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So our 20-year old moved back home (temporarily, so we're told) after being away for school, and I've noticed something that I'm now seeing resonating across the rest of society ... and am wondering if this is a symptom of the 4T: valuing style/perception over content/knowledge.
He (and his girlfriend) are massively concerned with how they're perceived. All teens/early twenty-somethings are. But this seems like something different. They're both overly concerned with how to build their followers on social media to the point where they don't have anything of real value to contribute, they're just completely focused on the numbers. Then there's personal style - fashion; it's pretty crazy how they not only care in the extreme about how others see them, but how they judge others based only on appearance. I really don't think we raised him this way (obviously I'm not exactly objective here) - but it seems there's a much larger societal pressure this way than when I was young.
On top of this I'm noticing tons of examples in popular culture - movies & tv - where all kinds of people including professionals (doctors, lawyers, whatever) succeed not because they know stuff, but rather because they simply care whereas nobody else does, & they just try really really hard to solve whatever the problem is. In many cases it's positioned that smart people are themselves the problem, & that the people who care need to work around them. Apparently knowing stuff doesn't matter anymore, you just have to really really really care.
I don't remember reading about this in the book, but it's been a while since I read it ... is this an expected feature of 4T's? it seems that I'm going to have a real hard time with this!!!
"But there's a difference between error and dishonesty, and it's not a trivial difference." - Ben Greenman
"Relax, it'll be all right, and by that I mean it will first get worse."
"How was I supposed to know that there'd be consequences for my actions?" - Gina Linetti
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What I've noticed is that the left seems to value style and perception over action and results. People tell me, "how can you support Trump? He's so horrible, he said X!" And I go, "why should I care what he says? I only care about what people do."
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(07-28-2017, 04:29 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: What I've noticed is that the left seems to value style and perception over action and results. People tell me, "how can you support Trump? He's so horrible, he said X!" And I go, "why should I care what he says? I only care about what people do."
I say the same thing. I care more about what he does than what he says. And of course, what he does is even more horrible than what he says.
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07-30-2017, 01:35 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-30-2017, 03:05 PM by pbrower2a.)
(07-28-2017, 04:29 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: What I've noticed is that the left seems to value style and perception over action and results. People tell me, "how can you support Trump? He's so horrible, he said X!" And I go, "why should I care what he says? I only care about what people do."
1. We in the center-left are swift to call for those on our side to step down from high political office when they go immoral. Harrison Williams? Mel Reynolds? William Jefferson? Rod Blagojevich? Sure, those were crooks. But cheating on your wife, as did John Edwards? (That's who I voted for in the 2008 primary before that stuff came out). Maybe we are more concerned about issues and competence than about person and expect another chance.
Here's the tricky part: there were people on the Right who thought that the crotch-grabbing and meandering into female changing rooms, or bragging about shooting people down but people still cheering him discredited a Presidential nominee. It is unfortunate for America that the people who most heeded that advice were people like me. (No, I would not have excused such stuff by someone on 'my' side of the political spectrum). Face it -- if I had a daughter and some street punk grabbed her by the crotch without her consent, then I would support her pressing charges if she were an adult and press charges on him if she were underage. That is sexual assault.
2. Maybe Donald Trump is a rogue, but at least he is honest about it. But he seems to act as if he has some entitlement to get away with it because he is 'the Donald'. That's one way to set up a personality cult, something inconsistent with democracy. Maybe some person is less vile for admitting that he is a pimp or a pusher, but I would want nothing to do with the swine.
3. He praised dictators. I can think of other people, conservative figures, who would be far more suited to the sensibilities of Americans than fascist, Commie, or Ba'athist tyrants.
4. Words are the strongest tools in the repertory of a great leader. They give people the cause to put out more materiel for the war, to accept shortages in what was recently commonplace, to recognize that their precious son must put his life on the line, and that soldiers need to take a fortified pillbox. Maybe the use of powerful rhetoric isn't so critical when there is no immediate danger (as with Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher) or if one uses them largely to calm a situation not yet a full-blown crisis (Barack Obama). Donald Trump is more likely to put America into a mess that it might never get into than to explain what it takes to get through some of the most dangerous and destructive times in history. I see him as the antithesis of a Lincoln, an FDR, or a Churchill.
A President or Prime Minister is in a position in which to make the highest decisions, like the choice of where to strike with the most powerful concentration of Armed Forces or to set the economic policy. That takes wisdom, the humility to recognize that one may be terribly wrong, strong principle, basic decency, and a moral compass, none of which I can ascribe to Donald Trump. Even technical expertise pales in contrast for value in the top leader.
5. I do not accuse President Trump of being irresolute (so far as I can tell he believes firmly in what he says no matter how objective reality shows his beliefs wrong). But he can be resolute and wrong, which is far worse than being confused and teachable. I am fully satisfied that Hitler believed everything he said about the Jews, including that their elimination from the world would be a great service to Humanity. I am also satisfied that Stalin believed that turning peasants into serfs of the state and to ensure that nobody had to concern himself with a market was the best way to modernize a country that he considered backward. I am also convinced that Miguel de Torquemada believed that any brutality had justification if it led even a small number heretics or non-Christians to Jesus instead of the eternal damnation that awaited anyone who failed to toe the line on one exclusive means, one theology and baptism, of salvation.
Today we recognize Torquemada, Stalin, and Hitler great figures of unmitigated evil even if they had some understandable, if inexcusable, intentions to do real good for Humanity. To be sure, Donald Trump is nowhere near that category. He is more likely to bumble his way into a calamity than to design one. But bumbling one's way into a calamity can be just as destructive as initiating evil through malignant intention and contempt for the usual decencies.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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wow, the very first response turns this into a political thing; to clarify, my question was posted in the Society & Culture thread, not the Theory Related Political Discussions thread ... but thanks for the hijack. 
"But there's a difference between error and dishonesty, and it's not a trivial difference." - Ben Greenman
"Relax, it'll be all right, and by that I mean it will first get worse."
"How was I supposed to know that there'd be consequences for my actions?" - Gina Linetti
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(07-31-2017, 08:25 AM)tg63 Wrote: wow, the very first response turns this into a political thing; to clarify, my question was posted in the Society & Culture thread, not the Theory Related Political Discussions thread ... but thanks for the hijack.
Ha ha, typical, aren't we? 
I would say that preoccupation with appearances over substance has been an endemic trait among Americans for at least a century and probably more. Philosopher Alan Watts said in about 1966 that "there's a tremendous obsession with appearances in this country."
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(07-31-2017, 08:25 AM)tg63 Wrote: wow, the very first response turns this into a political thing; to clarify, my question was posted in the Society & Culture thread, not the Theory Related Political Discussions thread ... but thanks for the hijack.
((((YOU)))) must be new here. 
No, what you're experiencing seems to be the usual case of adults in their 20s. It is a phase and they should grow out of it sometime around age 30. The question really should be have we made society so toxic that Millies will have arrested development (though perhaps not to the degree of their largely boomer parents, thank Christ) and not grow out of the desire to be perceived to be virtuous rather than being virtuous.
I will say this though, a focus on social media doesn't help. I suspect that you're experiencing late adolescent behavior in your 20 y/o. My 17 y/o is similar though he has less patience for social media (probably because he's busy developing an actual life [according to my son one can either have an actual life, that is to say "IRL", or a virtual life, that is to say "on social media", but one cannot have both at the same time]). Trust me, being lectured as to why designer leather shoes are superior to knock off leather shoes is what I'm dealing with. Fortunately he has a job so he's spending his own money and not mine.
At least he's not wearing skinny jeans, which men should never wear, ever.
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