FROM NATURAL RIGHTS TO CRITICAL THEORY

 

This blog has presented, explained, and evaluated the natural rights construct – what some might call the classical liberal perspective.  It, the blog, claimed that this perspective is the dominant view among the American public in terms of governance and politics.  Also, to a great degree, it assists those citizens in defining, understanding, and passing judgment over their expectations regarding their civic selves, that of other citizens, and of the government.

          As such, this foundational construct goes to provide the manner in which the nation’s civics instruction is developed and shared in American classrooms.  In this presentation, the blog focused on various elements of this view, particularly its moral element.  Also, a good deal of effort was made to describe how the view affects the quality of interaction between students and teachers, including how it influences policy and practice regarding discipline.

          The moral element was presented to highlight the way natural rights argues for individual free choice and behavior – only limited by the rights of others to the same standing – and that any counter condition to this liberality constitutes subjugation.  As for its link to academic input, the view was described as having a theoretical attachment to the political systems approach in the study of politics.  In that, the blog specifically highlighted the models presented by David Easton[1] and Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr.[2]

          These models were reviewed in relation to Eugene Meehan’s criteria[3] for viable and reliable constructs.  The Meehan-style review led naturally to a critique which emphasized the perspective’s excessive promotion of individualism and the detrimental effects such an emphasis has caused in the teaching of government and civics.

          And as with any view, any construct, any dominant perspective, there will be those among the populace who will not agree.  In true dialectic tradition, the natural rights view is not immune to such challenges.  This blog favors one such opposing view, that being federation theory.  But in truth, currently, the most prominent view picking up the challenge is critical theory, and this blog will next turn its attention to this other view. 

It is a view with an interesting history and has spread its appeal among academics in certain socially related fields – sociology, political science, education, etc.  Unlike natural rights, with a relatively simple basic set of ideas, critical theory has a varied foundation.  Some of its basic concerns are exploitation, injustice (as it defines justice), and an imbalance the way power is distributed in society.  Many advocates disagree with themselves in a variety of claims and positions, but all share, to some level, an adherence to Marxian principles.

A recent development that reflects the strength of this view is how the Democratic Party seems to be divided between a moderate wing – noncritical theory partisans – and the progressive wing – the critical theory contingency.  One way to measure how “critical” a particular politician is, is how apt that policymaker is to favor a governmental interposition – including ownership – to meet some human problem area such as the environment, the economy, health, etc.

As with the constructs already reviewed in this blog – that being the parochial federalist view and the natural rights view – this account of critical theory will set out to provide responses to this blog’s list of research questions.  To remind readers, the overall concern is:  does critical theory as a view of governance and politics provide a legitimate and viable way to study government and politics at the secondary level, i.e., in middle schools and in high schools?  There, the targeted courses would be civics and American government, respectively.

With this overarching concern, the review employs subsidiary questions.  They are directed by the dialectic stance projected by the dominant view, natural rights, and by this challenging view, the fairly leftist stance which constitutes the critical theory.  These views are in many ways not only at odds with each other, but place in opposition the role schools should play in American society.  Within this context, further questioning is:

 

1.    What role has the history of critical theory played in the development of civics curriculum?

2.    What consequences have resulted from the efforts of critical theorists in the teaching of civics?

3.    Ideally, if critical theorists were to “get their way,” how would American social arrangements be affected?

4.    And how would those desired social arrangements – per the percepts of the construct – be achieved?  

 

If critical theory were to attain the nation’s support, how would Americans proceed as the future unfolds, at least as the advocates of this view, view it?

          Utilizing a developmental arrangement of competing notions as to how the opposing perspectives foresee the effects of their claims and policy proposals, hopefully readers will be able to compare how this antithesis compares with the thesis, i.e., how critical theory compares to natural rights. 

This will be at times be overshadowed by this blog’s effort to inform readers about how critical theory came about – through relating some of its history.  But guiding the effort will be the commonplaces of curriculum developed by William Schubert[4] and include the subject matter, teachers, learners, and milieu.  In turn, the commonplaces serve to organize a good deal of what will follow.

