Al Mohler featured an interesting article - it's long but it's interesting. The obvious question is the one Al raises about Adults holding onto childhood, but there's more, and I can't seem to place a finger on it. On the surface, cultural phenomena like this aren't evil - just maybe the deeper implications are harmful. It's easy to slip into unwarranted judgement of just appearances.
I can't get my head around it all to come up with a decent analysis, it's a bizarre trend. Something that did occur to me is that parents are to model a standard - it's part and parcel of how kids learn character. But we're seeing a generation by generation lowering of the bar - it's not just a lower standard, it's a redefining of what's the standard, what the priorities of parenting are. Check this quote about parenting from the article:
“You have to have a little bit of Dora the Explorer in your life,” he says. “But you can do what you can to mute its influence.” Okay. “And there’s no shame, when your kid’s watching a show, and you don’t like it, in telling him it sucks.” Yeah! There’s no—wait. What? “If you start telling him it sucks, maybe he might develop an aesthetic.” Sorry, son. No more Thomas the Tank Engine for you. Thomas sucks. Stop crying. Daddy’s helping you develop an aesthetic. Now Daddy’s going to go put on some thunder music.
Even the jobs of choice these days might clue us into the social anarchy that seems a result of this unthinking, selfishly hedonistic mindset. At least in the article the jobs that seem to prevail: fashion, music, media, marketing, TV... it's ironic that actually these are probably the most socially impactful career tracks today. We live in a generation that blatantly cares only about itself.
To quote a song: There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear. But it's time we stopped and listened and figured out what's going down.
Maybe it's not a big deal, maybe these issues are culturally relevant to the United States, but the sad truth is maybe it is important, because what's cutting edge hip is going to trickle down to the rest of the globe sooner or later.
