Newt Gingrich: Let's End Adolescence
- Thread starter OzzyKP
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West 36
Can count up to 4
This immediately reminded me of KKK members saying the Great Experiment failed- that ending segregation was a mistake. A bit of a Godwin but that's what I felt right away.
He has points, but you have to keep in mind the world has changed to an extreme point since the 19th century, and I'd say for the better. The baby boomers had the freaking 60's to grow up in, and the 70's and 80's had their things to, and yet the world hasn't fallen apart.
He has points, but you have to keep in mind the world has changed to an extreme point since the 19th century, and I'd say for the better. The baby boomers had the freaking 60's to grow up in, and the 70's and 80's had their things to, and yet the world hasn't fallen apart.
aelf
Ashen One
Fight the culture, not the people.
The bad culture is partly driven by materialism and consumerism (which also leads to its dialectic, nihilism) which are, surprise surprise, promoted by free market liberalism. If any lawmaker is serious in talking about this stuff, he should be willing to question current (capitalist) Western culture.
The bad culture is partly driven by materialism and consumerism (which also leads to its dialectic, nihilism) which are, surprise surprise, promoted by free market liberalism. If any lawmaker is serious in talking about this stuff, he should be willing to question current (capitalist) Western culture.
Neverwonagame3
Self-Styled Intellectual
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The only decent argument I've seen against this stuff is that modern work is more complicated. It should be, at least partially, adopted.
Masquerouge
Deity
Oh so girls really are not good and maths and science, and they don't just opt out of scientific careers because of peer pressure. That's good to know.
/sarcasm
Kids do not figure out fairly early on what they're good at and what their favorite subjects are, and particularly not teenagers. A kid with the drive to know what he/she wants is the exception.
Its really the opposite. Almost nobody graduates with the college major they started with. Interests (and skills) are still fluctuating even after high school. Why pigeonhole people even earlier?
Narz
keeping it real
Good point but it won't sell among the people who make money of infantilized teens & their "needs".
Just because you treat someone as an adult doesn't mean you restrict them from changing their mind/course of study. Adults change careers & go back to school all the time.
And allowing high school students to choose their own course of study to a larger degree isn't "pigeonholing", it's allowing creative freedom, which ultimately will benefit society.
Benefactor
Beneficial
Sounds like someone didn't enjoy adolescence. I did and therefore opt that we should keep it.
Bigfoot3814
Deity
I can't read this article I have to throw this rock at the bus.
nihilistic
Intergalatic Delivery Boy
Am I the only one that misread it at first as "Let's End Abstinence"?
sonorakitch
Overseas hunter
In a sense he is right. Complancency and arrogance has precluded work ethic and responsibility in the younger years. The young are actually taking longer to "grow up" today than ever before; that cannot be good for long term society. I remember a day when at 18, one was cut off from parental funding and was expected to work and go to higher institutions of learning if possible. Nowadays, trade schools are non-existant and those plumbers of 30 years ago are now studying English and "Family Studies" at mediocre institutions.
Growing up is a tough thing to do. But I feel the later in life it happens, the worse off you are. So in a sense, I agree with Newt. Not to the point of 14 year old factory workers though...
~Chris
Growing up is a tough thing to do. But I feel the later in life it happens, the worse off you are. So in a sense, I agree with Newt. Not to the point of 14 year old factory workers though...
~Chris
Slaughter
Paladin
This is what I thought.
The problem is that school is made to be one-size-fits-all and mass-produce "educated people". That constrains the teenagers natural ability to learn and advance rapidly and, at the same time, exposes them to negative peer influences. I like history, I would like to have some profission related to it but there's no money to be made (at least not here, and teaching is NOT a option). So I don't know what to work with in my life. But trigonometry is NOT included in what I would want to work with. I also like writing science fiction, but I doubt I can gain any money from it. A engineer should learn trigonometry because he IS going to need it, but I am not. So why should I learn it? Just because? Would't that be wasting time on someone who's not going to need that instead of teaching somebody who is really interested in it?
PS: Coloring Maps?! I never did that, ever, though. But I fell that doing trgonometry = wasted time. At least for me
dwaxe
is not a fanatic
The only part of Newt's rant I agree with is greatly increasing school curriculum. Everything else is moronic gibberish.
The problem is that teenagers have the time and leisure to act stupidly for a good chunk of time. What Newty is suggesting is to remove the free time in order to compel teens to behave in the party approved manner.
aelf
Ashen One
People don't have to be so free if they don't want to. Heck, wasting time here still beats loitering around in the alleys.
What you don't get is the fundamental difference in the nature of work between now and then. Go back 100-150 years, and the overwhelming majority of the population lived and worked in primary industries. Meaning specifically, most people provided their own food through farming or fishing. Children were part of the family production of food. Until they were old enough to set out on their own. Those families that were not in primary production often went their children to be apprentices, if not apprenticed to the family business. You did not learn a trade or a craft in school, the apprenticeship served the purpose that education serves today.
Those jobs no longer exist in the US. So a child/teen must get an education to qualify for the modern job market. Now there is debate on the best way to do that, but the basic method everyone uses is what we use.
aelf
Ashen One
It's not the specific alley that's the bigger problem. It's the fact that they hang out in various alleys
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