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Despite being a fairly conservative Republican, I make no pretenses about my distaste for television and radio talk show host Glenn Beck. His inane rants personify what drives many moderate voters away from the Republican Party.
This was on full display last week on Fox News during a trenchant takedown of America's youth. "I'm convinced we are raising a generation of would-be killers: the 'me generation.' ... A generation that was brought up by parents who wouldn't spank them because it was too barbaric and were graded in purple pen because red is too frightening. A generation too busy trying to get noticed on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter to accomplish anything of real lasting value.
"We never expected it of them. We promised them a land of sunshine rainbows and lollipops. So it should come as no surprise that the 'me generation' enters the workforce demanding high salaries, corner offices and promotions in the first few months — all while wanting to dress down and work less than 40 hours a week."
I'll ignore, for the moment, the irony of a man with two talk shows named after himself labeling another generation the "me generation." Instead, let's look at this as a symptom of a larger disease.
The old folks in our society, or perhaps more specifically, the baby boomer generation, think we, America's youth, are ushering in the destruction of our civilization.
Every generation thinks the next will drop to a level low enough to bring an end to us all. Socrates wrote, "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs and tyrannize over their teachers."
Parents of the 1950s were appalled at Elvis Presley's hip gyrations. Middle-aged folks in the 1990s decried the violence in video games that now seem quaint, like "Doom." And today, youth are being labeled the "me generation" because we have Facebook.com profiles and cell phones.
Conservative columnist and UNC-Wilmington professor Mike Adams, writing for Townhall.com, agrees with Beck's assessment. He complains about students in his classroom using their laptops to surf the Web instead of diligently taking notes. He uses this as evidence, somehow making the leap to proving this is why many young people support universal health care.
The health care debate is particularly interesting to view from this angle. Right-wing Republicans have used scare tactics like "death panels" — alleged groups of government bureaucrats deciding whether people live or die — to gather support among retirement-aged constituents.
These fears are exploited among Republicans, but they come from the underlying concern that today's youth will care so little about the elderly that they would sentence them to death. A considerably selfish position to take, don't you think?
The fact is, all Americans throughout history have been a little bit selfish. That's not a bad thing, just human nature. This fact drives progress, and we shouldn't let some notion of "the good ole days" get in the way.
Conservatives, it seems, sometimes yearn for a simpler, "Andy Griffith Show" way of life. But Andy and Barney don't represent the real world of the 1960s any more than Jerry, Kramer and Newman did the 1990s. Nostalgia has a way of glossing over the bad parts of what is a constantly evolving world.
The "me generation" will experience individuality and expression in ways never before thought possible. I am proud to be a part of it — and will try to avoid griping about the immorality of my grandchildren's generation.
-Tim Hadachek is a senior in political science. Please send comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.
