"i keep meeting 10 year olds that seem more like we were than the weird hothouse flowers i was seeing in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. the kids seem less lost and gormless, more engaged and independent. they lost their faith in “tribal loyalty” when the tribe masked them up and locked them down for years of formative time. they are wal…
"i keep meeting 10 year olds that seem more like we were than the weird hothouse flowers i was seeing in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. the kids seem less lost and gormless, more engaged and independent. they lost their faith in “tribal loyalty” when the tribe masked them up and locked them down for years of formative time. they are walking away from online and back into IRL."
If there's a silver lining to covid and the rest of this mess, it's that we're likely raising the most libertarian generation in decades. They will grow up knowing their government doesn't give a shit about them -- and that's maybe the most important lesson one can learn.
I'm sure the libertarian party leadership will seize upon the new zeitgeist....right after they spend the next 10 years crying about abolishing child labor laws.
Farther back in the mists of time than that! For example, the White European devil's oppression of the dark races that peaked in the time of Colonial powers. Few deny the Black and Brown people being taken advantage of in various times. But with Woke Wisdom, we now know that Caucasian Power is so evil and insidious that it kept those poor primitives from advancing beyond the Iron Age (being generous) even well BEFORE they ever met a white man.
For sure. And they need to learn how to work with their hands.
I could go on forever about that, but I truly believe that's part of the reason curiosity and creativity have fallen woefully short in the last few decades .
Where I am living in SE Asia, the middle class is very small, and poverty is the most common economic status. Thus, children, from a very early age, are taught and expected to work and contribute to the often meager existence of large numbers of families. Given reality, it is NOT seen as abuse or exploitation, but as loyalty to the family. Cultural differences are real and so are differences in perception of reality. Close examination of ALL the factors is necessary before making pronouncements on Relativism. Some of it is valid. Some of it is bullshit. It's up to US to decide, not some "authoritative source". One of my favorite things to say in a variety of circumstances (including a couple of job interviews) is, "In my never humble opinion, there are two kinds of people: Those who agree with me and those who are wrong!" How others react to this - literally or as humor - will usually tell me all I need to know about them.
I am not so fond of cultures that survive by selling their four-year-olds into indentured servitude rather than using birth control after the fourth kid.
I lived in a South Asian country at different times for different lengths of time beginning in 1976 and the poor have as many morons amongst their numbers as any other class in society.
Your example is valid. Those who know nothing of history (as opposed to a summary, which is me) might be surprised to learn that, as recently as the 18th and 19th century, most of Europe and the brand-new Americas were very much like that. Even for Whites, indenture was a fact of life. The Workhouse was a variant of debtor’s prison where even the debtor’s family was obligated to labor. This was so onerous that at its founding the US expressly forbade imprisonment for debt (in most cases; good luck arguing that for back child support!). As for birth control, for all practical purposes it didn’t exist unit the mid-20th century. And even now, it’s only used by a fraction of the populations. Huge families were the norm, as was child mortality. Until modern times, only about half of children made it to adulthood. Again, all my examples are from “The West,” not some third-world hellhole where the numbers were no doubt worse.
The above is, to a large extent, an argument for relativism. Leaving aside the issue of whether moral absolutes exist, the fact is that different eras, or even different cultures in any given “present” will have enormously differing perspectives on what is legal, moral, correct, appropriate behavior. We in the west would never allow our children to slave away all day just to make a few dollars. But we have few qualms about buying those goods when they are imported into our “rich” countries.
Yet again I must commend Martyr Made to the assembled. His history of The Peculiar Institution gives a pretty horrifying exploration of the experiences of the white indentured servants in Jamestown before Virginia later began using Africans as slaves. Most cruelties we are familiar with in slavery were practiced first on indentured servants, whose survival rate in the beginning was far worse than that of black slaves.
In every place at every time there are good people and bad people, and smart parents and stupid ones. As just an ordinary person unaffiliated with any organization or program, when I visited a poor Punjabi village in the early '80s, the women asked me about birth control because they figured a Western woman would have had access to more information than they did.
But the friend who brought me there to his family's home district used to joke about wanting a full dozen kids as he worked on the first half of that number. It took our boss's wife (my friend was the office electrician; I'd found my job there locally though it was an international engineering project) to insist on getting my friend's wife sterilized after she delivered the family's seventh kid, who died not long after, since the mom was pretty depleted of strength by then.
