From their story about bullies, titled “Are We a Nation of Bullies?” which includes everything but giving a bully a black eye to tell him or her to leave you alone:
It’s easy, of course, to point the finger at the teens themselves: indeed, research has shown that youth today are more narcissistic and less empathetic, reared on technology that makes it easy for them to tune out others’ problems. One study, of 14,000 college students, even managed to determine that this generation is some 40 percent less empathetic than the coeds of three decades ago.
No [redacted] Sherlock.
The author catches on to something further into the article:
It doesn’t take much more than a quick flip through the cable channels, from Real Housewives pulling each others’ hair to an entire genre of reality television, to see: we are a culture that’s increasingly focused on others’ humiliation. How can we expect kids not to mimic our behavior when everything from politics to entertainment is telling them the opposite?
What kid watches “Desperate Housewives?” My nephew once told me it was a “cougar show.”
“A cougar show?”
“You know! A show for cougars.”
Adults watch that stuff and many of them are gullible enough to think that adults should actually behave that way. Kids watch MTV, VH1, they listen to Ke$ha singing about washing her teeth with a bottle of Jack, they have Planned Parenthood, in utter irony, suckling at the teat of the government udder whilst they march into your kids’ classrooms to talk to them about safe sex and birth control instead of any alternative which involves keeping your knees kissing. (And despite all the safe sex talk? The teenage pregnancy rate keeps climbing.) They’ve grown up in a culture where people unable to articulately express their viewpoint screech at people who disagree with them and call them “Nazis” and “racists” and then have the audacity to tell people not to bully and “it gets better!” (Unless you’re a conservative! Especially a black conservative!)
They have an administration that spent them into debt while telling them to watch their pennies. They live in the world where people can screw their daughters and it’s OK, where men are treated like second-class citizens by chicks who would rather be lazy and not compete so instead coddle themselves by lowering the bar; they live in a pretty messed up society.
It’s no wonder that kids today have less empathy. But it’s not just focusing on the humiliation of others, as mentioned in the article; our society is obsessed with instant gratification and refusing responsibility. These are the two biggest obstacles. It’s not enough to say that it’s just entertainment and pop culture is responsible (and us for partaking in it) – let’s look at the ideology which promotes these things. What ideology has followers who are the first to call anyone who disagrees with the above “prudes?” They’re positively shocked by the STD rate but are the ones preaching empowerment through sex. (Like screwing for chastity!) They demand respect for women but want to create federal laws that give them special rights because they preach an identity inferiority that allows for subscription to victimization.
I maintain hope that another “Greatest Generation” is around the corner. I often think that the Greatest Generation gave birth to the Crappiest Generation, the stinky hippies with their slacktivism and demand for government welfare in the name of freedom. The Gen X generation never got past “Reality Bites,” apparently and my generation, the Gen Yers … Facebook? Maybe a conservative revolution?
I see the signs. Politics won’t change until the people do and I see the potential out there. The author of the article got it right in the headline, but more and more are becoming unaffected by the bullying from progressive pop-culture. It’s difficult to expect kids not to bully one another when they don’t have many examples otherwise in society.
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