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[1] David Easton, The Political System (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1953) AND David Easton, A System Analysis of Political Life (New York, NY:  John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1965).

[2] Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown. 1966). 

[3] Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).

[4] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The commonplaces can be defined as follows:

·       The subject matter refers to the academic content presented in the curriculum. 

·       The teacher is the professional instructor authorized to present and supervise curricular activities within the classroom setting. 

·       Learners are defined as those individuals attending school for the purpose of acquiring the education entailed with a particular curriculum.

·       Milieu refers to the general cultural setting and ambiance within the varied social settings found at the school site.

 

CRITIQUE OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS VIEW, IX

 

The last posting stressed how the self-esteem movement has taken hold in American schools – how it both affects approaches to curricular content and in how school staff handle disciplinary issues.  This posting provides an overview of how self-esteem affects teacher-student interactions.  Generally, the focus of this movement is to emphasize the individual students’ perceptions; how they define the social world around them. 

Observers of any age, such as this blogger, can readily detect meaningful change – some good, some not so good – in how those interactions take place, what assumptions are at play, and surely how outcomes materialize.  For example, time dimensions seem to have altered; yesterday’s effects are now cast as unimportant and with them, a source of shame for wrongdoing is forgotten. 

First, Americans did away with sin when they disposed of Calvinism[1] and now they do away with social standards.  As the self-esteem view puts it, statements about generally accepted notions of right and wrong behavior are seen as cumbersome and in the way.  And along with this trend, views considering discipline are affected.  Discipline and its demands are deemed to be irrelevant, except as it might be useful to acquire material success (a middle-class belief that seems to be shrinking along with the size of the middle class). 

Roy Baumeister has done meaningful research on the effects of boosted self-esteem advocacy or to be more accurate, advocacy for humanistic learning theory.  In 2006 he reports,

 

Unfortunately for the low-self-esteem theory, researchers have gradually built up a composite image of what it is like to have low self-esteem, and that image does not mesh well with what we know about aggressive perpetrators. People who have a negative view of themselves are typically muddling through life, trying to avoid embarrassment, giving no sign of a desperate need to prove their superiority. Aggressive attack is risky; people with low self-esteem tend to avoid risks. When people with low self-esteem fail, they usually blame themselves, not others.

Faced with these incongruities, we cast about for an alternative theory. A crucial influence on our thinking was the seemingly lofty self-regard of prominent violent people. Saddam Hussein [dictator of Iraq who was alive when these words were written] is not known as a modest, cautious, self-doubting individual. Adolf Hitler's exaltation of the "master race" was hardly a slogan of low self-esteem. These examples suggest that high self-esteem, not low, is indeed an important cause of aggression.

We eventually formulated our hypothesis in terms of threatened egotism. Not all people who think highly of themselves are prone to violence. That favorable opinion must be combined with some external threat to the opinion. Somebody must question it, dispute it, undermine it. People like to think well of themselves, and so they are loath to make downward revisions in their self-esteem. When someone suggests such a revision, many individuals--those with inflated, tenuous and unstable forms of high self-esteem--prefer to shoot the messenger.[2]

 

What this suggests is that the whole notion of self-esteem – which everyone should have a realistic dose of – is a more nuanced factor in how people, even young ones, function in social settings like those of schools.

          Baumeister goes on to argue in another published work that if children are taught a false sense of self-esteem, i.e., a child is convinced he or she is more talented than the child’s ability justifies, such incongruence with reality will encourage violent behavior on the part of the subject.  This is apparently due to the frustration engendered by the person’s expectations and the reality the person encounters.  He writes,

 

High self-esteem means thinking well of oneself, regardless of whether that perception is based on substantive achievement or wishful thinking and self-deception.  High self-esteem can mean confident and secure – but it can also mean conceited, arrogant, narcissistic, and egotistical.[3]

 

          The progressive pedagogy, and its philosophy, pragmaticism, lack a firm ethical base[4] and this has made it susceptible to the humanistic learning theory arguments.  Peter F. Oliva identifies this psychology, which he calls perceptual psychology, as a main branch of progressive education.[5]  Strangely, perceptual psychology seems to be the one element of progressive education that has been extensively adopted in the nation’s schools[6] – is its popularity by way of attempting to keep the “customer” base happy or, at least, appeased? 

