Change in expectations is a generational thing, experts say. People who grew up during the Depression were happy to have a job and stuck with one for a lifetime. Many members of generations X and Y were raised in a different light. They expect a buffet of opportunities and are peeved when they don't materialize.
Oh, now what happened to that little group in between that was born between 1945-1964...hmmm, if only there was a name for that high growth period. Gosh, what would we call that baby boom period? Every generation complains about the next generation and saying this is the most extreme ever is rubbish. People can spin this story as much as they like - and they do, almost every week as Boomers just eat this up as much as a story glorifying their own generation - there's never any proper context.
The children of Boomers may have been showered with stuff from indulgent parents though the kids also witnessed a generation that increasingly worked more jobs with less job security. As they enter the working world, they receive much less compared to previous generations in terms of salary and benefits. (The peak of take home pay was in the early 1970s.) Are these kids supposed to sit back and be praiseworthy and accepting of these new dynamics? As much as I don't buy into the buy-your-way-to-happiness mentality that exists in America and Europe, it's not quite as simple as the weekly Boomer hit pieces suggest.
Today I gravitated towards Susan Jacoby stories both in the Times and the Post. Her new book "The Age of American Unreason" is about the anti-intellectual and anti-rational epidemics in America. Only last night we had a similar discussion with a Franco-American group over dinner. How do you move a country forward when that country is debating creationism versus evolution? We are not talking about a poor and uneducated country, but a wealthy and educated country. What still surprises me is that many of the uninterested and anti-intellectual people are educated. You don't have to be a pointy-headed intellectual to show interest in the world around us, do you?
Whether we like it (or know it) American money and influence around the world is substantial. Our decisions in Washington do have an impact yet so many care so little. It's "over there" so who cares? As a country we lack curiosity in the world around us as if it doesn't matter. USA is number 1 so who cares? How could anything possibly be any better than what we have? We tell ourselves that we are the best at everything, so it must be true. There's no country that is perfect and you find insular people everywhere but those other countries fail to have the same global influence as America. How can we be so proudly ignorant and still compete? It certainly doesn't bode well for our future economy or especially our foreign policy when we are so proud to be ignorant. As this trend continues, selling the next foreign invasion is going to even easier than Iraq.
My new favorite blog has, by my rough count, 14 new posts this morning. All substantive, many on foreign policy issues (yay!), and on a Monday, no less. By the time I get this post up, I'm sure there will be more, and you really should go scroll through 'em all. I want to highlight one in particular, though, that gets to the core (in a roundabout way) of why the US has such problems dealing with international issues in general and the Middle East in particular.
In discussing a really spectacular (and heart-wrenching) article in the NYTMag about a young girl in Syria who dishonored her family at the tender age of 15 by . . . being kidnapped and raped, and who was stabbed to death by her brother a year later, Jill points out that there's a tendency to "other" the attitudes and behaviors of so-called honor cultures. I certainly did it when I read the article; my first response was, "Those people are insane." Hell, this happens even when bad stuff happens here -- we immediately distance ourselves from uncomfortable attitudes or events -- but it turns out that the "honor codes" from which the relevant Syrian laws derive come not from the much-maligned Quran, but from a combination of Bedouin tradition and . . . Napoleonic regulations, imposed upon the region by the French mandate. As Jill notes,
The notion of protecting women’s chastity is certainly not solely an Islamic one. Honor killings are the most brutal outcome of a system that fetishizes virginity, female submission and male authority and ownership, but it’s dishonest to pretend that these killings come from some crazy foreign value system totally unlike our own. [...]
The people who killed Zhara, and the people who kill thousands of girls and women all over the world in the name of “honor,” are evil extremists. But they aren’t rare, and they aren’t unique in their view of women as property, their emphasis on “chastity” as an all-important freshness guarantee, and their desire to control women’s bodies and sexual choices.
Indeed. Adding to that, on a more meta level this helps demonstrate the weird dichotomy of having an action (honor killing) that's so far beyond our experience -- to the point of revulsion, and, I think, rightfully so -- that we can't have any response but mental separation *along with* the fact that Americans exist in a culture that largely sympathizes with the ideas behind that horrific act, ideas elucidated by Jill above.
This is a tough line to walk as we try to deal with other cultures and people (especially in the Middle East), and it further represents a challenge for those of us who want to simultaneously understand and respect differing values . . . but retain the right to condemn them. I'm certainly not a full-on cultural relativist, and I have no problem saying that some cultural practices are bad, or even evil (including, I should note, some of our own). Conversely, we can't just dismiss everything we don't like, if only because the best tactical way to change things is to know where the weak spots are, know how to effect change in an pragmatic way.
One of the best indicators of a politician -- especially a president -- reaching the point of total ridicule is when criticism makes it way into writings on pop culture. Most sportswriters, under normal circumstances, would never dream of offending millions of readers simply by dropping in a political jibe; only when a target is massively, overwhelmingly unpopular can a journalist writing about something completely separate from Washington take a gratuitous shot at the prez.
Our current president is at that point.
