A Choice Election
August 15th, 2012 // 8:08 pm @ Oliver DeMille
(And a proposal for a Cable TV Debate between Barack Obama and Paul Ryan)
With the selection of Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential candidate, Mitt Romney turned the 2012 campaign into a Choice Election.
This is rare in modern times.
The norm has been for Republican candidates to stay centrist—this pattern was followed by Bush, Dole, Bush and McCain.
Not since the Reagan-Carter contest have we seen a true Choice Election, where the sides are clearly divided and both passionately appeal to their base instead of tacking to the center.
Senator McCain may have attempted to create a Choice Election in 2008 with his selection of Governor Palin as running mate, but it appears Ryan’s fiscal conservatism may resonate more with independent voters than Palin’s social conservatism.
Romney’s choice also signaled two departures from his campaign to date.
First, it was bold and risky, which hasn’t been his m/o so far in this election.
Second, it was a significant move toward a big, overarching vision of American greatness.
The Romney message isn’t yet Reaganesque, but it seems to be at least trying to head in that direction.
Ryan’s budget proposals in the past few years have made him a controversial figure, and his inclusion on the ticket may signal that Romney has decided to go all in.
The choice couldn’t be clearer: The Obama/Biden message is that an increasing number of people are dependent on government, and that Washington simply can’t let them down—therefore, it must raise taxes on the rich and increase regulation on business.
If it wins, it will finally be able to do this on the grand scale, in the U.S. and internationally.
This worldview considers government the arbiter of fairness and often feels that government jobs are more honorable than those in private enterprise.
The Romney/Ryan view is precisely the opposite: Free enterprise is the hope of the future and America needs to rekindle its belief in limited government spending, minimal regulation, and a more business-friendly environment that encourages private-sector economic growth.
This agenda affirms that Washington has a spending problem, and that government’s immediate focus must be getting our financial house in order and incentivizing business growth.
The common wisdom on the Right is that our nation is on the verge of significant decline, and that major financial and policy changes in Washington are desperately needed.
The Left generally feels that our economic struggles were brought on by weak government policies that allowed the “haves” to exploit the “have nots,” that far too many people are hurting right now, and that only government stands between them and even more widespread failure.
Here is how this all plays out.
Most conservatives will vote Republican, and most progressives will support the Democratic ticket.
As we’ve discussed in the past, the election will be determined by independent voters in the battleground states.
But the fact that this is now a true Choice election puts a different spin on the vote.
If independent voters in the swing states see America at a crossroads, on the verge of serious decline and in need of big, difficult changes to reboot our economy, create huge private-sector growth and compete with China, the Republican ticket will win.
Romney was clearly banking on this when he selected Ryan as his partner.
But if swing voters think the ideas of decline and a looming major financial emergency are overblown, they’ll opt for another four years of President Obama.
Most voters—Republican, Democrat and swing—generally support getting our fiscal house in order, but they don’t want to give up any specific government programs that benefit them directly (e.g. entitlement changes).
A Choice Election is emerging on two fronts.
First, as mentioned, one side wants to increase the size and scope of government to help more people in need, while the other promises to reduce spending, taxes, regulation and effectively revive the economy (whether it will actually do so once in office is a different topic).
Secondly, Republicans see an American electorate ready to take drastic steps in the face of imminent decline and the threat of our nation going broke, even as Democrats are betting that people are more concerned with maintaining their government benefits.
In short, one side sees Paul Ryan as an excellent choice and the other thinks Romney has made a fatal (if welcome) mistake with this selection.
The choice is stark, and only time will tell how independents in the swing states actually vote.
So far the Obama campaign has played the small game, focusing on Romney’s tax returns, offshore accounts, and attacks on his work at Bain, and now criticizing details of Ryan’s budgets.
Romney has opened a big issue campaign, and he will likely escalate with a full-blown vision of American greatness.
But Barack Obama has proven to be an able politician with an uncanny sense of timing, and savvy Americans expect his Carteresque tactics to evolve into a Clintonian crescendo in the weeks ahead.