And that man was in other things a pretty smart guy, and he persuaded our boss's wife to pay for school fees for his older kids. But he didn't even have a fixed home of his own and still loved making his wife produce babies.
Imprisonment for debt has been returning. I can't remember the cites now - was reading about it 10 years or so ago - how - fines to the State (certain states) can land you in prison, and while you are there, the fines can still accrue.
One generation back - the parents of someone I dated in the 90's - were caretakers at such a workhouse/poorhouse. Well into the 1970's, I would guess. Indiana.
Also, the fact that parents believe it is imperative to have kids who can speak German, play the bassoon, dance the part of Clara in 'The Nutcracker', be the closer, collect toys for children in war torn countries and participate in a walk to raise funds for the local puppy shelter make 'just being a kid' time impossible to find. This one is on the parents.
Agreed. What are the MOST important lessons of childhood? How to become a responsible, caring, respectful of wisdom and counsel, unselfish, secure and competent adult. All other considerations come second.
I agree completely, actually being responsible for jack and learning how value is actually created would do a massive amount towards reducing the abject retardery we experience on the reg.
No no, first, they'll get outplayed in their own primary by a liberal with questionable ideas on minors and Lockheed Martin-brand Pride socks and... what do you mean that already happened?
Last early evening I was walking my dog by our harbor and I met a group of 16ish yr old boys fishing off the dock and eating pizza. Wow, teenagers fishing, hanging out?! Reminded me of the kids of my generation. Asked them if the pizza made nearby was any good anymore. They said no - not like before, way too expensive too and look how skimpy it was. They were friendly, articulate, engaging (nice surprise). Wanted to talk to me. Complained how everything in general was not as good, too expensive, too much crime. Complained how our town had changed in a bad way and not going to get better - not like it was when they were younger (they are so young!). Told me they know it’s going to get much worse. Hate what our governor has done (Newsom - yes Cali here). Omg - seriously? Am I dreaming? I felt hope! Maybe there are better days ahead! Here’s a younger generation with eyes wide open, not afraid to express their concerns openly, noticing and experiencing the downward changes. Dissatisfied and frustrated. Remembering how good life used to be. Not wanting any of the wokeness/change being shoved down their throats. First kindred spirit type of interaction I’ve had here in years. Maybe this is a rarity but I haven’t felt this hopeful for our county’s future in a very long time. Maybe even my beautiful state’s.
YES! There is really hope if these generations understand that one truth!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, SC! So simple and so obvious.
I am attempting to ask those questions with friends and loved ones. For instance, "Why would you think that the Board of Education cares a lick about our children or their education? Why would we put the governemnt in charge of anything when they cannot stop spending money created out of thin air? Is college the biggest scam of our lifetime? Why would you trust Big Pharma when they repeatedly lie, commit fraud, and keep you addicted to their toxic soup of poisons?"
Asking questions is a way to (perhaps) open up a rational dialogue.
Remember who it was saying that every child should go to college: Hillary. In other words--every child should continue his indoctrination program until reaching majority. And start as early as possible with day care and nursery school.
You cite an important thing, the need to consider the [likely] motivations of different entities. Nietzsche called this "perspectivism” in the sense that each person views reality differently, influenced by his own (often subconscious) desires, needs, etc. You don’t need to be a genius to use such mental tools, either. For example in the case of a Board of Education, it’s probably unfair to say they don’t care about educating children. It'd be closer to the truth that education is only one of many competing needs: A dispassionate analysis of the various stakeholders might show that a certain group, let’s say the elected board members, are also motivated by the perceived need to maintain their power, to insure its continuation (e.g. be re-elected), to remain in goods standing with their peers (not necessarily the “customer”, e.g. parents of school age children), or even allegiance to an in-group (the NEA) fashionable theories of how best to educate children. The above is probably only a partial list of major factors, but it’s a start. A parent or other person might citizen them for not “putting the children first,” but even that is a perspective, and one that fails to consider the other players in the game, so to speak. Another way to look at the issue is that most players lack a complete model of the game. In other words, they don’t have a good approximation of reality, and thus any attempt to modify it or even participate will likely be sub-optimal. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why your son comes home and thinks he should be a girl.
What baffles me is the narrative that emerges after each case. The parents will talk about months and months of bullying and months and months of "we begged the school authorities to do something."
You sent your kid back every day for months, to be tortured? Anyone needs lessons on "enraged mother face" I will be happy to show them.
