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The entitled generation....Are they right?

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Ehtyar:
Thank you 40hz. As usual, an excellent recommendation :)

Ehtyar.

Jimdoria:
It's true that an obnoxious sense of entitlement does seem more prevalent these days, although how universal it is I wouldn't even hazard to guess. Certainly the one obnoxious person grabs our attention a lot more than the 50 people around him who aren't being obnoxious.

I think parenting styles do have a lot to do with it. This generation has grown up hearing "Good job!" for every tiny step it takes. You drew a circle with a crayon? "Great job!" You can spell C-A-T? "Good job!" Employers are now finding that they have to hand out a lot more "attaboys" just to keep their workforce moving forward. The idea of just doing your job because it's your job has gone out of fashion.

And people conform to what their culture puts out as the ideal. How many decades of non-stop "entertainment" featuring utter baseness, shallow selfishness, naked greed and lowest-common-denominator cruelty did we think we could consume before people started thinking that was actually the way to behave? Have our leaders taken the high road on this, or have they led the charge into the pit with a "we're always right because we say we're right" attitude?

But one final note: my wife has a book called "Generation Of Vipers" that describes the current generation as selfish, lazy, almost pathologically self-obsessed, hedonistic and unmotivated. The author forecasts a grim future when this good-for-nothing rabble comes of age and takes the reins of society. But the "current" generation when the book was written was the one born in the wake of World War I. This "generation of vipers" grew up to fight WWII, then build the post-war society that came to be regarded as the American golden age. Decades later, another book would be written about this generation, only this time the title would be "The Greatest Generation."

So I guess I prefer surly teens over surly record company execs after all. Because teens eventually grow up.

40hz:
So I guess I prefer surly teens over surly record company execs after all. Because teens eventually grow up.
-Jimdoria (April 26, 2009, 12:40 AM)
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...to become their generation's surly record company execs... ;D

"So it goes." - Kurt Vonnegut 8)

rgdot:
That's exactly the problem, these execs, bankers, etc. didn't appear from another planet, some were even those 60's and 70's hippie types. They take the 'getting older, have to be more responsible' way too far.

40hz:
I'm beginning to think this entire debate is a "generation thing."

I was discussing this issue with a friend over his house. His 16-year old daughter eventually got into the conversation. After a while, she went out and came back with her laptop, with the browser open to a webpage. The page was showing a blog at wordpress.com posted by someone (allegedly a high school student) who tackles the twin issues of copyright and 'fair use.'

After giving it a critical read, I reached the conclusion that the article displayed some of the sloppiest thinking imaginable. My friend's daughter, on the other hand, thought that the blogger cut through "all the B.S." and put the issue to rest "once and for all. "

"I thought his post was brilliant! I'd love to see THEM try and come up with an intelligent rebuttal to that!" she told us.

I shrugged and told her that despite the fact it was a fairly well-written posting, it didn't really make the point she thought it did. The arguments were weak, contained several logical fallacies, and the author's understanding of ethics was marginal at best.

Since she looked confused, I asked her if she wanted me to explain. When she said yes, I began to go over the the posting line by line to see if we were in agreement as to what the blogger was saying. Once we agreed we were both reading the same thing, I started to analyze the arguments.

Unfortunately, when I then began to systematically take the blogger's 'argument' apart, she first became defensive, then frustrated, and finally very angry. "Your generation will never understand," she said. "Because you're all just too in-doctrinated to see how THEY control the way you think."

(Sorry for all the italics. My friend's daughter is an absolute master of inflection, and I though it too good to let it go waste. ;D)

Well...when I went to school, it is true that I was 'indoctrinated' in logic, rhetoric, grammar, rules of debate, techniques of propaganda, basic citizenship, history, and philosophy.

So now I'm wondering if maybe I might have missed something in this "brilliant argument" she pointed me to:

Link to blog: http://trombonechamp.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/the-fear-of-knowledge/

...

Copyright infringement should not be based on fear.  Fear is a very powerful tool that is all to often exploited by governments and those in power to get the information they want stuffed into people’s minds.  Where do you think Mrs. Smith learned this information?  Was it a credible source?  Chances are it was, which brings up the question of who you can really trust.  If people stopped blindly trusting the government, what would happen to fear as a propaganda technique?  When discussing copyright, it is best to decide where your ethics are.  “Should I share an ogg (or mp3) of this out of print CD with my friend?”  “Should I consider a small violation of the DMCA a crime if I will only be using the content for what used to be called ‘fair use’?”  “Should I cite this public domain resource?”  “Should I tell my friends about this artist and give them this audio file to get them interested?”  “Should I download this BBC documentary I found on BitTorrent so I can learn about Elephant migration patterns for my report on African mammals?”  There are so many possibilities.  The government has drawn an unreasonably inhibitory line in the dirt, and used fear to enforce it.  As a result, the only way to figure out what is right or wrong is to make the ethical decision yourself.
--- End quote ---

 :)

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