"When we were young the future was so bright..." The Offspring

I read an intriguing article today (link below), that made some very interesting observations about America's younger generations.  The article comments on Mark Bauerlein's book The Dumbest Generation, which asserts that the younger American generations are putting the future of their culture, and their own experience as human beings at great risk as they embrace a self-focused mindset and therefore stop pursuing education with a view of life that is bigger than themselves.  

As a high school English teacher I am constantly bombarded with very negative feelings from my students about reading old books, and about learning in general.  American children, all the way up to college students and some young adults seem to be under the spell of a cultural movement that exalts self-gratification; this leads them away from things like reading for pleasure, or studying for the sake of understanding God, themselves, humankind, the world around them, or anything else of cultural value.

In French-Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s 1986 movie “Le Déclin de l’Empire Américain” (“The Decline of the American Empire”), a professor observes that throughout history the decline of an empire is always preceded by its citizenry’s preoccupation with self-gratification. Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein makes a similar argument in his new book, The Dumbest Generation. He feels that the millennial generation places an extraordinary emphasis on personal happiness and, thanks to the technological advancements of the day, enjoys unprecedented peer contact and access to entertainment. “Instead of opening young American minds to the stores of civilization and science and politics, technology has contracted their horizon to themselves, to the social scene around them,” Bauerlein writes. As a result, the millennials are at risk of losing the “great American heritage, forever.”

Go here to read the whole article from American.com.  

I am not sure how to combat this way of thinking.  It is saddening to a certain degree; but it can certainly also serve as an inspiration to those who would write to add to our ongoing cultural experience and conversation, or who would encourage others to go to books to seek out the deeper and more rewarding things of life.

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.  Just get people to stop reading them."  

~ Ray Bradbury