Reading about the absolute horrorshow that is the Michael Vick case, I come across this remark:
During the Vick controversy, [NFL Commissioner] Goodell burnished his reputation as the exception to the current trend toward unaccountability that has prospered from the Green Zone to the end zone to the foul pole by espousing old-fashioned values [...]
These kind of jabs are showing up with increasing frequency. And they're well deserved.
(I originally titled this "A sad sight," but changed it after I saw John's most recent post. I wrote it before I saw his commentary, and it is, I think, an interesting contrast, if purely anecdotal . . .)
In the grand scheme of things this is a decidedly minor event, but I was at the grocery store this morning, debating the merits of Granny Smith versus Golden Delicious, when I heard a torrent of footsteps and giggles coming down the aisle. As the stream of 20 or so kids rushed by, all in the same monochrome camp t-shirts, I idly wondered why they were in a supermarket rather than outside on a beautiful day.
On the other hand, I didn't really care that much, so I went about my shopping. A few minutes later, I rounded a corner to find the group all sitting in front of the deli counter looking up at an animated store employee. Eh?? I walked over, and caught the end of the excited explanation, ". . . and they live in the ocean, eating other small shellfish and plant life on the ocean floor. Now this guy won't bite, and his big claws have rubber bands around them, so you can even touch him! So are you ready to see a real live lobster?!?" Squeals all around.
So . . . when did the grocery store meat section become the place to learn about wildlife? With instructor Deli Guy, no less?? Very odd.
While I'm expressing dismay at NYT articles today, it's worth a look at this gem as well. I must admit, I was fooled by the title, which declares, "Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye." Placement in the Fashion section probably should have tipped me off, but the title really does make it sound like the piece will in some way either describe or advocate women -- or, uh, "girls" -- 1) being themselves, by presumably 2) ordering steak if they damn well please.
How foolish of me. The article is actually about how women are now ordering (and proclaiming affection for) steak as a dating strategy! Here I am, happily clicking on this article to read about how women are eating what they enjoy, and the Times rips my heart out and feeds to it me (medium rare, please) by discussing how ordering steak is a way to portray the very confidence that could be actually displayed by just . . . ordering whatever one really wants. I know the piece is just fluff, but must we really suffer statements like this:
Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy.
It may be true that restaurateurs say that, but the article provides no evidence -- the only one quoted says more women are ordering meat, but he doesn't speculate about motive. And I guess "veterans of the dating scene" just means "women in their 20s."
It doesn't improve from there:
Red meat sent a message that she was "unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic," she said, "that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues." She added, "In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance."
"[Ordering salad] seems wimpy, insipid, childish," said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. "I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting."
Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of "I am woman, hear me chew."
Right: nothing says "unneurotic" like over-analyzing food choice. I mean, I'm not totally unsympathetic to similar concerns -- when I'm in an initial dating period, I certainly try to avoid ordering anything that would necessitate a bib, for example -- but one would hope there are limits, right? Right??
There is an anecdote, shoehorned in at the end, about a woman who threw caution to the wind and ordered a burger despite amorous affection for a tablemate, but the general tone is one of cheer at the idea that women are eating red meat for the supposed image benefits. Is it supposed to be an improvement that women are abandoning salad-only dates to impress men for steak dinners . . . to impress men?
I know everything has to be a big fake show, but lordie. Order what looks tasty! (And yes, I know I say that from a Position of Privilege, and who am I to grant permission, etc . . . but still.) If your date is judgmental about what you like to eat, probably not a person you want to be with anyway.
The Homosexual AgendaTM is a powerful thing, isn't it? I carry mine in my trusty lesbian fanny pack 24/7, with my secret decoder ring on ready to conspire with my allies to destroy not just civilization here at home, but the whole planet, as Daddy Dobson knows ("Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth." [The Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 23rd, 2004]).
Western culture ("freedom" is apparently defined as "pro-gay") is now being blamed for the persecution of Christians in Iraq, according to Rev. Canon Andrew White -- vicar of the 1,300-member St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad.
White spoke about Western culture and values and their detrimental effects on Iraqi Christians.
..."It is seen as an immoral tradition. It is seen as a tradition that does not uphold values. It is seen as a tradition that does not uphold the respect for the kind of issues that the Islamic religion holds as very significant to them,” said the Anglican priest who has worked in Iraq for over a decade.
White said that the previous day he had received an email from some of the Christians in Baghdad asking him if it was true that the Church in America supported homosexuality.
..."These positions often held by Western Christians are not held by Iraqi Christians," emphasized White. "They are very, very different. My people say the Creed and they believe it. My people live a very upright, courageous and respectful life," said the pastor who had 36 of his congregants kidnapped with only one returned in the past month.
I'm sorry, but blaming gays for the criminal behavior of others is outlandish and offensive. It's akin to a cultural/ religious "gay panic" defense for bigotry and violence between people of different faiths.
If The Homosexual Agenda is all-powerful and all-consuming, why are we still second-class taxpaying citizens in our own nation? We do not have marriage equality, in many places we can still be fired from a job for being gay, we cannot serve openly in the military; in some states, such as Florida, we cannot adopt or foster children, the list goes on and on.
