Reflections on America's Youth

Bruce Levine offers a interesting, but occasionally harsh, cutting view of America's Youth in his article http://www.alternet.org/vision/151850/8_reasons_young_americans_don%27t_fight_back_--_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance?page=entire. The article is written as a silent contrast to the previous generation and its very politically active youth, which may or may not be a good baseline for a society. Instead, I will focus on the points made.

Levine starts off discussing student loan debt, a topic close to my heart. He starts off with what is now a sad truth, student loan debt is common and growing. In many ways it is the new mortgage crisis, relatively easy, and large, amounts of money with little credit needed. It is a temptation most foul and a trap by all means; by accepting into the cycle you are locked into to repayment which means the obvious, work which requires more societal lock-downs: a house/apartment/car payment.  The topic of student loan debt could span pages and pages, let alone discussing why education costs anything (see Germany),  for now the important thing is its role a an ingredient of pacification.

The second part of the article goes on to talk about psychological labeling and subsequent medication. It focuses on ODD or oppositional defiant disorder, but offers little context in terms of numbers and instead relies on the gross sales of drugs said to treat the condition as a means of communicating the impact of the classification.  The medications listed are used to treat schizophrenia, mania, autism, bipolar, and a list of other disorders that antipsychotics can help reduce the negative symptoms of.  There were many better ways to go about the arguement of ODD's impact, let alone other potentially invalid disorders, but the intregrity of this article is severally damaged by the way Levine persues the arguement. The drugs listed have a myrid of uses and involve a large body of patients that will likely require the meds for life so there is no dramatic leap of faith needed to understand these drugs are going to be high grossing. Also I take issue with the idea that just because something is listed as a symptom that it is a negative trait. Take for instance ADHD, risk taking and anti authorative behavior are common, but it is well understand that ADHD has played a key role in the success of many well known people. ODD lifestyle changes has a long list of ways to improve ODD by focusing on building a relationship. By no means does it say the child will lose their disruptive side, but instead will have improved quality of life by being able to bond with others.

Thirdly, Levine discusses the issue of the k-12 education system and breeding good, old fashioned, worker bees and I agree. But really what alternative is there? I would love to see discourse on how other places do it better. What the world has shown me is that other places get children to memorize more information better. If there is a problem, to me, it is the requirement of a teaching certification for teachers. If a degree is good enough to teach in the university, it is good enough to teach k-12 without lesssons in "teaching theory".
In part four the article dicusses the No child Left Behind program and Race to the Top. I don't know what school Levine attended, but the general consensus in the 9 school systems I attended was that of appathy towards the testing. Perhaps not on the part of teachers, but for students the test represent no risk. Doing bad, likely, won't warrant a repraisal. Benchmarks like that are important so that we know where we are and where we need to be when looking at a world view. While the tests do control what subjects teachers teach, I still insist that the teaching certificate and teaching theory at large are the reasons we seem to forget teaching critical thinking until after high school.

Shame and illegitimacy of dropping out is the subject of the fifth part of the article and I fail to see the relevancy when looking at the last generation and their well known and effective poltical achievments. I don't see enough evidence on how our views have changed from then. Regardless, there is a major reason why reducing our drop-out rates is important, our average worker income (when adjusted for inflation) hasn't changed in quite some time, but our cost of living has. It is harder than ever to just drop out and know that you will find a way to scrape by. But again, I see a major lack of evidence as to how staying in school makes you more accepting of the conditions of the current age. The listed examples, Vidal and Carlin, likely dropped out for personal reasons that had nothing to do with a fear of becoming docile or groomed for society. The only connection I see to shame and drop outs is the connection between society looking down on people who don't make money, in the same way that liberal arts majors who can't find jobs are called yuppies and hippies. American's mock a lack of success (financially) and that is true across all levels of education.

The sixth point of the articule talks about surveillance both governmental and parental. This point I agree with and more deeply than it gets the chance to strike. The root of the problem here is that in our current age it is harder than ever to be allowed to make a mistake. Mistakes do more than just teach, they expand our views of people and the world. If anything contributes to the general apathy of my generation is the lack of an opportunity to make mistakes and just try at whatever it is one thinks of or is inspired by.

Television, the great American tradition. In the 7th part television rates and the new metric, "3 screens" (laptops/mobile phones/television), are discussed in reference to "zombifying" a generation. I disagree whole heartily. While the ratings may say otherwise, I see a lack of evidence in the growing rates of viewership in my generation compared to the last. Tv ownership is just common place and there is no way to differentiate between a TV that is on, and a TV that is watched. If anything, youtube, blog sites, and other forms of social media tell us that the current generation is connecting more than ever, and is more far reaching than ever. It is thanks to sites like that, that I have made contact with, and kept in touch with, people in the philipines, canada, china, taiwan, and else where, an opportunity I cannot say my parents had. Once again, I feel like the heart of the problem is missed in this point. These activities (games, tv, movies, music, etc) don't create pacification, but instead are signs of pascification and that the culprit would be the feeling of an inability to make a substanial or real change to the world around us, possibly due to corporatization.