          As such, one finds two consequences.  One, the effects of excessive concerns for self-esteem on civics education have been bolstered by the assumptions laden within the natural rights perspective in ways described earlier in this blog.  Primarily, that would be in terms of rights – one has the right to self-define oneself regardless of what the facts are.  And two, this bias easily becomes part of the “hidden curriculum”[7] which has transferred its messages of individualism and anti-communal sentiment in ways more effective than any formal instruction could.

          And with this review of humanistic learning theory and its effects on American schooling, the critique of the natural rights view comes to an end.  The next posting will provide a summary statement of the natural rights construct and a “bridge” to its most vibrant antithesis, critical theory.  This latter area of contention – natural rights vs. critical theory – weaves a contemporary tale that is finding its way more frequently into the evening news.

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[1] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” The Annals of America, 13, (Chicago, IL:  Encycloaedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), 277-288.  Readers should not consider this posting as an argument to reinstate Calvinism as a dominant view of morality or even of good behavior.

[2] Roy F. Baumeister, “Violent Pride,” Scientific American, August 1, 2006, accessed February 26, 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/violent-pride/.

[3] Roy F. Baumeister, “Should Schools Try to Boost Self-esteem?,” American Educator, 20, 2 (Summer, 1996), 14-19 & 43, 41 (emphasis in the original).

[4] Boyd H. Bode, How We Learn (Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1940).

[5] Peter F. Oliva and William Gordon, Developing Curriculum, 8^th Edition (Boston, MA:  Pearson, 2013).

[6] As the last posting pointed out, in American schools progressivism doesn’t prevail.  That honor goes to essentialism.  That view can be defined as:

Essentialism tries to instill all students with the most essential or basic academic knowledge and skills and character development. Essentialists believe that teachers should try to embed traditional moral values and virtues such as respect for authority, perseverance, fidelity to duty, consideration for others, and practicality and intellectual knowledge that students need to become model citizens. The foundation of essentialist curriculum is based on traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and literature.

See “Essentialism,” SIUE (n.d.), accessed March 5, 2023, htpps://www.siue.edu/~ ptheodo/foundations/essentialism.htlm.  SIUE refers to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s School of Education.

[7] “The term ‘hidden curriculum’ refers to an amorphous collection of ‘implicit academic, social, and cultural messages,’ ‘unwritten rules and unspoken expectations,’ and ‘unofficial norms, behaviours and values’ of the dominant-culture context in which all teaching and learning is situated.”  See “Teaching the Hidden Curriculum,” Boston University (n.d.), accessed March 4, 2023, https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/resources/teaching-the-hidden-curriculum/#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Chidden%20curriculum%E2%80%9D%20refers,teaching%20and%20learning%20is%20situated.

CRITIQUE OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS VIEW, VIII

This posting and the next one do a couple of things.  It continues the critique of the natural rights view by trying to describe an irony with that view.  It also flushes out what the last posting brought up, that being the favored natural rights answer for dealing with students who are not performing well or even their behaviors regarding disciplinary concerns.

          To remind readers, the natural rights view has a preferred approach to the study of governance and politics; that is the political systems approach originally offered by David Easton.  This approach strips from political analysis normative concerns as it objectively or scientifically goes about designing studies.

These studies have political scientists identify factors or variables so as to test them – through the measurement of behavioral responses to stimuli – and determine whether significant correlations can be detected.  If so, cause and effect relationships can be theorized as the aim is to discover explanatory causes for what reality has to offer.

Given that, the natural rights view also promotes levels of individualism, and while the above objectification of reality takes place, the view ironically favors that people have the right to do what they wish short of interfering with others to do the same.  The irony lies in that commitment toward individual agency might and does run counter to what scientific studies might discover would be most advantageous for individual actors but which they, tested individuals, might find distasteful to perform, consume, or support. 