President Obama frequently seems to bumble along, only to strike with a lightening success in things like passing Obamacare, taking out bin Laden, or making unexpected announcements that win him the loyalty of various groups from immigrants to women to supporters of same-sex marriage.
Expect at least two Obama surprises before November 6.
Indeed, three or four wouldn’t be shocking.
If Romney waits around and reacts to such surprises, he’ll get stuck on the defensive.
To win, the Republican ticket needs to go big, really big, as quickly as possible.
And neither side can afford to let the debates determine their momentum.
Frankly, I think I speak for most political watchers when I say there should be an Obama-Ryan debate.
It would be a top seller on Pay-For-View.
Charge $29.95 per watcher, have Chuck Norris and George Clooney moderate the event, and apply the profits to paying down the national debt.
The band One Direction can open for each debate, thus ensuring that nearly every home in America with young girls signs up and reduces our deficit.
Better still, hold three such debates Lincoln-Douglass style in the most contested battleground states.
Then have a fourth swing-state debate where Obama and Romney face off and we measure them against each other as the leaders of our future.
This last event will be high drama after the guaranteed fireworks of the first three.
This election is still up for grabs, but it is a very different election than appeared to be shaping up last spring.
The Supreme Court decision on Obamacare and now the Ryan selection have made it a real Choice, and an American crossroads is certainly ahead.
Whatever your political views, the stakes could hardly be higher.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics
Façade Society, Façade Politics
July 31st, 2012 // 9:15 am @ Oliver DeMille
John Adams on How to Fix Washington D.C. in 1791 and 2012
“Odd, that so many should favor frames that seemed to be trying to outdo the art they held.”
~Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law
In the old American West, a façade town featured two- and sometimes three-story buildings lining Main Street, so visitors to the town would be impressed with how up-and-coming the community must be.
But when a person walked around to the side and back of the buildings, it turns out they’d find mostly one-story structures—sometimes little better than shacks or huts.
A few were even a façade built on the front of a rickety lean-to.
Some were respectable buildings, but they were usually made of adobe or pine rather than the fine hardwood edifices promised by their Main Street facades.
And, as I mentioned, they were only one story tall despite their appearance from the front.
Indeed, the only purpose of the two- or three-story façade was to impress.
In modern times, the idea that perception is reality has reached the level of myth.
It is taught in various circles as unquestioned truth, parroted in movies and television programs as a lasting principle, and often used to scold would-be individualists into working harder to conform and fit in.
“We must impress others to get ahead in the world,” the common wisdom seems to assure us.
C.S. Lewis lambasted this view in his classic, “The Inner Ring.”
If you spend your life trying to impress and fit in, as almost everyone does, he warned, you’ll waste a lot of time and energy and miss many of the important things that really matter in life.
Moreover, he predicted, you’ll fail to appeal to the only real society of substance, the other people who ignore trying to impress and fit in and instead set about doing good things in the world without worrying what others think.
He called this group the true inner ring, whose motto was something along the lines of “perception is merely perception—truth, reality, integrity and quality are what matter.”
John Adams wrote about this topic in his little-known and seldom-read classic, Discourses on Davila, which may be his best book next to Defence of the Constitutions of the United States (in fact, he referred to Davila as the fourth volume of Defence).
He said that nearly every person is plagued by a debilitating desire to be esteemed by others, to impress and fit in, to be admired, and that this is the basis of many human flaws including jealousy, envy, ambition, vanity, hatred, revenge, pride, and most human pain.
These are Adams’ specific words.
Adams said this desire for admiration is as real as hunger, and the cause of more suffering, anxiety, stress and disappointment than famine.
In contrast, the really good things in life, including virtue, nobility, honor, loyalty, wisdom, service, strength and so on, may or may not increase the admiration of others, but are often valued only to the extent that they do.
Sadly, many people seek these things only if, and the degree that, they increase admiration from others.
Far too many things are sought by mankind only because they attract “attention, consideration, and congratulations…” Adams said.
Likewise, too many good and important things are not pursued by many people because they do nothing to boost one’s status or station.
By the way, the point of Adams’ book on Davila is to show that because of basic human nature—built on this inner drive of nearly all men and women to rise in station, and not just to rise, but to rise above other people—there will always be conflicts in human societies and institutions.
