Well, yesterday I wrote about a pair of 20 somethings who are facing serious time for the identity thieving life they've been living. And here I am today with a post on 20 somethings who are members of what Emory University Professor Mark Bauerlein is terming The Dumbest Generation in his new book and his eponymous website.
I haven't read the book - and don't know if I really want to - but The Boston Globe online had a riff on it the other day, in which they pulled out a few reasons why the tag fits.
The reasons cited - mostly quotes from the book, I believe - are predictable.
"The ignorance is hard to believe ... It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. ... They are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond -- friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.''
They brazenly "disregard books and reading." (Alas.)
They can't spell. (Better check this post extra carefully.)
Those who think and write originally are ridiculed. (Alas.)
They play Grand Theft Auto. (Alack. And since I don't brazenly disregard books and reading, I will look the word "alack" up in the dictionary. On second thought, I'll just google it. And now I know that all alack is is an alas-like interjection of regret. Just as I thought.)
They don't store information. Instead, like me when I decide to look up "alack", they rely on the Internet. (Well, take it from someone who can dredge up the name of everyone in her kindergarten class; can still recite "Oh Captain, My Captain;" and remembers who hit home runs at her first baseball game in 1960. Not storing all that information isn't necessarily a bad thing. By the way, it was Ted Williams and Vic Wertz.)
Etc.
Here's what the DG website says about its own book:
Anyone who thinks this is mere intergenerational grousing, the time-worn tradition of an older generation wagging its finger at a younger one, should think again.
Drawing upon exhaustive research, detailed portraits, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents an uncompromisingly realistic study of the young American mind at this critical juncture. The book also lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.
To fail to do so may well mean sacrificing our future to the least curious and intellectual generation in national history.
So, this is all very weighty and ponderous, but if Bauerlein used a boring title like, The Critical Juncture: The Young American Mind, his readers and reviewers might take him seriously, but there wouldn't be that many of them. Now that he's slapped the gauntlet down, there'll be a lot more.
It's so wonderfully easy-breezy to slap a label on a generation, isn't it?
We've had the Perfect Generation.
Sorry, I mean the Greatest Generation.
And, now that they're all dying off, I have this sense that every other generation from here to eternity (at least my personal eternity) is going to be crapped on with some lousy designation or another - like The Worst Generation, which I've seen used to describe The Boomers.
The Dumbest Generation.
I have to say that most of the 20-ish early 30-ish people I know are not ignorant, slack-jawed slackers. They know who Dick Cheney is. They read books. They can find Iraq on the map, and can do a nifty compare and contrast of Iran and Iraq, too. They're just out of school. Or in grad school. They're starting their official careers. Or they're taking keep-it-together jobs while they see what it's like to be a writer-actor-filmmaker-dancer-musician. They're looking for a life partner, or they're getting married. They're having babies, or thinking about having babies.
Of course, most of the folks this age who I know and love are middle class/upper middle class, well-educated, smart.
Maybe it's all the rest of them of there...
Sure, there's plenty to be worried about. And that's the prospect of having all kinds of "grown-ups" among us who really don't care about anything other than who's trashing whom on MySpace.
But I'm kind of thinking that most of them will grow out of it.
Sure, it may take them a bit longer than it used to take a generation to grow out of their solipsistic obsessions, but most of them will do so in time. At least that's what I'm thinking and hoping.
There is, however, the lurking worry that there are a goodly number of people in this particular generation who, because of globalization, are not going to get the easy ride that, with obvious and painful exceptions, earlier generations got. Not that it's one big glide for any one generation, but, let's face it, those of us who grew up before the world became so shrunken were all lucky to be born into a big, rich, job-producing economy - with a lot of those jobs around even for those who may not have known who the vice president of the country is.
Most of the "young folks" I know will be okay.
But I think of the sons of our buddy Larry-the-mailman.
Larry is a great guy - smart, decent, funny, good. And we like him a lot.
He's a high school grad - and Viet Nam vet - who took the Civil Service exam in the way-back and has been working for the PO since.
Larry has two sons in their late twenties.
They're both high school graduates, but neither one of them has managed to find anything that resembles a steady job, let alone a career, for themselves.
