Tuesday, June 28, 2016

The Lost Generation

Professor Patrick Deneen explains how kids have become a generation of know nothings

So many excerpts I can paste here but these are a few:

"My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture."

"We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like "critical thinking," "diversity," "ways of knowing," "social justice," and "cultural competence."

"In such a world, possessing a culture, a history, an inheritance, a commitment to a place and particular people, specific forms of gratitude and indebtedness (rather than a generalized and deracinated commitment to "social justice"), a strong set of ethical and moral norms that assert definite limits to what one ought and ought not to do (aside from being "judgmental") are hindrances and handicaps."

I know the Millennials are taking a beating recently.  They earned it to a degree.  As I have observed elsewhere, it is every bit our own damn fault.  The good Professor here does an excellent job in explaining the depths to which we have sunk and will continue to sink.  We have wasted a generation to our own excesses and we will see them drift away at our own peril.  At a time when they need mentorship the most, we are bored to distraction and dither away the last chance at passing on freedom to later generations.  We can continue to dump on them or see this as an opportunity to pass the torch.  When this light goes out, who or when would you suppose will light it again?

14 comments:

TotC said...

To quote the band Nightiwsh, "It's hard to light a candle,easy to curse the dark instead."

PO'd American said...

Largely due to the PC culture and these GD F@#king Cell phones that they can't live without. Some things never never ever change: "Panem et circenses"

Millennial Making It said...

Embrace a millennial. Take them shooting. Take them hunting and have them help butcher a deer. Let them know where their dinner comes from. Take them to church and let them see a culture of people who believe in an omnipotent being bigger than The State, that could crush the state with the blink of an eye.

Be the mentors they never had, the fathers for which they long. Teach them about courage, dedication, family, stability, leadership, and humility. Find a millennial and treat them like your own kids. Nobody else is going to teach them, and they don't know what they don't know. A generation of latch-key kids of parents who shirked their duties can only learn what is put in front of them. Don't mock them, help them wipe the scales from their eyes and become better people for their own sake, and for yours.

countenance said...

Millennials?

We're living the Era of Peak Boomer. The Baby Boomers, considering their ages, (56-70 this year), are at the nexus of their power and control over institutions. And millennials are largely their direct progeny.

Anonymous said...

I am just gobsmacked how college students (who one would think define uneducated, else why be in college?) think they know enough to tell universities what should, and shouldn't, be in their curriculum.

Do tell?

I can only imagine how recruits could show up at Basic and tell their DI's how to do their jobs....That makes me smile :)

Moe Death said...

We don't have this problem in my family's younger generation. Well, okay, my liberal sister's kids are... uh, useless, but all the rest know what's going on and how they feel about this country being trashed by Obongo and his Praetorian media.

We're ready. You?

Bill and Domino
III

Anonymous said...

There will be, unfortunately for some, a huge die-off WHEN-NOT-IF the big emergency comes. Whether it comes from a natural disaster, like a Yellowstone Super-volcano, or a New Madras Fault earthquake, or a Coronal Mass Ejaculation, or a financial collapse, or World War with the Russkies and/or Chinese, or a Civil War, they are supremely unprepared.
Few job skills, no survival skills, and no common sense. Not to mention no useful knowledge. They can't save themselves, and their keepers will likely die with them. It sucks to be them.

skybill said...

Hi Mike and Matt,
Yup, sad state of affairs we have around here!! Still, there's Hope!! Some years ago, quite few now.....I left the local "Pop and Rock" Radio stations that I listened too............. and went "COUNTRY!!!!!!" There's "Old School", "New School" Country and "OUTLAW COUNTRY!!" I love it all!! As a line in one current song goes..."They're songs about ME!!, and Who I AM!!" Still I have hope....like Charlie Daniels says in his "NRA vid" talking about the "Backbone of America" the People often mentioned as living in "Flyover Country!!" There's a lot of "Good People" out there in that place called "Fly Over Country" only you don't here a lot of bitchin' and gripin' about "micro aggression's and Bu!!$#!t like that because they are too busy "Working for a Living!!!!" providing for this Country!!
As a few lines from another current Country song go ..."He don't even know how to bait a hook, or how to skin a Buck, He don't know who Jack Daniels is ..." I'll leave ya' to yer devices to find and hear the rest of the song......
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.... my beer glass is about empty, I hear Jack callin'...till later,
Yer man in Manchac!!!!
Support yer' local Armed Infidel!!!,
III%,
skybill-out
PS For Millennial Making it..just take away their "Refrigerator!!!"

skybill said...

