What I consider to be one of the most cloying, namby-pamby and ridiculous movements in history is finally starting to pay dividends in the form of an entire US generation - termed the Millennials - who have no spirit or identity at all, outside of their complete lack of motivation.
About 20 years ago, the slimy liberal education system won out and instituted the "self-esteem" movement. The idea was that the smarmy leaders of this movement (think bowel here) didn't want our little babies to ever feel left out, incapable or to get their feelings hurt, because this would damage their precious little psyches. Instead, the reward system was reversed, and instead of glamorizing achievement and exceptional contribution, these sick psycho-babble numbnuts began rewarding every meaningless utterance and finger painting that the class morons made.
This has produced an entire generation of individuals who have no volition at all. The smart ones are not motivated to achieve because there's no incentive, and the stupid ones are not motivated to try because they get rewarded for sucking up air and generating heat.
I never thought that I would agree with Martha Stewart on anything but recipes (occasionally), but when I saw this article the other day, I had to think that perhaps she does have some redeeming value.
Where I depart with Martha is that I don't entirely blame the kids. I put most of the onus on the parents and the system they created.
Having bought into the Socialist programming, the parents completely forgot that Capitalism requires, nay demands competition. By raising a generation of emotional basket cases who think that that they are owed the world, the parents have done a massive disservice to their progeny.
The whole Self-Esteem (bowel) movement posited that children receive permanent psychological damage from losing. Games were modified or banned if there was the least possibility that someone could lose. It also claimed that competition is harmful and everyone should receive everything in equal dollops, rather than the exceptional ones getting bigger dollops.
This had a two-fold effect on the kids. The exceptional ones decided there was no point in striving to achieve, because no matter how well they did, the morons got the same attention, adulation and rewards. Meanwhile, the morons came to believe that they didn't have to strive harder because they could sit in a corner and drool and get the same attention, adulation and rewards as the geniuses.
Result? An entire generation who doesn't care. The exceptional Millennials figure there's no point in trying and the moron Millennials believe they will receive all the benefits without trying.
Add to this rather toxic mix the Psycho-Babblists, who told everyone that they should never control their emotions. They had to let it all out the very nano-second they felt anything. They told us that if we controlled our emotions in favor of rationality, we would all end up damaged goods.
As a result, the Millennials are emotional basket cases, too. The least little discomfort will cause them to break down in hysterical blobs. They can't deal with human society out of fear they will face a situation that causes them emotional pain. Without the capacity to reason, the Millennials are at the mercy of marketers and advertisers, who can easily push emotional hot buttons to make an entire class of society do whatever they want.
Put all this together with technology that allows these under-achieving, emotional kids to retreat from real interactions and disappear into a digital world of their own making. The cell-phone zombies are people terrified of interacting with real life. If they look up, they may encounter something that will cause emotional damage or require them to achieve a goal. Instead, they retreat into Pokemon Universes.
Part of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be laid directly at the feet of Socialism. The Russians had built a society in which no matter how much or how little one worked, one received the same (poor) return: everyone got the same squalid apartments, went to the same mediocre schools, and stood in the same lines to buy the same useless toilet paper. There was no incentive to excel, so the economy ultimately collapsed because of it.
The US, being incapable of learning from history, pursued the same course. It added the same Edu-Babble and Psycho-Babble that destroyed the Soviet system. Now, the US is harvesting the first generation of useless and unmotivated individuals.
The Millennials want to enter to workforce at the upper management level, or better, have all the perks and pay without the work. They want everyone to stop and acknowledge their emotional outbursts. They want everyone to be absolutely equal, even if that means bringing everyone down to abject poverty, rather than lifting everyone up.
All of this came about because somewhere back, someone convinced the rest of us that Capitalism was evil. Since people weren't educated enough to distinguish between Mercantilism and Capitalism, they were sold down the river and this Socialist rubbish became institutionalized in the US. The Millennials are the consequence.
One of the most profound aspects of culture is that it requires a continuity of education from one generation to the next. If the chain is broken for even one link, there is a very real risk that it can never be repaired. With the Millennials, there is a very real risk that US culture has been destroyed forever. If this generation is unable to overcome the failure of their parents to give them a proper education, then the nation may be irreparably damaged.
Given that Millennials are already without motivation, emotionally impaired and unable to educate themselves due to a lack of tools, the situation is dire. If they are not able to change themselves, there doesn't seem to be a will or ability on the part of their seniors to do it, either. As it exists now, the US is most likely lost.
Given the horrors that country has unleashed on the world in the past century, that may not be entirely bad. However, the founding principles of the US were rooted in the Enlightenment, which represents the first time in history that humanity began to codify individual rights and promote concepts like equality under the law. Since the US has squandered that rich heritage, it may be quite some time before another generation takes up the fight that brought down the monarchies of Europe and began the long fight to end slavery, both political and abject.
The Millennials, while seeming ridiculous and pitiful on the surface, may represent the end of the Enlightenment, at least for this epoch in history. This is no doubt by design, and the ongoing effort to make those who believe in a malevolent "elite" out to be "conspiracy theorists" and thus unworthy of attention have effectively prevented the majority of people from seeing the problem, and rather dismissing it as pure fantasy.
Perhaps you think I am engaging in a bit of hyperbole, but I think the case cannot be overstated. The Edu-Babble, Psycho-Babble and Socialist movements can be traced with some accuracy to various "elite" groups, and it seems rather certain that they have manipulated systems to install these programs to achieve the current ends. The reader can find ample research on these matters.
The issue becomes one of trying to reverse the damage before it is too late. Can an entire generation be remediated? That remains to be seen. Without the will or desire on their part, as well as the ability of the previous generations to repair the damage they have done out of (willful) ignorance, there is little more to do than sit back and watch the return of medieval servitude and the destruction of centuries of philosophical and societal advancement.
The damage has been done. The question is, what will we do to fix it, if anything can be done?
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