Easy for me to say they should have gotten themselves a trade, or joined the service, or stayed in school. But they're also the sorts of guys who, a generation ago, would have been able to find some sort of semi-skilled factory work which may well have led to skilled factory work.
Those jobs don't exist anymore.
So Larry's sons take pick up jobs - non-union laborer, extra guy on the moving crew, seasonal retail - and cycle in and out of his house. When they're home, he tells us, they sit there glued to the TV watching sports, smoking and drinking his beer. They play Grand Theft Auto.
Just a wild guess, but I'm betting that neither of them could spot Iran or Iraq on the map.
When does it get better for them? Unless something motivates them to get off their butts, get themselves into a class or two at the local community college, think further ahead than the next version of GTA being released... Or forces them to take a drudge job, however drab, boring, and ill-paid, and see if they can make something out of it. Where do these guys go?
The Dumbest Generation is a harsh term and, like most/all sweeping generational generalization can't possibly be all-encompassing.
But guys like Larry's sons? How many of them are there out there? And where do they all end up?
That's something worth worrying about.
Maybe I will buy Bauerlein's book, after all.
Maureen, I have that same nagging worry. In fact, I'd like to use your post (if not the book itself)with my college classes to attempt to shake them out of that little world you describe.
ReplyDeleteMy prediction: they will read it, nod to it, but feel deep down that their career success will be determined by people more like them than like me, and it will all work out. So no worries, back to GTA and Facebook.
What they will find, I fear, is that their peers who DO grow out of it will become bosses, and have little patience for those who didn't. At which point it will be too late.
It's harsh - but what if Larry kicked the "kids" out of the house?
ReplyDeleteOf course, not being a parent, I'm an expert on raising childen (heh) but I'd submit that the "enabling generation" makes the "dumbest generation" possible.
I too know some wonderful young (under 30) people - but I also know (and know of) many people who see nothing wrong with Mom & Dad picking up the bills forever. In fact, they expect it.
I am really sick of people judging me by my generation. I have a BA and and M.Ed (which I earned with a 4.0 GPA), and I work pretty damn hard. I read lots of books, prefer Bette Davis movies to Lindsay Lohan ones, and can play two instruments. I volunteers for charities, keep my home and garden clean, have a good husband, and am an active member of my community. I have never owned a gaming console of any sort, don't drink, don't smoke, have never done drugs--in other words, I live a clean respectable life. I'm really ticked off that people classify me and my generation as spongers.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I really had to get that off my chest. The "Dumbest Generation" book has pissed me off like no other book has since Ann Coulter's last trash-heap.
This afternoon, I'm going to the wedding of two wonderful people who are members of Bauerlein's "Dumbest Generation" and, like Kate, they couldn't be further from the group that he describes. Justin has just finished up his second year of law school; Tiffany has an MLS and works as an informatiion archivist. They are a smart, wonderful, full of purpose and full of promise.
ReplyDeleteAs I noted in my post, Bauerlein may have a point at some level, but has chosen a deliberately provocative (and book selling and talk-show attracting) title which makes a sweeping generalization that creates a picture that's unrecognizable to many who, like Kate, fall into this demographic.
I do fear that, given globalization there are pressures on the twenty-somethings that didn't exist a generation ago, and that at the lower end of the education and ambition totem pole there are lots of "Larry Jr's" who, a few decades ago, would have latched on to "something" by now, but who are going nowhere - other than to bed in the same bedroom they've slept their entire life in.
There's always Mary's "tough love" recipe which, I'm sure, would work for some and which, for others, will be a one way ticket to homelessness.
We should probably all read Bauerlein's book - however god-awfully he chose to entitle it - and see what he has to say.
A few quick comments during my lunch break:
ReplyDelete1)Globalization pressures are not an acceptable excuse for mediocracy. The world we have now has more oportunities than ever, not fewer.
2)I should never have to explain to an employee that playing WoW on the job is not acceptable. (Particularly when said employee makes over $100k/yr). Although I love how eloquently this post is written, and it gives me hope for this generation, there are some really "dumb" people that cannot be refuted.
3) Memorization strenghtens the brain, and imbedded access to facts allows you to process them in unique ways, and form relationships between facts that are unique to your own life and experiences. No search engine to date will fill your brain with both the facts and "revolutionary" associations.