I agree. I think government schools have become a disaster. Many private schools are not any better. Some of the best outcomes I saw were home schooled, but not everyone can do that. The throw off line I made is what we see so often in public where the kid tantrums to get what he or she wants. That is a failing in parenting as well as the education system and leads to a lifetime of manipulation behavior for personal gain.
Forced herding of any group anywhere anytime is always going to result in painful outcomes for the one who sticks out for any reason.
Home schooling has now become an elite signaling too. Extremely normal non-extravagant-show-off families need two incomes just to achieve a modest life in any urban area. Public schooling has always been a form of babysitting and even in the prosperous '50s there were plenty of families who needed that.
But I agree the schools are truly abysmal now. Martyr Made has a great series on Blacks and Jews (paywalled but worth it in my view) that gives an excellent history of what happened to big-city public education.
Where I lived the home schoolers were farm families who did not like what was going on in the schools. They worked from home so they were available to do the teaching. The kids also learned a lot about farming from gardening to tending the chickens and feeding animals. As they got older they learned to drive tractors and mechanical maintenance skills as well as carpentry. Girls learned all the home economics and sewing. but they all learned bookkeeping and business skills. (This was the 1980s and 90s into the early 2000s for refeference to my experience with it)
Urban and rural areas are entirely different cultures from each other. And I think after you reach a certain size, no city is really able to sustain a decent life for all its inhabitants. Probably the Sumerians could have told us that but nobody ever listens, do they?
I'm following a case in NZ - a man (custody battle?) took his 3 kids into the bush. They've been there for 3 years.
I think about - the schooling, the NZ government during COVID, the jabs - and suspect he might have very good reason for pulling his kids into the bush, and out of the System.
I read the Daily Mail Online so I'm familiar with that guy's story.
Menstruating in the bush probably won't be such a fun experience for his girls if they're still out there when the time comes around. He seems like a vengeful schmuck.
"i keep meeting 10 year olds that seem more like we were than the weird hothouse flowers i was seeing in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. the kids seem less lost and gormless, more engaged and independent. they lost their faith in “tribal loyalty” when the tribe masked them up and locked them down for years of formative time. they are walking away from online and back into IRL."
If there's a silver lining to covid and the rest of this mess, it's that we're likely raising the most libertarian generation in decades. They will grow up knowing their government doesn't give a shit about them -- and that's maybe the most important lesson one can learn.
I'm sure the libertarian party leadership will seize upon the new zeitgeist....right after they spend the next 10 years crying about abolishing child labor laws.
Priorities SimComm!...;]
Forget the tyranny happening right now, let's focus on hypothetical tyranny that perhaps happened 100 years ago!
Farther back in the mists of time than that! For example, the White European devil's oppression of the dark races that peaked in the time of Colonial powers. Few deny the Black and Brown people being taken advantage of in various times. But with Woke Wisdom, we now know that Caucasian Power is so evil and insidious that it kept those poor primitives from advancing beyond the Iron Age (being generous) even well BEFORE they ever met a white man.
I read "tyranny" as "tranny" for a second. Man, that was weird!
I think kids should work, but making it the law seems like too much ; )
For sure. And they need to learn how to work with their hands.
I could go on forever about that, but I truly believe that's part of the reason curiosity and creativity have fallen woefully short in the last few decades .
Which leads to a bunch of adults lacking wisdom.
Where I am living in SE Asia, the middle class is very small, and poverty is the most common economic status. Thus, children, from a very early age, are taught and expected to work and contribute to the often meager existence of large numbers of families. Given reality, it is NOT seen as abuse or exploitation, but as loyalty to the family. Cultural differences are real and so are differences in perception of reality. Close examination of ALL the factors is necessary before making pronouncements on Relativism. Some of it is valid. Some of it is bullshit. It's up to US to decide, not some "authoritative source". One of my favorite things to say in a variety of circumstances (including a couple of job interviews) is, "In my never humble opinion, there are two kinds of people: Those who agree with me and those who are wrong!" How others react to this - literally or as humor - will usually tell me all I need to know about them.
I am not so fond of cultures that survive by selling their four-year-olds into indentured servitude rather than using birth control after the fourth kid.
I lived in a South Asian country at different times for different lengths of time beginning in 1976 and the poor have as many morons amongst their numbers as any other class in society.
