The ‘Net’ Generation: Dumbing Down What Matters Most
by Leigh Scott
Because televised news has been rendered obsolete by technology (who needs Christine Amanpour when every citizen has an HD camera, YouTube, and Twitter?), I turned to the Internet to keep up with the events transpiring in Iran. I logged into Twitter and found this massive “Twitter-grid” of people in Iran and people around the world communicating. It went something like this….
#iranstudent:please help.they are attacking the dorms.
#crzygrl:EVERYONE WEAR GREEN TOMORROW TO WORK AND SCHOOL
#iranstudent:my god. where is help? they will kill us.
#Evlhaliburton:this is just like US in 2000.
#iranstudent: please send troops. they shot my friend.
#Evlhaliburton@iranstudent: i hope this isn’t just hype.
#crzygrl@Evlhaliburton:no way to tell. yeah, just like 2000 LOL. Go LAKERS!
#Evlhaliburton@crzygrl: LAKERS!
#iranstudent: we need help! please world help! where is Obama?
#Evlhaliburton: OBAMA! LAKERS!
I kid you not. That is almost verbatim.
The “net” generation lives in a bubble of entitlement and leftist ideology. No one is expecting people in their mid-20s to have all of the answers and make tough decisions. That is the period in your life for self-discovery, experimentation, and risk taking. As you age and settle into your 30s you start to develop heightened responsibility and your critical thinking skills fully take shape.
Yet, at some point, politics became “cool.” That’s great and all, and I encourage civic responsibility, but something has been lost along the way. Part of being politically active, either working to support a candidate or movement, or voting, is to be informed. It is your responsibility to educate yourself so you can make responsible, informed decisions.
The “net” generation naturally goes to the Internet for knowledge. Bad idea. Uninformed, tech savvy, indoctrinated young people spread information to other tech savvy, uninformed, indoctrinated young people. This information is treated as fact. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The left loves this. The entire Obama campaign was about this. A huge pool of uninformed, yet arrogant voters is what the left has been working to create for decades.
Politics is a highly intellectual, highly nuanced pursuit. YouTube some Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and William F. Buckley clips and contrast that with the discussions on the Rachel Maddow show. Then really depress yourself and contrast Maddow with the trolls in the comments section on this website. Wanna be suicidal? Compare this website to the Huffington Post comments or Al Gore’s CurrentTV.
I laughed out loud when I read that both Tina Brown and Ann Coulter suggested that Sarah Palin “brush up” on her politics. It’s pretty much accepted wisdom that Sarah Palin needs to spend the next three years in the Political Science department at the University of Alaska. Roger Simon made the same point in the LA Times.
Seriously Dudes and Dudettes? That’s what she needs to do to win elections? Do you see who the nation just elected? Do you watch MSNBC? A lack of competent intellectual capacities is not a road block to the hallowed halls of power or media acceptance in today’s society.
Sarah Palin would win a landslide just being herself if she allowed me and John Ziegler produce a “reality show” that follows the Governor and her family around 24/7. Don’t air it on a news network but on TLC or BRAVO. Make it just as “real” as the other scripted reality shows out there. After one season Sarah Palin would have a substantial lead in any poll. After two seasons, people would be asking “Why can’t Sarah Palin be president NOW?”.
To win we must acknowledge that the field of battle radically changes the strategy. In a perfect world we would elevate the discourse. Move it back into the realm of William Buckley debating Noam Chomsky or Ayn Rand grilling Phil Donahue. In this arena, a purely intellectual discussion, with collectivism challenging liberty; capitalist, free market ideology wins hands down.
The other option is to keep politics down in the mucky muck. Politics for the Hot Topic crowd. If we keep it there, we have to play by the rules set by the left. They pulled it down here so its on their terms. There is no “high road” in this world. People and personality trump ideas. I don’t think Reagan would have thought a Facebook page dignified enough for a president and I doubt Nixon would have been “tweeting” his peeps from his Blackberry, but for modern politicians it is essential.
Palin vs. Letterman is the first time in a long time that I saw conservatives properly use the media. Palin and her people played it perfectly, boxing not only Letterman but all of his supporters into a corner. The most rabid anti-Palinites were forced to make silly or offensive or silly and offensive comments that further discredited their position. Taking the high road or showing that we can “take a joke” would work if we weren’t in the mucky muck world. To allow ourselves to be the punch-line, reinforcing fallacious stereotypes and ignoring one sided political correctness is a bad plan.
Too often conservatives fight their battles on the wrong field. It’s disastrous to attempt to explain the “invisible hand of the free market” in a 140 character “tweet.” Conversely, nothing will be more embarrassing than a “bona fide” conservative trying to be cool by uploading MTV style videos to YouTube.
Either way, the debate would be better served if politics just stopped being cool. Real politics is about historical data, economic models, and fundamental principals. People, as they are in Iran right now, pay the price of political mistakes with their blood. It’s not a game. It’s not cool. I just don’t see that happening any time soon. But I can hope.
