"8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine article

[Ophidia]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

Personal rant on that note. I hate it when people imply that it's because "kids these days" aren't willing to save money, and have "fancy gadgets like TVs and mobile phones".

I don't think it's so much about saving money, or frittering money away on toys. I think it's more about what people feel they deserve out of life. You fight for things you feel you deserve, but if you already have everything, there is no motivation for any social revolution. Americans also have this weirdly optimistic society, where everyone always wants to believe that everything is okey-dokey, and get scared if anyone implies otherwise.

[AzazelEblis]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

Don't Get me started on a REAL free market. A real free market demands that the most penniless hobo could start up whatever multinational conglomerate they wish, and start making money TOMORROW. Why so many old farts buy into that myth, I will never know.

You know what? I'm gonna level with y'all. It's ok to admire Dr MLK, since he did all of this and that.... but then I look around and see racism passed down among families. I see black communities still broken, even after the Panthers sought to empower them, and affirmative action is it's own complicated social mess. Gay rights activists did all this, only to be ignored in school curricula, and have their progress curtailed. Sexism, and all the social issues that come with it, are still running strong, sometimes even getting rewarded. The rich still get richer, and the poor still get poorer. I see all these people walking to cure cancer, year after year, and we still have motherf$%king cancer. You old farts sure make a lot of noise, your politics is filled with empty buzzwords that you don't understand, and you wonder why nothing gets done. You don't continue the changes that these great figures represented, or you pervert them into political correctness. After setting this example, you have the audacity to wonder why my generation is apathetic? ROFLMAO. You people moved mountains, just to put them right back. Or worse, you all deluded yourselves in the first place.

Then, I see this culture of excess presented to my peers - this glamorized, overhyped pipe dream that no one can really attain and hold onto - and they seek that garbage? But it doesn't involve breaking the world apart by trying to fix it. Rather than play your game of cognitive dissonance, much of my generation would rather ignore it all.

The rest of the developed world has programs to help young people get jobs with their degrees. Here, we're just left on the parents' couch. Us and the premature retirees are left out more than anyone else, according to anyone who actually pays attention. In the middle, there's often-underpaid gen-X'ers, and world-revolves-around-me baby boomers. If we weren't all either overcoddled or convinced that action is hopeless, I'd say my generation is ripening to get politically active, and moreso than just voting for a black man - (you know, some hope that you old farts opened your minds) - but I know better.

We've seen all your efforts fall hollow.

[Dez]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

So we don't care because we're PostModern?

[AzazelEblis]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

So we don't care because we're PostModern?

Sure, it's a generation of hipsters. However, I don't see what trying to be "ironic" has to do with what I presented. Disillusioned might be more accurate of a portrayal.

We either care too much, trying to finish what those before us started; or we see it all as futile, because a whole generation mobilized and effectively failed. Most of us just see it as irrelevant due to educational failure and the dissonance of the presented history from our reality. Being told to shut up and go to soccer practice didn't help.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

If we weren't all either overcoddled or convinced that action is hopeless, I'd say my generation is ripening to get politically active,

....and that right there is the point of Levine's article.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

So am I to believe that there is some kind of country-wide conspiracy going on, involving a colaboration between business, banking and the government, intended to induce non-resistance in young people, led and carried out by a super villian named "Corporatocracy."

Not trying to be sarcastic here, I just want to know who my enemies are.

Yup - that makes more sense than what Perzephone said - that people are content with the way things are going for them - if you are paranoid or want somebody to blame for your life other than the choices you yourself made.

[Dez]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

Like I said...there is evidence for this being the calm before the storm. Something will push this generations buttons. Things were fairly calm until the Vietnam war for that generation. Being politically active does not mean, imo, being obnoxious for no reason.

[Simon Slade]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

On the topic of unavailable jobs after college:

Years ago, it was perfectly easy to get a job without a high school diploma, and then it wasn't. What happened? Almost everyone had a high school diploma. So the easiest thing for employers to do was to require a diploma for hiring and that would weed out the few without one. The popularity of education leveled the playing field a bit.

Now, more and more people are obtaining college degrees. I think that this is following in the same way as high school diplomas. It's not going to be an advantage to have one; it's going to be a disadvantage to not have one.
A push for master's degrees is coming. And it will get even harder to distinguish yourself.

I know that it's not entirely on topic and not entirely thought out, but I wanted to write it down, before I lost it.

[AzazelEblis]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

Like I said...there is evidence for this being the calm before the storm. Something will push this generations buttons. Things were fairly calm until the Vietnam war for that generation.

I disagree, and so does the history of Rock & Roll.

Being politically active does not mean, imo, being obnoxious for no reason.

Well, tell that to the Tea Party. :P

And really, some of that was to demonstrate a point about how ageism goes both ways, and both sides can easily find their vindication and ignore that of their opposition. Really, its mostly in response to comments that "its all been handed to us". DR, you and I know better than that, but the part of it which you weren't addressing easily lent itself to... some theatrics.

....and that right there is the point of Levine's article.

Levine's article attributes this phenomenon to all sorts of interesting ideas, which appear mutually exclusive to what I presented in that same post you quoted. This attempt to tie my presentation to Levines is, at best, hasty. Really, how much of what's on Levine's list also applies to the youth of London who rioted for those several nights? Where is the cultural distinction? That's an analysis worth following, rather than citing that we see the same obvious behavior.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

Levine's article was written before the London riots, and he was talking about Americans. (But this brings up the question: Is rioting a valid method of bringing about social change, or is it just bad behavior? )

[AzazelEblis]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

Levine's article was written before the London riots, and he was talking about Americans.

So? That entire list applies quite soundly to the same Londoners who rioted. If you believe me there, it negates the premise of Levine's article.

(But this brings up the question: Is rioting a valid method of bringing about social change, or is it just bad behavior? )

Eh, depends. It almost sounds like a new thread idea, tbh.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

So? That entire list applies quite soundly to the same Londoners who rioted. If you believe me there, it negates the premise of Levine's article.

I don't know enough about England's taxes, schools, tuitions, corporations, social security, etc. to make an adequate reply, other than I thought their systems were quite different than the USA's, for some reason.

[Ophidia]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

But this brings up the question: Is rioting a valid method of bringing about social change, or is it just bad behavior?

I think it depends on why you're rioting. Those kids in London began rioting for pretty much the same reason as what happened in Watts or L.A. - a black man was killed by police, the man's family & friends held a vigil at the police station wanting to talk to an official about what happened, and things turned ugly. Someone probably threw a rock & set the whole thing off. They didn't begin rioting for social changes, better finances, more job opportunities, etc. - those were added in by news reports as the riots spread and lingered. Yes, the riots may have been fueled by socio-economic causes, but that wasn't what started it.

In Egypt, those people rioted for change.

There may be changes in law enforcement tactics in London to prevent something like this happening again, probably curfews enforced, maybe the next time a large group of people gathers in public they may enact a form of martial law. They are probably going to try prosecuting anyone they can identify in any footage of the rioting - but Parliament isn't falling and the Queen ain't stepping down.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

I'm guessing that Parliament & the Queen, like Congress & the President, aren't too worried about THEIR standard of living.

[LadyGarnetRose]

Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

We've seen all your efforts fall hollow.

You know what kiddo, I'm going to level with you.

21 years ago I was screaming the exact same thing as you.


Then I grew up and realized I didn't know it all.