Without a shadow of a doubt, Bauerlein is absolutely correct in his assessment that we spend our time unlike those of the past. Less and less time is being spent on productive activity and more and more is being spent towards leisure. We watch more tv than ever. We socially network like the end of the world is tomorrow and the only way to stop it is by posting as many things on Facebook as possible. We find better ways to distract ourselves everyday. This is not a debatable topic. You win this round Bauerline. Congrats. You just concluded the obvious. So we're the dumbest generation right? Sure we are... if you share the same definition of "dumbest" that I do.
After getting the dictionary run around, I came to the root of dumb, which is "not sensible or intelligent". Intelligence- the ability to learn and understand. So Mark Bauerlein is stating that our generation is least capable of learning and understanding. While most will take hostility towards this assessment, I simply just see a man with a narrow minded view. Yes we are more self-indulgent than we've ever been. But I'll bet my life savings that this is a trend that has been exponentially growing at the same rate that the rest of human traits are. Point being, Bauerline short sighted point of view of intelligence has him in the wrong. Our generation has evolved like every other generation has. While for the most part we don't indulge in the the history of our people or the current nature of our countries politics, both of which are certainly important, we've learned to trade those studies for advanced technology and innovation. The fact that I can make as good of an argument as I am in half as much time as I would have 30 years ago, due to technology, is living proof that we are smarter than we've ever been.
I respect that Bauerline wants to play devil's advocate to those who say that our generation isn't lazy. He's probably right. What he is trying to do is anger our generation, so that some day we buck the evolutionary trend that I believe we're in. Its a similar message to Culture Jam in that he's identifying that the power to change the world is in our hands, yet we throw it away everytime we self-indulge. Its a powerful message. I wish he was able to convince me that if enough of us became Culture Jammers that we could lead a revolution. But Bauerline should know better than all of us that history repeats itself. The same mistakes humans made 100 years ago will still reign true tomorrow. Its our nature, and there's no need trying to argue against it.
I feel like the most annoying thing about Bauerline is the fact that his mind really only has one track. To me, he doesn't even try to like or understand our generation, he just judges.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying. He is very narrow minded with his opinion. I think that we are just smart in a different way. We are more technologically savvy than any other generation. That has to count for something. Where we may lack intelligence in some subjects I believe we make up for it in many others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on Bauerline and how he is one sided on this argument. He saying that we don’t understand why the sign color was above a door in the 1950’s shows that we are dumb because we don’t understand the meaning behind it; it more because we don’t view ourselves in that way anymore so it’s irrelevant to us. We see a world of people who are unique in their own way and not white, black, brown, etc. Plus we are more of a global society today. Back in the 1950’s the average American did not know much about the Chines, but today we now a lot about them. This is not limited to them, we have a better understanding of each other in this world then we had in the past.
ReplyDeleteI liked how u connected the The Dumbest Generation to the book Culture jam when u stated "that the power to change the world is in our hands, yet we throw it away everytime we self-indulge". However i feel like we aren't going to change because we are going to keep doing what makes us happy and takes the lest amount of time. Just because the older generations didn't have the technology we do today doesn't mean they can call us dumb and lazy. If they had the same technology when they were our age they would do exactly as what we do.
ReplyDeleteI agree, if we are so dumb then how is it that we created, and know how to use technology. You make a good point that everyone else would do the same if they have to technology we do. I think we are smart just not to his expecations that he was exposed to. Also are we suppose to spot using technology because it make is "dumb"?
ReplyDeleteIf you don't "buck the evolutionary trend" like Bauerlien wants you to....won't you all end up like Titus and his friends in Feed?
ReplyDelete