For example, how should young individual students behave and conduct their studies in schools?  In line with that concern, do natural rights guided educators stay true to implementing what the social/psychological sciences find to be effective, or should they shop for an approach that caters to the wishes of individual students?

Some years ago, Barbara Lerner wrote,

 

Today’s teachers have been taught that self-esteem is the answer, and many believe that it is.  Others, who [usually] don’t often face great pressure to conform to the prevailing view.  Some have been effectively silenced, or driven out of the profession altogether.  The result is that the role of self-esteem in learning has a special status.  On a host of other pedagogical questions, teachers have varying viewpoints and express them freely.  On this one, the settled answer goes largely unchallenged.  Teachers seem to accept the modern dogma that self-esteem is the critical variable for intellectual development – the master to learning.  According to this view, children with high self-esteem forge ahead academically, easily and natural [sic]; children with low self-esteem fall behind.  They cannot achieve excellence, or even competence, in many cases, until their self-esteem is raised.  That, at any rate, is assumption one in what I call the self-esteem theory of intellectual development.

Assumption two is that many children are in this boat because low self-esteem is common in childhood.[1]

 

And more recently from Twinkl Teaching, the following is offered:       

 

Studies have shown that teachers' self-esteem is important for their success in teaching. It’s been found that teachers' positive and high self-esteem positively affects their pupils' self-esteem and enhances their learning. Teachers play a very important role in supporting children’s self-esteem. They have a significant, lifelong impact on their pupils, which extends further than just the fostering of academic skills. They’re also responsible for fostering positive self-esteem, which in turn leads to increased motivation and learning.[2]

 

Apparently, everyone needs healthy levels of self-esteem in order to teach or learn.  And how much do such views coincide with the elevated levels of natural rights thinking which is prevalent in the culture?  Self-esteem and personal wishes seem to this blogger to be two sides of the same coin.

          This blogger argues that humanistic learning theory psychology (described in the last posting), to varying degrees, has, if not by name but by substance, been accepted by educational academia and school district administrations around the country.  It congruently matches the whole market orientation and systems perspective described earlier in this blog except for the argument of the essentialists. 

In short, with its emphases on temporal perspectives and individualism, this psychological school is highly congruent with the philosophical historical development of the country since World War II – the years in which the natural rights view has had increasing levels of influence.

          But more to the point of this critique, as a prevailing, accepted position, it has become part of the sociological forces operating in the nation.  Its effects have furthered an atmosphere of irresponsibility.  Humanistic learning theory psychology does this because it neglects communal realities.  Culture and its sanctions toward improper behavior are relegated to an illegitimate role (considered as subjugation).  Sanctions are seen as interfering with the development of a “true self.”

          This posting will abruptly end here, and the next posting will finish this critique with this blogger’s concerns about humanistic learning theory psychology – or as it is better known, self-esteem psychology.

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[1] Barbara Lerner, “Self-esteem and Excellence:  The Choice and the Paradox,” American Educator, 20, 2 (Summer, 1996), 9-13 & 41-42, 9.

[2] “What Is Self-Esteem?.” Twinkl Teaching (n.d.), accessed February 26, 2023, https://www.twinkl.com/teaching-wiki/self-esteem#:~:text=Studies%20have%20shown%20that%20teachers,esteem%20and%20enhances%20their%20learning.  Twinkl Teaching’s editorial stand seems to be in favor of self-esteem psychology.

CRITIQUE OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS VIEW, VII

 

This blog is currently critiquing the construct that more than any other is dominant in defining what governance and politics are for most Americans – that being the natural rights view.  In general, the critique centers on natural rights’ diminution of community.  That is, it presents politics as a consumer-based activity with little to no communal or common concerns.

          Along this line, educators have adopted certain concepts and paradigms that further this bias by compounding the prevailing individualism, anti-intellectualism, and temporal view of the American people and what they are about.  They have been poorly instructed about the historical turns and forces that led to the current state of affairs. 

These forces, in part, met their loosely “scientific” foundation in the psychology of humanistic learning theory, a theoretical base highly in tune with the elements of the natural rights perspective in that it focuses on individual perceptions and emotions.