Your example is valid. Those who know nothing of history (as opposed to a summary, which is me) might be surprised to learn that, as recently as the 18th and 19th century, most of Europe and the brand-new Americas were very much like that. Even for Whites, indenture was a fact of life. The Workhouse was a variant of debtor’s prison where even the debtor’s family was obligated to labor. This was so onerous that at its founding the US expressly forbade imprisonment for debt (in most cases; good luck arguing that for back child support!). As for birth control, for all practical purposes it didn’t exist unit the mid-20th century. And even now, it’s only used by a fraction of the populations. Huge families were the norm, as was child mortality. Until modern times, only about half of children made it to adulthood. Again, all my examples are from “The West,” not some third-world hellhole where the numbers were no doubt worse.
The above is, to a large extent, an argument for relativism. Leaving aside the issue of whether moral absolutes exist, the fact is that different eras, or even different cultures in any given “present” will have enormously differing perspectives on what is legal, moral, correct, appropriate behavior. We in the west would never allow our children to slave away all day just to make a few dollars. But we have few qualms about buying those goods when they are imported into our “rich” countries.
Yet again I must commend Martyr Made to the assembled. His history of The Peculiar Institution gives a pretty horrifying exploration of the experiences of the white indentured servants in Jamestown before Virginia later began using Africans as slaves. Most cruelties we are familiar with in slavery were practiced first on indentured servants, whose survival rate in the beginning was far worse than that of black slaves.
In every place at every time there are good people and bad people, and smart parents and stupid ones. As just an ordinary person unaffiliated with any organization or program, when I visited a poor Punjabi village in the early '80s, the women asked me about birth control because they figured a Western woman would have had access to more information than they did.
But the friend who brought me there to his family's home district used to joke about wanting a full dozen kids as he worked on the first half of that number. It took our boss's wife (my friend was the office electrician; I'd found my job there locally though it was an international engineering project) to insist on getting my friend's wife sterilized after she delivered the family's seventh kid, who died not long after, since the mom was pretty depleted of strength by then.
And that man was in other things a pretty smart guy, and he persuaded our boss's wife to pay for school fees for his older kids. But he didn't even have a fixed home of his own and still loved making his wife produce babies.
Imprisonment for debt has been returning. I can't remember the cites now - was reading about it 10 years or so ago - how - fines to the State (certain states) can land you in prison, and while you are there, the fines can still accrue.
One generation back - the parents of someone I dated in the 90's - were caretakers at such a workhouse/poorhouse. Well into the 1970's, I would guess. Indiana.
The past is not as distant as some might think.
Agree. Well said.
The Navy way, and the wrong way.
Also, the fact that parents believe it is imperative to have kids who can speak German, play the bassoon, dance the part of Clara in 'The Nutcracker', be the closer, collect toys for children in war torn countries and participate in a walk to raise funds for the local puppy shelter make 'just being a kid' time impossible to find. This one is on the parents.
Agreed. What are the MOST important lessons of childhood? How to become a responsible, caring, respectful of wisdom and counsel, unselfish, secure and competent adult. All other considerations come second.
Yes. The job of a child is play.
I agree completely, actually being responsible for jack and learning how value is actually created would do a massive amount towards reducing the abject retardery we experience on the reg.
No no, first, they'll get outplayed in their own primary by a liberal with questionable ideas on minors and Lockheed Martin-brand Pride socks and... what do you mean that already happened?
Keystone cops
First things first, Chase out Oliver the current pres candidate for the Liber party!
No doubt. He's a sorry sack...
Last early evening I was walking my dog by our harbor and I met a group of 16ish yr old boys fishing off the dock and eating pizza. Wow, teenagers fishing, hanging out?! Reminded me of the kids of my generation. Asked them if the pizza made nearby was any good anymore. They said no - not like before, way too expensive too and look how skimpy it was. They were friendly, articulate, engaging (nice surprise). Wanted to talk to me. Complained how everything in general was not as good, too expensive, too much crime. Complained how our town had changed in a bad way and not going to get better - not like it was when they were younger (they are so young!). Told me they know it’s going to get much worse. Hate what our governor has done (Newsom - yes Cali here). Omg - seriously? Am I dreaming? I felt hope! Maybe there are better days ahead! Here’s a younger generation with eyes wide open, not afraid to express their concerns openly, noticing and experiencing the downward changes. Dissatisfied and frustrated. Remembering how good life used to be. Not wanting any of the wokeness/change being shoved down their throats. First kindred spirit type of interaction I’ve had here in years. Maybe this is a rarity but I haven’t felt this hopeful for our county’s future in a very long time. Maybe even my beautiful state’s.