So kids, come on. Stop blogging about this and that. Stop tweeting your friends about political issues. Go play Warcraft or something. At least if you make the wrong call in a video game I don’t have to pay for it with my savings and people don’t have to pay for it with their lives. You screw up Warcraft and a couple of Orcs bite it. I can live with that.
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63 Comments
So true… and I'd watch the Palin 'Reality Show' It would be great.
Where's the pie?
Leigh – I agree you have to get people elected so that is one tactic. On the other hand, we need the president to be seriously informed about world and domestic affairs. That is one reason, I would want Governor Palin to brush up. You know MSNBC and Couric will come after her. She needs to continue to improve her "slickness" factor and her ability to show the media for the shallow partisans they are. People like fascist think you are insulting his intelligence. What she fails to forget is she pretty much insults her own intelligence every time she posts.
Sorry Rick, Joe Biden pretty much owns that title forever.
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[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBecause televised news has been rendered obsolete by technology (who needs Christine Amanpour when every citizen has an HD camera, YouTube, and Twitter?), I turned to the Internet to keep up with the events transpiring in Iran. I logged into Twitter and found this massive “Twitter-grid” of people in Iran and people around the world communicating. It went something like this…. #iranstudent:please help.they are attacking the dorms. #crzygrl:EVERYONE WEAR GREEN TOMORROW TO WORK AND SCHOOL [...]
[...] News Sources wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBecause televised news has been rendered obsolete by technology (who needs Christine Amanpour when every citizen has an HD camera, YouTube, and Twitter?), I turned to the Internet to keep up with the events transpiring in Iran. I logged into Twitter and found this massive “Twitter-grid” of people in Iran and people around the world communicating. It went something like this…. #iranstudent:please help.they are attacking the dorms. #crzygrl:EVERYONE WEAR GREEN TOMORROW TO WORK AND SCHOOL [...]
[...] Read the original: The “Net” Generation: Dumbing Down What Matters Most [...]
This is getting ridiculous!
[...] The “Net” Generation: Dumbing Down What Matters Most by Leigh Scott [...]
[...] at the rest of this post and check out what these entitled, hip, young, Obama voters are cluttering up cries for help from [...]
Comments are back – please have at it.
I agree with Scott. It is hard to find an anyone informed on what is going on in the US let alone anywhere else. My sister and I read everyday, anything we can find, left and right, to try and figure out what is going on. We do not work, we are stay at home moms and we barely keep up. Can you do that and work. Between us we have 11 children, 9 young adults and teens. We learn and then teach them, it is not happend in public schools. Civics class is a joke. We have great discussions. We really need an informed populace, especially with the direction we are headed in.
Excuse me, but why was my last comment deleted?
What gives? There is nothing remotely profane or offensive about that remark.
Oh, just bite me.
There is some comment meltdown going on….
OK, that's four times. What's your problem?
Is there something about the phrase "post-rational" that PO's the administrator?
Very good article. Debbie and Scoot are right on. It is difficult to have an in depth conversation today with people about politics. Most are just not informed. To me, many people are overly concerned about what a politician can give them to make their life easier, ignoring the real issues facing the country.
I can't get ANYTHING to be posted either! What gives?
Tennessee – here's a hope that THIS will come through. It will be my FIFTH attempt.
"Tenneessee – I respectfully disagree. I read your admonition that Palin need to 'improve her slickness' as meaning she should become slick. Pardon, but that's the enemy's job – and as McCain proved, becoming them only makes the situation worse. And, btw, if slickness was such a great thing, than how come Couric's ratings are in the toilet?
Another thing – you think 'antifascist' is a female? Oh, lord, I hope you're wrong. As a female, I so do NOT want 'anti' on my side of the gender fence."
Tell me this doesn't point out the major flaw with democracy: It's rule by fool because the masses are asses.
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It's difficult to have an in depth conversation with people about ANYTHING these days! This most recent incident only serves to highlight a problem that's been going on for some time now.
I wonder if someone is trying to hack the site. I had this happen to a friend. The troll activity has been crazy for the last couple of days– and given how much they like an intellectual debate, it wouldn't surprise me at all to know someone is trying to mess up the site.
most young americans get their news from the daily show, hence the reason why they are so uninformed
You have something posted on Nolte's column.
I find the above Twitter transcripts quite depressing. The person who in the 50's described TV as a vaste wasteland would probably have shot himself if he'd ever seen the internet!
Post deleted. Oh, the irony.
such as it is. What gives with site today?
Comment +
Maybe you have to be hip and use quotes from fiction.
Zoe: This is something the Captain has to do himself.
Mal: No it's not!
No, I doubt it will work either. Just need something to keep me from screaming.
Or something crashed. It was very strange.
