The Cult of Youth

How many students in American high schools, both public and private, can be said to have been brought up well?

AmConMag: Political Mental Map: Life Is Like High School By ROD DREHER

Treating Young People Like "Special Snowflakes"

The authors of the final document may be worse than the parents of Millenials.

CWR: Thoughts on five problematic passages in the Synod’s Final Document by Fr Nicholas Gregoris
Comments on passages having to do with motherhood and fatherhood, friendship and relationships, “questions” and sexuality, music, and liturgy.

Infantalizing Tripe

And rather clericalist, too.

“I would like to say to the young people, in the name of all of us adults: forgive us if often we have not listened to you, if, instead of opening our hearts, we have filled your ears,” Pope Francis said.

“As Christ’s Church, we want to listen to you with love, certain of two things: that your lives are precious in God’s eyes, because God is young and loves young people, and that your lives are precious in our eyes too, and indeed necessary for moving forward,” he continued.

Does any of this help young "adults" get out of adultlescence?

CNA: Synod letter to young people: Our sins must not be an obstacle for your trust

The letter.

"Teen Culture"

Zero Hedge: "Teen Culture" is the New Imperialism, and it is destroying the world

Sickness in the West

Infantilization by Martin van Creveld

Fr. Rutler on the Election

A Populist Election and Its Aftermath

What will the frightened half-adults do when they leave their safe spaces and enter a society where there is no one to offer them hot chocolate during their tantrums? Christ formed his disciples in a more practical way: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matt.10:16). We are here today because those disciples did as they were told, and were not shrewd as doves and innocent as snakes. It is not racist, or any other unchristian form of phobia, to recall that the Apostles are Dead White Guys. If that was a liability, they managed well. Their Master, who wills that none be lost and that all be saved, was a Dead White Guy for just three days. That haunts those huddled in safe spaces and hallows all who court danger to follow him.

Incomplete Analysis

The Immature Generation By Robert VerBruggen
Why today's extended adolescence may become a permanent reality.

No mention of the man crisis; I used to accept socon essays on the peter pan syndrome and the like, but no longer. Would the causes of extended adultlescence differ for each sex? I would think so, but the author shows no awareness of what's really going on, and the socio-economic hindrances to maturity for men.

Comic Book Movie Craziness

Uhmerica doesn't have a problem... Comics Alliance

Tolerating American teenagers at In-n-Out - first-world propblem? A problem of industrialized mass society? Or a perennial problem?
Or is it specific to a certain social class?

Teenagers having a false sense of independence before they're ready? Any sort of traditional appeal, such as "Do not bring shame upon your ancestors," would probably not have much of an effect...

There Are Better Sources than William Bennet

And his version of "Man up!" Unfortunately, the author of the following does not address the obstacles that Western bourgeois Christianity sets up for greater union with Christ and the pursuit of the lay vocation. (Or an understanding of the current crisis of men.)
What Happens to a Church When the Members Won’t Grow Up? (via Ignatius Insight)

Why 20-Somethings are Moving Back Home

Katherine Newman, The Accordion Family

The Aaron Wildavksy Forum - Professor Katherine Newman
Katherine Newman - America's "missing class" presentation
Katherine S. Newman - America's Missing Class
The Urban Agenda: Katherine S. Newman on the low-wage labor force
Katherine Newman - Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America
@fordschool: Katherine Newman: Portraits of the Near Poor in America

Related:
Economic Insecurity and the Great Recession

This is 40

The latest comedy from Judd Apatow.

We're supposed to sympathize with the two 40-something frazzled parents, but I find it hard to relate to them. Is parenting so bad, or does it seem so difficult because Uhmericans have made them so busy in the pursuit of other priorities? Compare the image of parents presented today on TV and movies with that projected half a century ago - the lack of confidence, maturity, control, wisdom. The new "normal" to be embraced?





(Apple)


Rotten Tomatoes
Yahoo

Misc.
Rosamund Pike is in Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher. I'll have to remember that.

Revealing More Than They Intended?

