Are the majority of Americans stuck in adolescence...?

a reply to: Zona

Oh social media and technology are major players. I fall victim to league of legends but as a hobby I never let it get in the way of anything and only play periodically when I really want a day off.

Ats is more of a problem for me.

I recall reading at one point that domesticated dogs maintain puppy behaviours their whole lives, never becoming mature in the way that wolves do. I think that has largely happened to domesticated peoples. First we must define, what IS maturity, as far as humans. I think it is the development of wisdom, compassion, understanding, and expanded consciousness that comes from .....well spending a LOT of time thinking. One of the problems today is we are such a consumer society that we are constantly provided with many distractions to allow us NOT to think. Taken in hand with the demands of todays society, where parents must spend 40-70 hours of each week at work, and then raising kids, and given alchohol and TV to fill up the rest of their time, it leaves no leisure time for just silent consideration. Another aspect applies to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and development. We have been forced into a world where we work all week, every week, just to continue to meet the first few needs of food and shelter, which are never met in a permanent form, and so we never progress to the higher stages of social integration and self actualization. The end result of this is what we have today....grandparents who have no more wisdom than their kids, who are self absorbed with looking young and attractive, so spend their money on botox or plastic surgery. Role models who have no real guidance to provide because they never had the leisure and security to work things out on their own. And yes, this does leave us with a society largely open to manipulation.

a reply to: pexx421

Well said

I just wanted to add though that I feel we all have like a superficial "ego", like a front and behind that most have the ability to think deeply and think for them selves. Easier for some to just "front" it though!

a reply to: onequestion

Here is the problem with this. Normal is a perception and if most people aren't maturing as they once did at the same age, the new norm is formed. So if people don't actually comprehend there is a difference over say two generations, then it is considered just a normal evolution to the majority. More people were matured in their early twenties fifty years ago than today, their way of life necessitated it. Nowadays it is considered normal to go to school for six years after high school and ring up a huge debt. That isn't actually a mature action at all.

a reply to: rickymouse

Wow good point.

Have to contemplate that idea.

a reply to: onequestion

It's because most people have short attention spans, we can't get into a subject in detail. Look at our media, TV is nothing but sound bytes and camera angle changes. Radio is a new caller/topic every minute. Internet articles are top 10 lists where every 20 seconds you have a new subject. Advertisement times are getting shorter and shorter, remember in the 80's when a single ad could last 90 seconds? Today they're 15. Written conversations have progressed from email, to im, to twitter.

This isn't all necessarily bad, humans seem to react really well to short bursts of an idea rather than indepth analysis. The problem is it means you also can't really discuss anything indepth when making small talk.

a reply to: Aazadan

This isn't all necessarily bad, humans seem to react really well to short bursts of an idea rather than indepth analysis.

Not me.

Life is hard. Very hard. Sigh. Eveyr word I type comes out painfully. There's so mcuh the universe demands from us.

What's adolescence? I don't like that word.

My opinion is if someone pulls most of their weight or even all of it then they're not adolescent. This means making an income and maybe having a child too. It means traveling some of the world. It means not depending too much on others for your sustenance. Now if this means this person has less time to understand philosophy or the multitude of things one might ponder in their spare time then so be it. You can't do everything in life. Doing the important things and then having some room left over to ponder is all anyone can be expected to do.

If someone is able to talk as though they've had lots of spare time to ponder then that to me is adolescent. They've had tooooo much time to think, and not enough practical experience.

It's funny to consider things from this angle because I tend to see my own difficulties in doing small talk or reacting from emotional reflexes as a sign of my own immaturity and lack of social skills!

Evolution being based upon adaptability to environments, I have always thought that an evolved being should be able to adapt to even environments in which even these are the norm.

The powerful government limits everyone's thinking, behavior, and future.

The mandatory trade off of security for freedom makes everyone a child, compared to what they could be.

Im always observing people having childish interactions and making small talk on a fairly regular basis. It seems as if most are ill equipped for deeper then topical conversations. Most judge harshly without getting to know someone.