YES! There is really hope if these generations understand that one truth!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, SC! So simple and so obvious.
I am attempting to ask those questions with friends and loved ones. For instance, "Why would you think that the Board of Education cares a lick about our children or their education? Why would we put the governemnt in charge of anything when they cannot stop spending money created out of thin air? Is college the biggest scam of our lifetime? Why would you trust Big Pharma when they repeatedly lie, commit fraud, and keep you addicted to their toxic soup of poisons?"
Asking questions is a way to (perhaps) open up a rational dialogue.
Remember who it was saying that every child should go to college: Hillary. In other words--every child should continue his indoctrination program until reaching majority. And start as early as possible with day care and nursery school.
You cite an important thing, the need to consider the [likely] motivations of different entities. Nietzsche called this "perspectivism” in the sense that each person views reality differently, influenced by his own (often subconscious) desires, needs, etc. You don’t need to be a genius to use such mental tools, either. For example in the case of a Board of Education, it’s probably unfair to say they don’t care about educating children. It'd be closer to the truth that education is only one of many competing needs: A dispassionate analysis of the various stakeholders might show that a certain group, let’s say the elected board members, are also motivated by the perceived need to maintain their power, to insure its continuation (e.g. be re-elected), to remain in goods standing with their peers (not necessarily the “customer”, e.g. parents of school age children), or even allegiance to an in-group (the NEA) fashionable theories of how best to educate children. The above is probably only a partial list of major factors, but it’s a start. A parent or other person might citizen them for not “putting the children first,” but even that is a perspective, and one that fails to consider the other players in the game, so to speak. Another way to look at the issue is that most players lack a complete model of the game. In other words, they don’t have a good approximation of reality, and thus any attempt to modify it or even participate will likely be sub-optimal. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why your son comes home and thinks he should be a girl.
Well, only the ones who don't break easily. In any era that's the glowering minority that refuses to be crushed.
"Kids are resilient"
Until they hang themselves in the closet after a fight with mom.
Because they did not get the shiny toy or candy bar they wanted at the grocery store.
To be fair there's usually more to it than that.
What baffles me is the narrative that emerges after each case. The parents will talk about months and months of bullying and months and months of "we begged the school authorities to do something."
You sent your kid back every day for months, to be tortured? Anyone needs lessons on "enraged mother face" I will be happy to show them.
I agree. I think government schools have become a disaster. Many private schools are not any better. Some of the best outcomes I saw were home schooled, but not everyone can do that. The throw off line I made is what we see so often in public where the kid tantrums to get what he or she wants. That is a failing in parenting as well as the education system and leads to a lifetime of manipulation behavior for personal gain.
Forced herding of any group anywhere anytime is always going to result in painful outcomes for the one who sticks out for any reason.
Home schooling has now become an elite signaling too. Extremely normal non-extravagant-show-off families need two incomes just to achieve a modest life in any urban area. Public schooling has always been a form of babysitting and even in the prosperous '50s there were plenty of families who needed that.
But I agree the schools are truly abysmal now. Martyr Made has a great series on Blacks and Jews (paywalled but worth it in my view) that gives an excellent history of what happened to big-city public education.
Where I lived the home schoolers were farm families who did not like what was going on in the schools. They worked from home so they were available to do the teaching. The kids also learned a lot about farming from gardening to tending the chickens and feeding animals. As they got older they learned to drive tractors and mechanical maintenance skills as well as carpentry. Girls learned all the home economics and sewing. but they all learned bookkeeping and business skills. (This was the 1980s and 90s into the early 2000s for refeference to my experience with it)
Urban and rural areas are entirely different cultures from each other. And I think after you reach a certain size, no city is really able to sustain a decent life for all its inhabitants. Probably the Sumerians could have told us that but nobody ever listens, do they?
I'm following a case in NZ - a man (custody battle?) took his 3 kids into the bush. They've been there for 3 years.
I think about - the schooling, the NZ government during COVID, the jabs - and suspect he might have very good reason for pulling his kids into the bush, and out of the System.
I read the Daily Mail Online so I'm familiar with that guy's story.
Menstruating in the bush probably won't be such a fun experience for his girls if they're still out there when the time comes around. He seems like a vengeful schmuck.