tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post5185776723584428361..comments2024-02-25T05:24:24.948-05:00Comments on Beyond Easy: On the Death of AdulthoodPatrick Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-61419071019928860492014-10-15T11:15:36.461-04:002014-10-15T11:15:36.461-04:00Excellent point (and sorry for the tardy answer). ...Excellent point (and sorry for the tardy answer). I employed a "classical outstanding adult" definition going by the easily identifiable societal trappings that our forefathers valued as sure signs of maturity and capability to contribute to the community at large... much in the same way that the writer of the article pretends to define the execrable modern "childish" adult by the content he or she enjoys.<br /><br />As with everything is not the outward appearances nor the choices of consumable entertainment what makes a good man or woman but their deeds. "By their fruit you will recognize them", and "It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man", and whatnot.Maokunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15459710218366288832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-54950970144471782162014-10-13T17:20:22.943-04:002014-10-13T17:20:22.943-04:00I have to disagree with your friend's assertio...<i>I have to disagree with your friend's assertion about lamenting the present being a relatively new thing. Plato, frigging Plato, complained about the younger generation not respecting their elders and not having sufficient values. This may be one of the oldest things in human culture.</i><br /><br />Actually, this is exactly what she was talking about; she in the context of the conversation, she was only arguing that it was nothing new. She might have well replaced "modern age" with "human history."<br /><br />Of course, Plato was writing <i>after</i> Athenian power and culture had reached their inflection points, so perhaps he wasn't entirely mistaken.<br /><br />(Although if we're picking nits in this region it might be worth considering the stasis of the European Dark Age. I wonder how many people were complaining about the kids and their crazy ideas during the centuries between the aftershocks of Rome's fall and the dawn of the Renaissance [modern age], when cultural evolution was apparently at more or less a standstill across much of Europe.)<br /><br /><i>As far as the death/disappearance of adulthood, I think some reflection should be made about the how adulthood is defined more as a destination than a journey.</i><br /><br />Point. A very good point.Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-85868063885288388362014-10-13T16:54:21.440-04:002014-10-13T16:54:21.440-04:00Here's the short version. Questions: is arrest...Here's the short version. Questions: is arrested development an actual trend? Is it a problem? To what extent does our media landscape (our most ubiquitous and one of our most powerful cultural influences) influence this phenomenon?<br /><br />My mistake (as well as Mr. Scott's) was beginning without firm definitions of "maturity" and "adulthood." I can't really make any assertions about either of those things until I can say what they mean.Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-81813689434793548082014-10-11T14:50:43.916-04:002014-10-11T14:50:43.916-04:00It is too much, yes. Clearly I'm trying to thi...It is too much, yes. Clearly I'm trying to think something through and haven't quire arrived there yet.<br /><br />Clarification: when I say "culture" I don't mean the institutions of art, literature, etc. I use it in the anthropological sense: it's more or less everything about us that isn't the sole product of genetics. Art is just a <i>part</i> of culture—and it enjoys more weight in the present age than ever before in human history.<br /><br />...as I type this I realize I'm running late for work and have to leave you with the incomplete thought. Sorry!Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-31365276118806225462014-10-11T14:38:53.499-04:002014-10-11T14:38:53.499-04:00Conceded. Although—as I work out why the original ...Conceded. Although—as I work out why the original piece struck me as it did (in all honesty I'm thinking it probably has something to do with my relationship with my WW2 vet grandfather, which is a box of vipers I'm not sure I'm ready to air out here), I'm not sure I could call the orchestrators of the financial crisis "outstanding adults." The sort of solipsism necessary to act as they did seems to me an exceedingly vile sort of childishness.<br /><br />Maybe a working definition of a cultural "adult" should be a prerequisite for my following this line of thought any further.Patrick Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02410016566636603639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-8438081831096340562014-10-11T01:04:26.888-04:002014-10-11T01:04:26.888-04:00Just to throw it out there, as far as climate chan...Just to throw it out there, as far as climate change goes there's a not-insignificant portion of people who think the 'parent' that will come along to fix our problem for us is God. They expect divine intervention to fix our mistakes for us, which is a kind of arrested development in its own way.<br /><br />And I agree with your friend's comment that the 'work, consume media, sleep' cycle isn't any better when it involves 'adult/mature' media. Drinking wine isn't better than smoking weed, watching 'serious' movies is not inherently better than watching a superhero movie. I mean, the article starting this slammed YA fiction, but look at the bestsellers among 'adult' fiction. Dan Brown? James Patterson? I haven't read Patterson but I've read Brown and I doubt Patterson is too different in his self-insertion fantasy characters and cheap cliffhanger pacing. And that's supposed to have more value than Harry Potter?<br /><br />I have to disagree with your friend's assertion about lamenting the present being a relatively new thing. Plato, frigging Plato, complained about the younger generation not respecting their elders and not having sufficient values. This may be one of the oldest things in human culture.