Compare the two commercials for Siri, one with Samuel Jackson, the other with Zooey Deschanel:





Of course Samuel Jackson is being his cool badass self, displaying shopping and cooking as manly activities. (The abundance of top-notch male chefs should have already make this clear.) He's independent and cooking (presumably) for a  lady friend. That act by itself could be beta, could be alpha. I suppose normal people would be intimidated by Jackson and wouldn't suggest that possibility in his presence. (Who's going to insinuate that he's cooking for a boyfriend in this commercial, either?)

Still, despite his independence he is willing to take the time to romance a lady friend and enjoy her company. Compare his commercial with that of Zooey Deschanel. How much "creative input" did she have? Would they dare show a woman cooking for herself? No, that would probably reinforce oppressive stereotypes! So what does she do instead? Acts like a consumer and orders out, while she stays at home (on a rainy day) and... reads? Cultivates the mind? She just lazes about in her pajamas, care-free, being her whimsical, "playful" self, dancing like a little (or an immature teenaged) girl. She doesn't need to take care of herself, because she has money and is therefore independent!

That's the consequence of feminism: an increase in consumerism under the guise of independence, while women fail to engage in anything serious, like having a family or children. While Samuel Jackson is married in real life, the viewer could accept the image of him as a successful bachelor taking time out for the ladies (but on his own terms). Zooey Deschanel doesn't even try to act like a man but ends up looking like a girl with an allowance who never grew up.

Who can take her website, Hello Giggles, seriously? Just another instance of feminism, despite whatever disagreements its contributors may have with other women-oriented websites and essays.

Related:
Some friends have read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. It should make for a good leisurely read while on the plane.

Consumerism and Adultlescence

Caped Crusaders and the Flight From Society by David Masciotra

I have posted some thoughts about comic book heroes here and here.


Misc.
Another essay praising of Alexander Hamilton.

On Friday afternoon I was walking near my old jr. high (a middle school now), which was having a dance that evening. I was curious as to what music was going to be played. Back in my day, we had some pop music, but also some "alternative" stuff - typical '80s music. What did I hear? A lot of ghetto music, along with what passes for contemporary pop -- music you might hear at an [import] auto show, but now being played in a middle school. Plenty of bump and grind music; that sort of physical contact probably isn't allowed at school, but why not? The music is already corrupting the young. From what I saw, there is no longer any dress code. I think the dances used to be semi-formal when I was at the school - dress shirt and slacks, coat, and maybe a tie too. I could be wrong about the tie. But now, anything goes. I saw a group of boys walking along the field towards the dance, and they looked like wannabe thugs with their ghetto wear. I bet there were no dresses on the girls, though some may have been wearing some form of a skirt. This is supposed to be a good school in a middle-class suburb. It would be too much to expect the school to step in and teach them something about traditional dances (along with the rituals and values they represent). No square dancing here. How can you trust the degenerates in charge of the moral formation of students? "FAIL." And what do the parents think of this? Those who allow their children to go to such dances can be called permissive.

I once was in a math classroom in the 95-6 school year. Standards of behavior had fallen, as the students were so talkative during the lesson. We would never have done that in our day. What a let-down.



VFR: A dress code and its effects, 1957 - there is a mention of
Diana West.

The analysis probably doesn't go far enough for the manosphere: Why Men Are Slackers and Women Are Single by Suzanne Venker, at least with respect to characterizing men's behavior as "immaturity." Might men have reasons for avoiding marriage beyond "Why buy the cow..." After all, the same author also wrote Marriage: What's in It for Men?, which is somewhat better at identifying the nature of problem.

Mary Rose Somarriba on Kay Hymnowitz

Woman Up (via a comment at Dalrock)

The author accepts Ms. Hymnowitz's claims about the American "child-man" without asking if there are other reasons why men might be avoiding marriage other than immaturity.

The author concludes:

But Hymowitz isn’t saying women shouldn’t work. Instead, she provides a book full of evidence to suggest tactfully that to embrace womanhood more fully, young women should embrace its blessings together with its limitations.