 

Humanistic learning theory is grounded in the philosophy of humanistic theories of psychology, including person-centered theory … Primary contributors to humanistic learning theory include Arthur Combs, Carl Rogers, and Malcolm Knowles, all of whom believed the goal of education is to facilitate students’ development and self-actualization … Therefore, humanist educators have an unwavering trust in the individual’s growth capacity and view self-directed learning as most facilitative of growth … Additionally, humanistic theorists hold a phenomenological view of humans in that they believe each person’s view of the world is reality for that person and that learning is motivated by personal need based on one’s internal frame of reference … For example, a student with low self-efficacy might not attempt difficult projects because of a belief that “I am not capable,” whereas a student with a high level of self-trust can go beyond the direct instructions of an assignment to tailor the assignment to fit their learning needs. Highly self-actualized individuals view themselves as dynamic beings who are constantly growing and changing …[1]

         

To summarize:  what the concerned parties have had is a history that glorified individuals in their quest to obtain economic well-being.  A national philosophy has taken hold that demeans thought and reflection and has made the here and now all important.  Add to this mix a generally accepted psychological school of thought that leads to the idea that all of these biases are natural and lodged in the nature of humans.

          Basing their propositions on studies basically done with clinical patients, adherents to this perceptional-ist psychology apply clinical techniques to helping services such as education.  Relying on the ideas of two leading humanistic learning theorists, Carl Rogers[2] and Arthur Combs,[3] their main argument is that behavior is a product of perception; that dysfunctional people in the US society act that way because they have low self-regard for themselves.

          Health for these people is a product of, first, freeing themselves of social definitions about who they are or what they should be about, and, second, to get them to define their own standards of what is good and proper.  What is important in treating these people is not so much their psychological background, but their immediate behaviors and feelings they express.  Humanistic learning advocates then, in applying this line of reason to schools, advocate a curriculum that:

 

1.    Is characterized by a warm atmosphere in which the teacher is helper, communicating a warm positive acceptance, and demonstrating empathetic understanding;

2.    Never communicates that a student cannot accomplish the objectives set forth (making evaluation very problematic);

3.    Provides problems that are relevant to the student (preferably identified by the student); and

4.    Encourages the student to define his or her own sense of morality (they speak of responsible choices, but this does not seem to be defined).

 

Of late, the self-esteem movement in American schools is a direct product of the humanistic learning psychology.  While the viability of this bias varies over time, it has held a central commitment to date.

            So, whatever can be wrong with this mode or approach to teaching?  Only a Grinch can object to such an approach.  Before this blogger attempts to get into the negative aspects of this view, he wishes to express a tempered support for its prescribed educational claims and advocacies.  Yes, it is good to treat students with dignity, justice, and an upbeat approach that is encouraging of their efforts. 

But in all that, teachers need to be honest and respectful for the legitimate demands of the society in which they ply their trade.  And in that, humanistic learning theory tends to cut some corners.  And in conducting their interactions with students, effective teachers should not portray to their students false messaging that might sound more acceptable to their students, but in sum will not be beneficial.  The next posting will expound on these concerns.

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[1] Katherine E. Purswell, “Humanistic Learning Theory in Counselor Education,” The Professional Counselor, 9, 4 (2019), 358-368, 359, accessed February 27, 2023, https://tpcjournal.nbcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Pages_358-368-Purswell-Humanistic_Learning_Theory_in_Counselor_Education.pdf.

[2] Carl Rogers, “Learning to Be Free,” in Readings in Curriculum, edited by Glen Hass, Kimball Wiles, and Joseph Bondi (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1970), 219-239.

[3] Arthur W. Combs, “Seeing Is Behaving,” in Readings in Curriculum, edited by Glen Hass, Kimball Wiles, and Joseph Bondi (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1970), 210-219.

CRITIQUE OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS VIEW, VI

 

To continue with this blog’s critique of the natural rights view, the dominant view of governance and politics in the US, this posting begins with highlighting that view’s emphasis on individualism.  In that vein, this posting addresses two areas of concern regarding how the natural rights view falls short in accounting for the needs of a multicultural nation and the indifference natural rights advocates demonstrate when it comes to socializing students to those values and goals associated with the nation’s constitutional moral view.

