also. After all the denials that Trump ran a racist, hate-based campaign, with Bannon as a top advisor, they seem bold enough on the right to no longer pretend that they are not racist. Even though Bannon was kicked out of the WH by Kelly, Bannon and Le Pen of France's far-right National Front party were invited speakers to the CPAC convention last month, a group that booed Mona Charen, a long-time "real" conservative commentator. She needed a security escort when she left the stage. This is the heart of today's GOP, now in charge of the govt, and most state govts. My former party.
In France this week, appearing with Le Pen and speaking to the French National Front, Bannon said that they should not fear being labeled "racists", or "xenophobes", that they should consider it a badge of honor.
I don't know what is going to happen, but I do fear for my grandchildren. What type of world will they face as adults?
Here's a rambling NYTimes piece about the Parkland students and the social media culture they live in, or at least the one they'll talk to a reporter about. They strike me as being somewhat more diverse and prudent than the young woman quoted in the original post. Maybe that's why they haven't been on television!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-media.html?rref=collection%2Fissuecollection%2Ftodays-new-york-times&action=click&contentCollection=todayspaper®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
I don't have a lot to add. Apparently Goldberg received quite a bit of blowback to the USA Today column that Katherine cited in the original post, because he defended and expanded on his points at his National Review blog.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationalreview.com/blog/g-file/the-wisdom-of-youth/
My personal view is that these Parkland young people are in possession of one of those stubborn facts that ideology can't wish away. I guess I'd also say to Goldberg that, even if adults are, as a whole, less dopey than teenagers, there are still quite a few things about the United States that are screwed up; our gun policies are somewhere near the top of that list; and this situation is clear enough that a reasonably bright teenager can apprehend it (and a reasonably articulate teenager can say true things about it to reporters).
Well, I guess I have one other thought: I've written before, and continue to believe, that there is something instrumental, or exploitable, about school shootings and gun control. Exploiting the news is a perfectly acceptable political stratagem, and in fact I don't think Goldberg objects to the approach. My objection is that gun reform zeal waxes and wanes with the media's interest in the latest school shooting.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, Republicans and others comfortable with the gun-law status quo have been content to watch the zeal for reform decay as we all get distracted by the next headline. So it's interesting that President Trump is keeping the issue on the front burner by pursuing his reforms. There are two possibilities: (1) he is sincere about wishing to bring about the reforms he is proposing (which include the incredibly boneheaded proposal to arm teachers); or (2) he is not sincere about wishing to bring about reforms, and his package of reforms is a sham. If the latter is the case, then his strategy is having unintended consequences, and presumably it is driving the pro-status-quo gang nuts that he doesn't just shut up and let the reform movement die out again.
I don't suppose Congress will end up approving Trump's proposals.
I meant to add - possibly the teenagers who are advocating in the wake of the Parkland shooting see themselves as the heirs to the Vietnam War-era protesters. The two situations aren't very comparable: the odds of one of today's teens getting shot in a school shooting is almost infinitesimal (although greater than zero, just barely) whereas soldiers who were sent to Vietnam and put in the field with a rifle were not much better off than cannon fodder. I've read that casualty rates for soldiers on the front lines were quite high - perhaps approaching 50%. The context for this is that many uniformed personnel in-country were not actually "at the point of the spear". This is what I've been told; I'd be glad to be corrected if it's not exactly right.
ReplyDeleteI am remembering a statistic that over 50,000 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War. So yes, the casualty rates probably were that high among the ones on the front line.
DeleteI don't think the teenagers at Parkland, much as I applaud their activism, see themselves as picking up some type of protest banner from 50 years ago. I doubt very much if they know anything about casualty rates in Vietnam or about the fact that kids from the working class were disproportionately represented among the frontline troops in SE Asia.
DeleteI think they're probably nice kids who live in a well-to-do suburb, went to a school that seems to be nicely diverse, have good parents and teachers who care about them, and are (rightly) freaked out that 17 people they knew got gunned down before anybody could stop it.
At the time of the Vietnam War, if I recall correctly, the ratio of point to shaft on the military spear was about 1 to 9. But the 9, of course, provided penetrating power to the point and could, the war being what it was, come under mortar attack almost any time.
Delete