Sunday, September 04, 2005

Great! We have a generation of group-think dweebs ascending to the forefront.

Fabulous! Perfect! As if. That's so gay! Yeck!

Most teenagers in the world today -- certainly to most American teens, have uttered those phrases. Standing in the doorway of societal evolution is a tribe of young people who've had things pretty much their own way since birth.

This new generation of teenagers, the ones about to graduate from high school, think that life will be a bowl of cherries FOR THEM because they know they're special. This is not my opinion, it's the evaluation of social scientists who've studied generational benchmarks and goals and found that the teens who're about to enter the workforce, the world stage, have become a tribe of robot-like attention seekers who've been raised in a protected home environment, showered with every technological toy they ever wanted and who've banded together in such a way as to become a unique group of folks - think conformists who wouldn't know what to do with themselves if you took away their cell phones, their iPods, their computers and/or their credit cards.

So what does this development foreshadow for society? Well, we could see a shift from American individualism to one of interdependence -- and I don't mean the healthy interdependence that everyone acknowledges at some point in life's journey. These are a generation who depend on others for stimulation. These kids need feedback to trigger the ability to think, care, make decisions, ecetera. This is a group of people who, given a book and a park bench outside on a sunny day, will predictably slide into a catatonic state, so to speak. This is a society of people who crave praise, who need pats on the back and who believe that their futures are asssured as a birthright.

God help these poor schmucks. They're in for a rude awakening. Of course, some will find careers in the military, which is perfectly suited for followers and order-takers. But the majority will be deeply shaken the first time they're criticised for bungling a task in the workplace or for screwing up in some way.

It should be interesting to see how the nation fares with these little automatons at the helm of state.

Wow! As if.