As for the first concern, individualism is so central that it has a significant influence on the nation’s cultural character.  And its favored analytical model, the political systems model, suffers from a certain level of obliviousness regarding the varied cultural perspectives that might be present in a given polity and are surely present in the US. 

This is unfortunate in that this view took dominance in the late 1940s from the parochial/traditional federalist view that was instrumental in establishing the extreme ethnocentric antagonism regarding non-European descendants in America.  And this is particularly true of the descendants of former slaves, the African American population in this country.[1] 

But more generally, the whole concern is heightened in importance since the American nation is made up of many ethnic groups and that number is increasing all the time.  For the first time, in 2045, western European descendants will not be a majority of the American population.[2]  Yet the processes that must be addressed to formulate a sufficiently cohesive enough nation out of such diversity have been given short attention.

That includes the attention this situation garnered by much of the social science analysis that was prominent until the end of the last century.[3]  As Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste, suggests, this has been addressed by a scholarly literature – in terms of African Americans – to a certain degree, but a lot more has to be written, described, and explained to  provide the American public a more accurate account as to the treatment of these various cultural groups. 

The problem is that to greater degrees than what reductionist studies indicate,[4] internal, ethnic/racial conflicts are based on issues that transcend institutional arrangements based on behaviorist concerns over rewards and punishments.  A lot of this has to do with how people in the US define who they are – that falls under people’s sense of identity. 

And along with this, one seems to be currently facing certain political advocacy, which is gaining currency, that proposes the elimination in American classrooms of closer analyses of past acts of discrimination and prejudice.[5]  Usually, the basis of such moves is said to avoid indoctrination.  This seems intuitively questionable since indoctrination is usually accomplished not by entertaining various views, but by eliminating them – as the proposed policing seems to seek.

Finally, this critique, on another issue, needs to address a distinguishing attribute of the natural rights approach to education.  That is what Jeffrey Reiman brought up in the mid-1990s, that the natural rights perspective can be said not to have a moral requirement concerning morally questionable conditions.  In arguing in favor of scientific objectivism, natural rights advocates shun away from moralistic judgments.  Here, the interest is in the morality surrounding subjugation.[6] 

As Richard Hofstadter points out in his criticism of progressive education and its bias toward such objectivism in education, people left to their own judgment to determine all of their values and goals, become subject, if not to adult subjugation, then to peer subjugation.  Why?  Because the notion that individual people will consider every value and goal alternative before formulating a comprehensive value and goal system is not convincing. 

When one thinks about the effort involved in such endeavors, one can see how daunting it would be.  Students need a more targeted concern to provide the necessary motivation to be so engaged.  And unless motivated by some external need, one is apt to accept an available value and goal system.  If a parent/adult system is withheld from the child, the peer group culture will fill the vacuum.

That is what has been happening in large measure in contemporary American life and why there has arisen a youth culture that has been noted in the past as being anti-social and aggressive.[7]  The predisposition of youth is to be self-absorbed and short-sighted and has through the years sought out different ways to express itself through a recurring process. 

Each generation seems to devise an alternate way by which young people fall under the lure of prevailing values and goals that their youth culture highlights.  For one to currently understand how youth grapple with the world in 2023, one has to see how they are apparently linked to technology.

 

Today, youth culture is impossible without technology. Kids and teens do everything online. They use tech to entertain, shop, study, get academic help like at top-custom-writing.com, interact with peers, work, etc. Therefore, technology plays a key role in their lives.[8]

 

And it is with that backdrop that social media has grown and exerts its effects.  These effects have drawn the attention of mental and physical health experts.  For example,

 

Peer acceptance is a big thing for adolescents, and many of them care about their image as much as a politician running for office, and to them it can feel as serious.  Add to that the fact that kids today are getting actual polling data on how much people like them or their appearance via things like “likes.”  It’s enough to turn anyone’s head.  Who wouldn’t want to make herself look cooler if she can?  So kids can spend hours pruning their online identities, trying to project an idealized image.  Teenage girls sort through hundreds of photos, agonizing over which ones to post online.  Boys compete for attention by trying to out-gross one other, pushing the envelope as much as they can in the already disinhibited atmosphere online.  Kids gang up on each other.