And lastly, we have point eight of the article. Consumerism. This topic is really hot and hard to outline. The psychological benefits leveraged against all of us are clearly apparent yet hidden. This is a current hotbed for research and hard to discuss. But, just the idea that we can, at any time of day, give money for prepared food is bizaree and disruptive. It incentivizes a trade that disconnects people from the world and takes power from them. I've, in many ways, been subjugated by that, for whatever reason my parents never taught me to cook and I am paying the price by struggling in a way where companies have the financial and psychologal advantage. Aspects like this increase and drive our reliance on large corporate bodies.
With all of this in mind, it would seem like there is no hope. The war is nearly won. But then there is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which in many ways is so representative of the times in how globally interconnected it is, a sign that there are those who are willing to take a stand. There are those willing to push progress. And yet, they have done little besides stand in place and sleep in parks. I'm sure the world will keep their eyes open as we wait to see the movement put its money where its mouth is and take disruptive action for change.

This post is brought to you by our sponsors...

(Image by:)Branding, Marketing and Advertising with J.T.

Commercials, t-shirts, jingles, mascots, and logos, they all contribute to our corporate awareness, but at what cost and to what effect. I was challenged by my professor to keep a list of all the brands and logos I encounter in a day at the university and think about how they impact me, which, at first glance, seems simple enough of a task. At first, I looked at just clothing. But then I realized, even clothing is too broad to document in an organized manner. So even that was segmented, I documented casual wear, sports wear, accessories, backpacks, etc. Which brought me to a single realization: It can’t be done.

There isn’t enough time in the day for me to accurately record the number of brands I am bombarded with on a daily basis, but their impact is clear; I can look at any given person and not have the slightest clue who they are, but in general I will know what brands they are decked in. Yet, this is not the end of the effects, upon further examination I can make out a style, or vision if you will, that the person may subscribe to. Some companies pander to the “American dream”, some to success and wealth, and yet many others attach themselves to the other myriads of archetypes we cling to. When I keep this knowledge in mind with Dunbar’s number, I start to worry. Dunbar’s number is the idea that each human can only maintain social interaction with so many people, between 100 and 200. I worry that each company takes up a slot in my memory as it presents itself as a personal conversation about what the norms in life are and my expectations from it.

Surely having my mind occupied with slogans and logos is worthy of worry, but upon watching “No Logo” a video based on a book by the same name and written by Naomi Klein, I came upon a deeper realization. Each conversation that I actively engage in keeps me from asking the important questions, “Where did this come from?”, “Was it made safely”, “Was it made by children or exploited people”, and, lastly, “who benefits from my purchase”. Branding allows us to turn a blind eye to many social justice issues by worrying instead that we are buying the appropriate goods to solidify our social status among peers or bond us together by subscribing to the same corporate vision.

When purchasing the latest tech gadget from Apple, Google, etc we, myself included, are often too wrapped up in the moment to think outside of ourselves. Apple is a well known partner with Foxconn Technology Group with well documented issues with suicide in their Chinese plants. Often, “workers at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant worked 13 days straight, 12 hours a day, to produce the first generation of Apple’s iPad”, according to a post on Wired Magazine’s website (www.wired.com). Many of the workers share the brunt of their human contact with people who don’t even speak the same dialect all while sharing eight person rooms. It really begs the question, what does “made in China” really mean?

The ills of manufacturing are one thing, but what happens when we are all said and done with the devices? While this issue has seen improvement over the years, many companies still unethically dump their left over electronics waste in developing nations and their villages.

Take this image from Ghana  www.nytimes.com A dumping ground for untold numbers of companies, government offices, and developed societies at large. The people of this area raise their children in an environment where they are subject to mercury, lead, numerous heavy metals, and untold hazardous chemicals. And they do so willingly, as an exploited culture, because it is a way of life. They salvage what precious metals, like copper, they can by burning the giant heaps of electronic waste. These are just some of the effects of globalization and the companies who live off of it. Cheap labor, cheap dumping, and little responsibility are not among any of the qualities broadcast to us by our favorite brands.

All of these issues brings us back to the idea of social justice and simple economics. Economics, in its simplest form, is a democracy (so long as monopolistic and oligopolistic control is not in play) where we approve of, and support, companies by voting with our money. Ultimately, we, as consumers, are just as accountable, if not more so, for these ills and many others left untold. We buy our fetishes and totems to reinforce our perceived lifestyles and preconceptions about norms to ease our insecurities, we call it “the American Dream” and we never question it. We could go to capital hill and raise our angry pitchforks, but to what point? We reside in a post democracy where corporate and lobby (not always mutually exclusive) interests far exceed our voice. Where corporations can donate unlimited moneys to Super PACs to buy commercials for the candidate that will support them and the rules they need to keep their overhead cheap and their profit margins at record highs. Ultimately, the power resides with our dollars and the responsibility with ourselves, to educate, to support responsible, progresive companies, and to lead the lifestyle of our choosing, not the one sold to us on the backs of exploited people.