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Hasn’t This Occurred to Anyone Else?
We tell our kids that the world is ending because of global warming and anything they do about it is insufficient. We teach them that their country is something to be ashamed of, not proud. We make sure that they have no heroes by describing anyone admirable in the worst possible way. We preach that if they are white or male they are to blame for most of society’s problems, and that their repentance will never be good enough. We denigrate or remove any masculine influence in their lives. We sneer at religious faith and teach that morality is relative. And we’re surprised when they shoot up a school?
Published in General
Or just become Democrats.
C.S. Lewis thought of it.
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” —C.S. Lewis
That quote instantly came to my mind, too.
I would say it’s stuff like that that ends up shoving them to the far right extremes. Since their accusers are largely Democrats, they aren’t going to move that direction. But too many on the right are writing off young men as well.
Then the far right radical fringe comes along and promises to fill the void in their lives, and they’re sucked right in.
As I mentioned in another thread, conservatives need to figure out how to reach these young men. “Subscribe to our newsletter and sign up for our cruise” isn’t doing it.
That is what leads boys to gangs as well. The only hope for boys is for men to start acting like men. If you can make a kid, you better be willing to raise them.
“Never has youth been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our own land and day. Increasing urban life with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli just when an active life is most needed, early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline, the haste to know and do all befitting man’s estate before its time, the mad rush for sudden wealth and the reckless fashions set by its gilded youth–all these lack some of the regulatives they still have in older lands with more conservative conditions.”
– Granville Stanley Hall (1904)
“The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?”
– Reverend Enos Hitchcock (1790)
“Whither are the manly vigor and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt.”
– Valerie Steele (1771)
“Youth were never more sawcie, yea never more savagely saucie . . . the ancient are scorned, the honourable are contemned, the magistrate is not dreaded.”
– Thomas Barnes (1624)
“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.”
– Horace (~20 BC)
“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, via Plato (~400 BC)
I think you missed the point. There’s more going on here than just the standard criticism of the young, Misty.
I disagree.
That quote is from The Abolition of Man, first delivered as a series of lectures in February 1943.
It strikes me as a curious condemnation of the state of British manhood at the time, considering that British men were storming the beaches of Normandy only 16 months later.
You’re free to do that. Just wanted to let you know you’re wrong.
Read the OP again. This isn’t about the middle-aged complaining about idle youth. This is about one generation removing all hope from the men of a younger generation. Giving them nothing to live for. Providing them with no role models. Telling them that they are guilty by virtue of their race and sex, and they have no means of redemption. That’s a far cry from just complaining about the lazy youths.
Thanks for all these quotes for the Quote of the Day.
Thank you. That is exactly what I had in mind. I think that the apocalyptic attitude of the late 20th century (Rachel Carson, The Population Bomb, etc) has come to a crescendo that is profoundly damaging to our young people.
I think it is worse than that. The youth of today are told that race is their defining characteristic and that all groups are against each other. They are also taught that humans are a virus infesting Mother Earth. Look at the El Paso shooter. That nutter was an eco-terrorist that wanted a smaller population and that getting rid of immigrants was a logical starting point.
Thankfully, this was in the middle of the Third Great Awakening, which reversed much of the bad trend.
These were right before the Second Great Awakening.
This one was right before the English Civil War. Thankfully, we eventually had the First Great Awakening.
Yep, right around when Rome lost its Republic.
Again, right before Athens lost its democracy and was conquered by the Macedonians.
The doomsayers are not always wrong, though sometimes they (or the Lord) may be effective in summoning people back to good morals.
More of a response to Misthiocracy: There is mounting empirical evidence of a substantial social breakdown. Marriage is down, illegitimacy is way up, and birthrates are down.
But you can keep on fiddling, if you want.
Instead of stirring up enthusiasm to make this horrible world better, the Left has fed hopelessness and disappointment. And rather than feel that way, some kids drift to hating themselves and hating others. The only way out is through ending your life and taking others with you. It’s so tragic.
Well, not to mention suicide.
“Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”
We laugh at this because it is part of his tale of how he regains hope and becomes the Black Pirate Roberts.
It is different though, to tell an entire generation that their planet is dying and that they will die too.
This is state-sponsored hysteria and it almost certainly contributes to mental illness in the young.
Dread Pirate Roberts.
Oof, you’re going to have some major penance for that one.
I’m with @misthiocracy. For thousands of years people have been saying that we are living in the worst of times, and also the end times. No one has ever lived in a time with such bad values, except for in the past. Yes, white people are being told that they are an inferior race today. Was it better when black and Indian people were told that they were the inferior races? It’s not like society declaring that some races are better than others is a 21st century phenomenon.
Right, but mass killings by young, disaffected white Americans is new. I think disaffection and despair can be explained by the secular, materialist rectal view of America and its founding inculcated in our “schools” and mass media.
They repossessed my nerd card and now I have to watch network tv for a month :(
Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/15/593831564/the-disconnect-between-perceived-danger-in-u-s-schools-and-reality
Also:
Source: https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/
And yet we are systematically terrifying the school kids with “active shooter drills.” That fear will generate a reliable pool of anti-gun votes in a few years.
That’s why we need to use facts to help people put these things into perspective. How many times have you heard people say something like, “When I was a kid we were allowed to run all over town by ourselves. You can’t do that these days because of all the kidnappers and child molesters.” The rate of kidnappings (which was never a realistic everyday fear) was substantially higher a generation or two ago. It’s just more publicized today, so people think there’s a kidnapper stalking every playground.
Statistics on kidnapping:
A family abduction is the taking or concealing of a child under the age of 17 against the person’s legal rights. Family members abduct children in 1,230 of the total kidnapping cases.
A stranger abduction, also known as a non-family abduction, is the result of a stranger taking or luring a child under the age of 17. Of the 1,435 kidnappings per year, 205 were non-family abductions.
However:
In 2016, 465,676 children were reported missing to the authorities. During the same year, there were a total of 647,435 missing people.
In almost 90% of the reported missing children cases, abduction is not the issue. It’s often due to miscommunication, getting lost, or children running away.
There’s an idea for a post. How many Ricochet members ran away from home when they were kids? Did they come back or stay away?