<br /><br />As far as the death/disappearance of adulthood, I think some reflection should be made about the how adulthood is defined more as a destination than a journey. I know, it's sooooooooo Deeprak Chopra 'Isn't this deep?' pseudo-profundity, but this is a case where it applies. I'm not just curious how people like that article's author define 'adult,' but why they think people should be reaching that state the way we reach the end of a journey. Is there a checklist of 'adult' behaviors/accomplishments/philosophies acquired? Are the life lessons and virtues held up in YA titles no longer applicable once you reach a certain age or had certain life experiences? Do you hit a certain birthday and have to say to yourself 'I guess Captain America can't be a hero to me now because I've outgrown the things he stands for.'?<br /><br />Yes, I'm oversimplifying what an article I didn't read said, but fuck it. The issue of maturity in those who are legally adults is not as simple as categorizing every piece of media into 'for children,' 'for teens,' and 'for adults,' because the *real* categories we should be thinking of are 'for entertainment' and 'for mental stimulation,' and those aren't determined by age. There are thought-provoking stories meant for younger audiences and there are dumb-as-shit 'stare at this so we can run commercials in front of your glazed-over eyes' stories meant for adults. Compare Avatar: The Last Airbender to, I don't know, The Big Bang Theory or Two and a Half Men.<br /><br />If video games and cartoons for adults didn't exist, there would still be countless grown men wasting their time watching sports and action movies that have the same objective of killing the viewer's time as the latest AAA game release. I mean, the person writing this article is a film critic; did they miss all those 80's action movies and teen sex comedies? What the fuck is this 'Things *today* are so bad.' bullshit?Philip Pangrachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14117360002501230429noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-8449270864317402192014-10-09T09:18:28.601-04:002014-10-09T09:18:28.601-04:00All this talk about young adults reminds me of the...All this talk about young adults reminds me of the movie Young Adult! You should watch that if you haven't. Totally relevant.<br /><br />Honestly, I don't know where this is going, though. Maybe I don't know enough weed smokers, but I don't think university-educated people are particularly mature, especially grad students, even after they get their degree. You know how it is, while you're studying... adulthood awaits. They're also quite prone to believe conspiracy theories, except not those of the plebe, fancy university conspiracy theories!<br /><br />Plus, most hard-working, high-achieving people I know could not care less about culture. I know "fine suit-wearing" adults, but none of them have Maokun's whole package deal. Maybe you have to be really, really rich and basically be a modern day feudal lord.<br /><br />What seems imature to me is that people still believe in the "grown up", the responsible adult who's in control and has all the answers. Maybe we could all stand to have better cultural taste, but to see it stretched into another "the world is doomed" tirade is too much.Paul Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04080407233499755600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8972120889629675714.post-88651935312028085922014-10-08T09:33:02.959-04:002014-10-08T09:33:02.959-04:00There is also the looming issue of inadvertently f...There is also the looming issue of inadvertently falling in a facile black-white generalising contrast represented by the two persons compared in this post. To wit, your co-worker seems like the classic example that bemoaners of a "childish" adulthood would love to pull as an example: ignorant, careless, ineffectual and completely irrelevant to the advance of society. On the other hand, your friend is a polar opposite, representing the "classic" adult: responsible, educated, mature, critical.<br /><br />However, (and even though it could be argued that these correspondences between life outlooks and measures of greatness are more likely to happen than to not) this is not a fast-and-hard rule. Youthful adults are very much capable of contributing to society as much as traditional adults, the only true difference being the type of content that they enjoy. On the other hand, "old-guard" adults are very much capable of tremendous screw-ups, many of them caused by the very unspoken rules of expected "adult behaviour" that our late ancestors have operated under, specially in the last couple of centuries. Hell, America's (and, subsequently, the world's) most recent economic crisis was born of the collective womb of many caviar-eating, wine-sipping, fine-art-owning, expensive-suit-wearing adults that embodied everything that the previous generations would have called an "outstanding adult".<br /><br />That is the problem with the original article lamenting YA-reading adults: It starts from the content and presupposes that the content is veritably inferior to the "adult" alternatives and that as such, it makes inferior adults. In all truth, the issue, as always starts with the people. Sure, there's a reproachable type of adult who by their very nature prefers easy-reading (or watching/listening/etc.) content high in escapism value and unlikely to cause introspection in the same way that some highly critical, intellectual and progressive people tend to favour high-brow content. However, using content itself to trace the line is ridiculous. That is, not to mention the fact that content is lumped together in wide, somewhat arbitrary categories such as "YA fiction" or "classical poetry" and neither genre is completely devoid of nor entirely encompassing of virtue.Maokunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15459710218366288832noreply@blogger.com