Wait, you put him back in the womb when he misbehaves?Originally Posted by Sean M
Wait, you put him back in the womb when he misbehaves?
Fairness leads to extinction much faster than harsh parameters.
Garden hose.
Some use the term "Waterboarding".
Semantics....
Think for yourself. Question authority.
FIFY
Fairness leads to extinction much faster than harsh parameters.
For a generation of wusses, The Milennials have seen a hell of a lot of combat deployments.
I've worked with 12-18 year olds on the civilian side for the past 16 years. I've worked with 18 and ups in the military for the past 20 years. Kids are different now than they used to be in many ways but they are also the same in many ways.
Yes the sheltered unable to function outside of suburbia types are out there. They have been out there for all of modern history in one form or another though. They are a product of their up bringing for better or worse. I'm guessing the author of the article above is a product of a sheltered up bringing and now feels like the top dog in the pack now that he has an office and a laptop.
Most kids today are really great. They are interested in all the same things that kids have been interested in for generation after generation. Sports, the opposite sex, learning new things, and enjoy being physically and mentally challenged.
Kids today are also a lot more wise about the world than most people give them credit for. The availability of information to kids is greater now than it has ever been. It's almost mind boggling to think about how much kids today really know compared to just 10 or 20 years ago.
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything." - Miyamoto Musashi
Perhaps.............but 10% still do 90% of the actual fighting...........
I don't disagree with that, just an observation that the Millenial generation takes a lot of crap, but has also produced some pretty serious pipe hitters as well. If you accept the traditional definition of Millenial as people who graduated high school around 2000 and later, this generation has been at war longer than the greatest generation and the baby boomers combined.
Durned kids.
I should offer fair disclaimer, I'm one of those white, anglo, upper middle class kids he's talking about. I even have an Instagram for chrissakes! Next thing you know, I'll be drinking pumpkin lattes and getting frosted tips and manicures!
Or maybe not. Maybe it's just because I have two brothers, and three sisters. Maybe it's because my dad told me right off the bat he couldn't pay for school, or maybe it's because I never asked him to because I have a younger brother who should have an education and I'd feel bad taking money that could be spent on him when I have enough money socked away from every job I worked since I was in high school. I started working in McDonalds, then I went to Target, then I paid for a Nursing Aide class, then got a job in supportive living, and now I work on a Cardiac Nursing floor.
That's all neither here nor there however. Here's how I manage being a rich, privileged white kid:
I work every weekend or more (I logged in 52 hours this week), and when I'm not doing that, I go to school and study my ass to a nub (because I'm doing 17 credit hours) to get the best grade I can (because nursing school profs actively try to fail students to separate the wheat from the chaff) and I routinely score in the upper 10% of my class. I then go to clinical and learn how to be an awesome nurse, and then I go to the Student Nurse's Club meetings and do my thing as the head honcho over there. I meet with professors and upper level faculty and talk about what's best for the entire nursing program and I generally try to not come across as an asshole to all my friends (all three of them who still talk to me and none who see me) and family who never sees me. I come home only to sleep and even though I live with my parents, I see them less frequently than my little brother...who lives in Minnesota or my older sister who lives in Michigan, sees them.
So perhaps I have a little difficulty seeing that America is collapsing because of the insouciant, lazy and overly privileged middle class youth, because I know for a fact that I'm not the only person who burns the candle in such a manner. But by all means, the guys who burned their draft cards were some courageous motherfuckers and I could never do what they did. Because Facebook. And the Kardashians. Because that's what it means to be a millennial right?
Sure, I realize that it was just a generalization, but I could make a few generalizations about baby boomers if I felt so inclined, and they would paint Mr. Ellis and his generation in a far more unfavorable light than he could have ever painted me.
But I won't.
Those are all just talking points, and not worthy of discussion, because when it boils down to it, generations are not defined by a single, common attitude. It just makes it too easy for some Millenial to say the Baby Boomers screwed up the world or vice versa. It is an attempt to dodge responsibility and an unwillingness to move past the "Why is it such a mess right now" and get down to the "So What are we going to do about it?"
So with that said, I think a guy who writes fiction for a living needs to get back into his lane and leave the discussion of the real world to people who live in it.
American dead in WWII: 400,000
American dead in Iraq and Afghanistan as of 2014: 6,802
I'm not trying to minimize their contribution, but the math doesn't support Millenial collective combat experience as the yardstick of severity you're claiming. For every Millenial "pipe hitter" there's a few hundred emo dudes surfing the free wifi and eating a bran muffin at Starbucks.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
Reply With Quote