            Adolescents have always been doing this, but with the advent of social media they are faced with more opportunities – and more traps – than ever before.  When kids scroll through their feeds and see how great everyone seems, it only adds to the pressure.  We’re used to worrying about the impractical ideals that photoshopped magazine models give to our kids, but what happens when the kid next door is photoshopped, too?  Even more confusing, what about when your own profile doesn’t really represent the person that you feel like you are on the inside?[9]

 

And may this blogger add, it seems common these days of hearing about some young person, usually a girl, committing suicide over some interaction on social media.

That is what has been happening in large measure in contemporary American life and why there has arisen a youth culture that has been noted as being anti-social and, in its way, aggressive.  The predisposition of youth is to tend to be self-absorbed and short-sighted.  And while the exact form in which these less than desirable social behaviors manifest themselves, immaturity is and will be an ongoing challenge for the adult world, especially for parents and teachers.[10]

While this might not be such a straight-forward claim – apparently, there are some nuances involved with this state – still the following is noted,

 

In a foundational 2008 paper, Jean Twenge …  and her colleagues reviewed 85 studies that surveyed more than 16,000 students between 1979 and 2006 … The researchers found that college students were becoming more narcissistic – by a full 30 percent from 1982 to around 2006.[11]

 

Their need for adult guidance, even if that guidance is determined to be subjugation, is essential for the happiness of the youth at present and in their upcoming adulthood years.

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[1] Isabel Wilkerson, in her recent book, Caste, argues that the dominant culture in the US established and has maintained a caste system regarding the black population in the country.  See Isabel Wilkerson, Caste:  The Origins of Our Discontents (New York, NY:  Random House, 2020).

[2] William H. Frey, “The US Will Become ‘Minority White’ in 2045, Census Projects,” Brookings (September 10, 2018), accessed February 24, 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/.

[3] Daniel P. Moynihan, Pandaemonium:  Ethnicity in International Politics (New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1993).

[4] That being studies that employ positivist/scientific protocols which by design limit attention to lists of variables or factors.  This approach can be compared to more holistic approaches that usually count on narratives.

[5] Under the argument that certain instruction of past practices, ones one can, for example, associate with slavery or discrimination, are attempts at indoctrination have been claimed.  The position here is that indoctrination is not promoted with including opinions and arguments, but with their exclusions.  Students should be exposed to as many opinions and accountings of the past as teachers can reasonably present in the classroom setting.

[6] Jeffrey Reiman, “Liberalism and Its Critics,” in The Liberalism-Communitarian Debate, edited by Cornelius F. Delaney (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield Publisher, Inc., 1994).

[7] James A. Robinson and Roger Majak, “The Theory of Decision-Making,” in Contemporary Political Analysis, edited by J. C. Charlesworth (New York, NY:  The Free Press, 1967).

[8] Sean Schmidt, “Modern Culture of the Youth:  Do You Know It Well?,” River Beats Dance (n.d.), accessed February 22, 2023, https://riverbeats.life/modern-culture-of-the-youth-do-you-know-it-well-2023/#:~:text=Today%2C%20youth%20culture%20is%20impossible,key%20role%20in%20their%20lives.

[9] Rachel Ehmke, “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers,” Child Mind Institute (n.d.) accessed February 22, 2023, https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/.  This site goes on to describe the manner and prevalence of cyberbullying that occurs today.  The news often reports of some teenager committing suicide over what social media has posted about that youth.

[10] Robert Gutierrez, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics:  Obstacles in Achieving a Federated Nation (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas Civics Books, 2022).

[11] Kira M. Newman, “The Surprisingly Boring Truth about Millennials and Narcissism,” Greater Good Magazine (January 17, 2018), https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_surprisingly_boring_truth_about_millennials_and_narcissism.