I tried to post this morning, five or six times with no luck, came back the afternoon and it went right through? Funny, my post about technology takes five hours to get posted.
Except for the word "Free" irony is the most over used word by the left.
glitch
It's been refusing me all day. I assume a glitch or hack.
I think maybe they got carried away with the "Auntie" thing – but maybe they know something I don't.
I've been trying to say somewhat the same thing all day but getting deleted. Slickness is not what's needed. She needs to ditch any and all McCain-style handlers and be herself. Bringing her voice down a couple of notes might help, though.
can we please have this movie made:
This will wake up the Net Gen and others…
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/lev.asp
"The film, apart from its emotional impact, will show on the basis of the best documentary evidence (1) how far the dictatorship of China has gone and is to go in the development of crucial weapons of the 21st century; and (2) how determined the dictatorship of China is to establish its world domination and thus, inter alia, to prevent domestic revolts like the Tiananmen movement of 1998 or the mass withdrawal from the Communist Party of China in the past two years."
Ummm, I don't tweet or twit, but did anyone communicate with iranstudent? I mean, even reading the comments here, it is disturbing. Palin docu and all aside, L. Scott, is that example you gave accurate?
To say Governor Palin needs to "brush up" implies she has somehow slacked off or was never informed to begin with. So far all I have noticed is she was unprepared for attack interviews and was caught off-guard. She is likely far better informed then she wants her opponents to think she is.
I work a job that gives me 6-7 hours of time to read and I agree, it takes that much to stay on top of things. I spend 3 hours or so reading through links at drudge(only what interests me), reading stuff here, and occasionally perusing Yahoo or other MSM crap. Most people don't have a job like mine that gives me down time. I used to spend time at NRO, but for some reason I've lost interest in NRO. Pajamas has some good people. If it's Iran you're after, check out Ledeen at Pajamas. I entirely agree with your premise, in that being informed takes serious time and most people don't put the time in.
Alas, I believe it is. Public Ed and all that. Can't count on people to know what critical thinking really is. Times like this make me wish you had to pay taxes in order to actually vote…
Oh, if people have limited time, they need to be really choosy(sp?) in their sources.
Tilting at windmills again? I'm 30yo and I can't remember ever having to read the constitution in school, much less take a test only about it. I can't imagine what kids in school these days learn(or don't learn) about it. I remember the glee I got a few years about when National Review sent me a little booklet with great American speaches(Washington's fairwell, Reagan at Ponte Du Hoc, Payne's Common Sense) and it contained a copy of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Amazing how short the Constitution is and how little the current(really since Hoover) US gov. follows it……
A vote is like a loaded weapon. If you don't know what you're doing, you could end up hurting yourself or someone else.
I do not believe it is the technology that makes people ignorant. People in every generation have had their heads too far up their own backsides to have informed opinions. My generation is the first to do it live on Twitter. It is unfair to discount every person who uses social media as misinformed. If I did that, I wouldn't be coming to Big Hollywood for my dose of right wing thought.
Intense Debate was down at the same time.
I think you're probably right, Tina. The internet just exposes the ignorance that was there all the time.
Palin is great. She has always been great. A cut-and-paste edited hack job piece by no-talent, aging Couric did not change my opinion of Palin.
Twittering children hopefully will learn about real life eventually.
Intense Debate is seriously the worst comment system I've ever had the displeasure of using. It eats comments, glitches out, and is just generally poor.
I'm in my young 40s and we had to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution in 5th grade plus the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. But then again, we still had those old no-nonsense, slap-your-palm-with-a-ruler teachers who never went through the Education Program of a major university.
Don't get your hopes up. Nowadays, twittering children grow up to be twittering children.
Must we really wait another 3 1/2 years to solve the ObamaZation of America by the O's foreign inverstor coalition (Drugs Mafia, Marxism, IslamoFascism)? Are we so politically corrected that we gracefully let Acorn steal our election, steal our census, steal our future? Are we so stupid as to believe the Dessroy America Plan we are living (that is working) must continue unchallenged? Waiting to be given concrete soap bars and led single file into the showers? Come on, folks…Valley Forge calls you…calls you now!
Why do these kids think Bush gave Haliburton the war contracts? Those were awarded by Clinton waaay before Bush was ever in office. Yes, war contractors are given contracts 'just in case' so they will be in place before they are needed.
Yep, Clinton was responsible for those Haliburton contracts. It wasn't up to Bush.
Every time I see that I think, "what idiots!"
The general anemia of history and civics does not bother me nearly as much as the alarming level of enthusiastic glee these kids display, as they embrace their ignorance.
I don't think it is everyone Tina. But it is the majority.
It sucks having to agree with something Miles says.
Ditto.
Yeah. Me too.
Same here. Plus being in 4th grade during the Bi-Centennial year gave us even more focus on the Revolutionary War years. I just can't get over that they barely talk about it with any sort of pride in school now.
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