Hi Mike and Matt,
Just to add a note to my last post..... Yes you hear the Mill's going on about the "Micro aggression's" being directed against them blah...blah...etc. In my "Midnight Rides across the airwaves" I find "Places of interest!!" If you haven't already found it yourself... I found this spot...it's called..... "The Last Refuge" just direct your browser to theconservativetreehouse.com and scroll down to (25June2016 by sundance) the title of the piece......
COLD ANGER-Entire Institutional Systems Will Be Dispatched Like a Feather In a Hurricane.... Read it all......
This is "Not" the first time sundance has mentioned this thing called "Cold Anger" but it fits.
I'll leave it at that!!!!!
Along with yer' Gunz, Got.............."COLD ANGER"...OUTLAW?
Support yer' local Armed Infidel!!,
III%,
skybill-out

Anonymous said...

I've had pretty good success getting in my millennial bro-in-law's head by teaching him things since he was little. Started teaching him how to box when he was only about 10 way back in the late 90's and even took him to Gleason's Gym to spar with adults. Spoke to him how lying was wrong when he thought it was O.K. 'cause everyone did it. Try to get him involved with me, my hubby and dad-in-law restoring old vehicles (must say, he's not too keen on that one). He's grown to take on the responsibility of marriage, home-ownership and fatherhood. And now I send him tons of articles (along with everyone else) showing the nefarious designs of the "New World Order" crowd and he gets the idea. So as much as our enemies have tried to brainwash that generation, it's up to us to put in the work to counter it. It really isn't hard. It takes shitheads in our age group to create shitheads in that age group. I'll bet every one of us knew some foppish "liberal" growing up. Well that clown probably had kids and taught them to be a foppish liberal. And they all have seem to taken over so-called higher learning institutions. We're the ones that have the antidote for that learned poison. Bang it into every young persons head in our own families and we just might be able to turn the tidal wave of stupidity around.

DTG said...

Reblogged...and amplified...sort of.

https://defensivetraininggroup.wordpress.com/2016/06/29/and-now-for-something-completely-different-but-absolutely-necessary/

Anonymous said...

I don't agree with his misused of the so-called "buzzword" critical thinking. Otherwise spot on. Critical thinking isn't "undefined"....it is EXACTLY what is missing from our education process....and it's missing on purpose. We are getting exactly the type of education the government wants....that which produces docile, uninformed debt slaves who cannot critically think, are competent in basic math and understand economics or simple logic.

The definition of critical thinking: noun
noun: critical thinking

the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.

Backwoods Engineer said...

Matthew, there are some good 'kids' in your generation. (I'm an old guy, a GenX'er.)
My own two adult children, who are both contributing members of society, are examples. As you are, too, from what I can tell.

Anonymous said...

Millennial Making It said...

Embrace a millennial. Take them shooting. Take them hunting and have them help butcher a deer. Let them know where their dinner comes from. Take them to church and let them see a culture of people who believe in an omnipotent being bigger than The State, that could crush the state with the blink of an eye.

Be the mentors they never had, the fathers for which they long. Teach them about courage, dedication, family, stability, leadership, and humility. Find a millennial and treat them like your own kids. Nobody else is going to teach them, and they don't know what they don't know. A generation of latch-key kids of parents who shirked their duties can only learn what is put in front of them. Don't mock them, help them wipe the scales from their eyes and become better people for their own sake, and for yours.

June 28, 2016 at 4:17 PM

Sure, I'd love do all that, the only problem is I can't do it by force....force which would be needed because one sure as hell isn't going to get voluntary compliance or participation from these dopes.
Try getting one out of bed, meeting an appointment time, or God FORBID!!!! away from their cell phone for three minutes, to read a book, to walk a mile,.....ARE YOU CRAZY????

Better to start working with those who are still in grade school (and even that is going to be a chore) than to try and penetrate the empty, cement skull of a 3/4 indoctrinated millennial who has ZERO life experience yet thinks they know everything.

They have nothing, know nothing, will amount to nothing, and they really, REALLY don't care one way or the other. I'd just as soon see them sit on the sidelines of life and STFU and let those who have a clue in this world or are at least curious enough to look for one take the torch and carry it.