Aren't you doing the same thing? Judging harshly without getting to know these people?

And it all depends on how you define "deep conversation". I hang out with my friends and we talk about a variety of things. Just because we don't discuss the renaissance or some such nonsense does not mean we aren't intelligent, it means we "got to know" each other and what we like to talk about. Life is pretty much crap for most people. If I want deep conversations (i.e. topics that seem to cause the most arguments) I come on sites like this, when I want to hang back, relax and have fun with my friends I talk about sports, women, the "good old days"and just everyday stuff. You don't need to be philosophical in every conversation you have with people.

School Debates in London - year 1215

According to William FitzStephen, "many other schools were allowed as favors to teachers
celebrated for their learning" -although these did not enjoy permanent institutional status.
FitzStephen gives a vivid description of the regular London interschool debating contests:

On feast days the masters assemble their pupils at the churches
whose feast-day it is, and there the scholars dispute. Some
debate just to show off, which is nothing but a wrestling bout of
wit, but for others disputation is a way of establishing the truth
of things. Some produce nonsensical arguments but enjoy the sheer
profusion of their own words; others employ fallacies in an effort
to trick their opponents. Boys from different schools compete in
verse, or in debates about the rules of grammar. Others use
cross-roads humor to insult or mock their opponents, identifying
them not by name but by teasing allusions to their well-known
foibles -- indeed, to general amusement, sometimes even their
elders and betters are subjected to this treatment.

excerpt from book: 1215 The Year of the Magna Carta, by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham
Touchstone publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7432-5778-2

a reply to: onequestion

I have two words for the class: corn syrup (in everything).

This just came out today- "Generation Wuss" -

DailyMail

'Over-sensitive and desperate... I feel sorry for them': Bret Easton Ellis gives a damning analysis on Millennials he brands Generation Wuss

Bret Easton Ellis has branded Millennials narcissistic, over-sensitive and sheltered in a damning 2,000-word analysis of 'Generation Wuss'.
The writer who notably penned American Psycho sparked a social media outburst when he coined the phrase Generation Wuss to refer to those born after 1989.
Now he has written an essay to defend his description, adding that he feels sorry for young people today.

In the Vanity Fair article, he writes: 'When Millennials are criticized...they seem to collapse into a shame spiral and the person criticizing them is automatically labeled a hater, a contrarian, a troll.'
He adds: 'My huge generalities touch on their over-sensitivity, their insistence that they are right despite the overwhelming proof that suggests they are not.'
The 50-year-old also lays into news site BuzzFeed, which announced it will no longer publish any negative reviews.

Evolution is dead.

I think something to take into consideration is that much of us here that are in our forties and fifties are X Generation, or sometimes refered to as the 13th generation.

The time period we grew up in was especially conducive to developing self sufficience and learning to be tough, and risk taking. We are looking at the new kids through that lens.

In Strauss and Howes "The Fourth Turning; and American Prophecy", they projected what the future generations would be like, based upon repeated cycles throughout history. The young children right now, they refered to as the New Silent because they are associated with the The Silent Generation, born during the depression.

They wrote it in 1997, but predicted that as a response to our neglected , unprotected childhoods, we X'ers would be overprotective and stifling, oversimplifying the world for them , and making it too steeped in moral cement.... That we'd would never stop reminding our children of all the sacrifices made for them. We'd be simultaneously making them fearful, anxious and powerless, all the while expressing repulsion for these ways of being and constantly reminding them of how much more couragious and tough WE were at their age.


I think that sounds pretty accurate. Good guess!

Cycles suggest that when they have children, they will do the opposite with their own children. And the cycles continue...

I don't tell the younger generation how hard we had it. I tell them how hard they have it. Greed monetized just about everything. Never underestimate greed.

The best things in life are free no more.

My last post was written for a different thread- the entitlement trends. Sorry about that. I'm on my phone, which is a bit tricky for me...

a reply to: Bluesma

Hey bluesma thanks for that I find that very interesting! If it doesn't bother you I want to start a thread on it! All credit due of course