Here’s a common question for you: "What’s wrong with kids these days?"
Short answer: some happy bastard gave them self esteem.
That’s right; a bunch of whiney brats being told they’re the greatest thing the world has ever produced (apologies to alcohol for this outright lie) has resulted in the degradation of modern society and will probably result in your own death during the zombie apocalypse. Maybe not, but still....
The problem is that everyone has been so concerned with reinforcing children’s belief that they are special, unique and can do whatever they put their minds to! Yay! This, of course, is an outright lie. Not everyone can grow up to be a rock star or astronaut, some people are destined for the glamorous life of a telemarketer, garbage truck driver, or security guard at a late night fast food outlet. We need these people, society needs everyone no matter how socially inept, ignorant or ginger (notable exceptions include the hot chick from Mad Men and both of her exceptional exceptions).
As a result of retarded offspring having the lie that they have something of value to offer the world drilled into them so successfully we have young adults walking around bars and nightclubs with the mistaken belief they can do no wrong. Despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary provided by their clothes, choice of drink/music/language, and their insistence that everything should be solved with quick brawl with odds of 10:1 in their favour. Some teacher or guidance councillor or self-esteem reinforcing cheerleader somewhere told these kids they were just super, and should never let anyone tell them otherwise. The problem is that they were stupid enough to believe it.
When your friends tell you "You can do it" before you try to jump fifty busses in a golf cart, that’s them offering encouragement (there’s also a good chance they want to see you dead if they suggested you try and jump fifty busses in a golf cart). That doesn’t mean you should believe them with absolute certainty. Remember, people said the Titanic was unsinkable. Shortly after that they remarked on the amount of water in their stateroom, this may have been followed by remarks such as "mmrbll" and "blup blup bloop". This was a case of people being very, very wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, self esteem is a good thing. It does however require something else that all these child-rearing experts seem to have forgotten: SOMETHING TO BASE IT ON! You know why sports stars have such great self esteem? Because they’re stupidly good at something that they obviously value. Possibly also because they tend to sleep with beautiful women too. That probably doesn’t hurt.
Kids need something to base their self esteem on. There’s a word for when you’re good at something and you feel good about yourself because of it. That feeling is called "Pride". Not everyone is good at everything. Albert Einstein was a terrible break-dancer, he made up for this by having awesome hair and the odd theory about the workings of the universe. If his parents had encouraged him to keep popping and locking instead of sitting down with his maths and science homework we might have ended up in a very different world. Or not, whatever.
If Rebecca Black’s parents hadn’t encouraged their obviously tone-deaf daughter to have a crack at show-biz millions of people might have avoided chronic ear-bleeding. The problem was that they built up her self esteem, not her pride. Those hapless brat-breeders no doubt cheered on their little f**k-trophy every time she tried to burst into song as a child, no matter how many family pets ran away or attempted suicide. We could have all been saved if only Mr. Black ahd sat his little angel down, looked her in her eyes and said "Sweetheart, your Mother and I love you, but you can’t sing. You can’t carry a tune in a bucket and every time your little mouth opens I come that little bit closer the beating you to death with a scotch bottle."
Pride: It’s like self esteem but some snot-nosed little shit might have to actually put in some hard work and get good at something first.
No comments:
Post a Comment