So, in a way, Kelly Ripa hit the issue on the head. No doubt she’s one of the most successful working women today. But she didn’t reach professional success at the expense of forgetting a fundamental part of womanhood: “We give birth.”

The author is associated with the Catholic Information Center -- is she also associated with Opus Dei then? She goes beyond a tolerance of wage slavery because of contemporary exigencies to an advocacy of careerism. Isn't this just a Catholic version of "You can have it all"?

How many adults will end up watching this?

WB greenlights its planned Lego universe movie

Hollywood continues to mine the past to make money off nostalgia. Sure, even now children play with legos, but how many Uhmericans will take their children to see this movie because they can relate? Trekkies aren't the only ones who need a life.

The Hunger Games trailer came out today. The novels are popular, but the trailer is rather lousy -- not enough pathos. Should it have been more like Never Let Me Go. The protagonists aren't exactly helpless sacrifices, and it is only a trailer. As for the post-apocalyptic future? Still too clean and too much technology. And the age of the protagonists (actors?) may be a hindrance to enjoying the movie, as well.

Do men need superheroes?

(source: Yahoo Movies)

Edward Feser has something on comic book movies and the original source material: Movies, comic books, and sequential art.

Despite the gore and the rather let-down after the climax, I think I might have enjoyed re-watching Raiders of the Lost Ark more than Captain America. Marvel Studios may have found success with males by sticking to the formula and avoiding alterations to suit the SWPL crowd (even though the movies are still infected by liberal culture and ideals). Still, is it a good thing that superhero comic book movies are so popular? Or is the trend an indication that Americans are stuck in perpetual adultlescence? The problem goes beyond the nerds and the comic book geeks, extending to the video game-playing men in their 20s and 30s. (Even those in the military play video games, especially first-person shooters, to pass the time, whether in their barracks at home or overseas.)

There may be some frustrated males who are unable to do something that they can take pride in and therefore seek escapist fantasy in comic book movies, but there are plenty of "well-adjusted," employed males watching them. They may be ignorant of how they have been raised to be sheeple, subservient to those who have power and the system they maintain. A similar mentality exists among our servicemen as well. After all, they are not being formed as citizen-soldiers.

Why do we associate superhero comic books and comic book movies with the young? It is not because of the heroics or the courage or the simplistic depiction of good vs. evil, but the lack of realism which goes with the unbounded imagination of youth. The Bourne trilogy and similar action movies may not be much better with respect to the action sequences and stunts, but they at least pretend to be grounded in reality. Men cannot be inspired to do the impossible; their moral ideal must be something to which they can relate. (One can point to the exercise of the virtues in the abstract in comic book movies, but the imagination relies upon their concrete actions.)

Wuxia movies tend to be like more comic book movies than regular action movies. How about the Lord of the Rings trilogy? With whom does one identify, Gandalf or Aragorn? Or the hobbits? An objection could be that it is not the content of the story of the problem but the corruption of the moral imagination into fantasy and escapism. 2 hours of escape isn't bad; it's only a problem if one daydreams all the time about being a superhero or if more serious stories are being ignored or neglected. How much of an interest in comic book heroes is ok, then? Does "everything in moderation" apply?

Someone could say that it is silly to make such distinctions with regards to consumer culture. But that might be a rather extreme position to take, condemning all products only on that basis. The transformation of leisure into consumption certainly is a problem; on the other hand, the moral imagination does require story-telling for it to be developed. I think we can accept movies as a form of story-telling without approving of them wholly. It still seems proper, then, to link superhero comic book stories more with children than with mature adults, to be critical of them for that reason, and to cite their popularity among adults as a symptom of cultural and moral decline. (Is the inclusion of friendship and romance in comic book and wuxia movies a saving grace?)

Should we be watching more westerns, instead?

"I have to love me first."

The Social Pathologist: Hymonwitz's snowflakes.
The Badger Hut: Obligation Masculinity: Kay Hymowitz and Her Clueless Brethren
Oz Conservative: Can a marriage be all about the woman?

Related:
Dr. Robert Epstein, The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen and other books (Quill Driver Books, Google Books)
The Myths of the Teen Mind