His solution was to create separate branches of power, and to set up the government so these branches could check and balance each other in a way that no one government entity could become too powerful.
The result, he said, would be that the people in the nation would be able to live free of overreaching government.
In the process of making this argument he spends a great deal of time showing that this drive to fit in, impress, and in fact outdo other people (by being more impressive and fitting in better than them), was a serious obstacle to human happiness in families, schools, business and all facets of society.
When people become more knowledgeable and learned, for example, they tend to engage in more, not less, conflict with other learned persons.
He was not talking of debate, but of serious conflict.
Thus our schools and great universities, which could be the salvation of society in many ways, are distracted from their potential because their leading inhabitants are constantly striving for Reputation, Notoriety, and Celebration.
These three words are those used by Adams, which he capitalized for emphasis in his book.
Likewise, Adams laments, our branches of government are unable to truly lead because those who should be our best hope for great progress immediately, upon being elected or appointed to office, set out to compete with all other officials for more Fame, Glory, Reputation and Credit.
Again, these are Adams’ words.
Voters send representatives, presidents and others to do their will, to improve things, but the real work of most man and women lifted to leadership is to win this contest with each other.
“Improve the Nation, or Impress the Nation. That is the question.”
And the drive to impress nearly always wins the day.
Adams wrote of humanity’s so-called honors in withering terms:
“What is it that bewitches mankind to marks and signs? A ribbon? a garter? a star? a golden key? a marshall’s staff? or a white hickory stick?”
He is mocking us now.
“Though there is in such frivolities as these neither profit nor pleasure, nor anything amiable, estimable, or respectable, yet experience teaches us, in every country of the world, they attract the attention of mankind more than…learning, virtue, or religion.”
Furthermore, Adams continues, they are sought by the poor, who believe such honors will lift them to equal status with the rich, and they are sought by the rich, who believe that without these symbols they will be lowered to the status of the poor.
This is the great challenge of human progress—we ignore our great potential to focus on silly attempts to impress.
We do it as children, as youth, as adults, and in old age.
The solution, in the case of academia, is to closely avoid putting scholars or administrators in charge of education, but leave oversight to the parents.
For government, the fix is to allow the people to frequently replace their officials at the election booth—to remove them as soon as they forget to do what the people sent them for.
Adams points out that ribbons, medals, titles, and other symbols of man’s honor, including the white hickory sticks of certain secret societies, aren’t of much use in real life.
Though if you are freezing the hickory stick can at least be ignited and bring some warmth.
But these ornaments are nevertheless widely sought because they are symbols of acceptance, fitting in, and impressing others.
Such symbols show that, in fact, the Status Motive is even stronger in humanity than the Profit Motive.
Indeed, giving war heroes and others who accomplish great acts of heroism large sums of money, cars, vacations or estates would be seen as crass by most modern eyes.
Yet these are exactly what many of the ancients gave their champions and heroes, though chariots and carriages were more in vogue than cars.
We give symbols for the highest achievements, precisely because their lack of monetary value communicates just how highly we esteem them—far above money.
For Adams, the honors and symbols are frivolities only because we seek the honors and symbols rather than the actions for which they are awarded.
This is deep insight into human nature, because for true heroes the ribbons and medals mean much less than simply knowing what they did.
It is wonderful to honor heroic acts that truly merit our admiration and thanks, but too often, as Adams puts it, the “great majority trouble themselves little about merit, but apply themselves to seek for honor…”
This is a serious indictment.
He further says that most people try to gain such honors not by going out and serving in ways that merit them.
Such service would be too difficult, or dangerous, or risky.
Besides, just meriting great honors doesn’t ensure that one will receive them.
After all, perception is reality.
So many people decide that a much better course is to ensure the world’s admiration the old-fashioned way, by directly seeking prestige and hiring publicists, PR firms, and commissioning scholarly studies.
Adams says it this way:
“…by displaying their taste and address, their wealth and magnificence, their ancient parchments, pictures, and statues, and the virtues of their ancestors; and if these fail, as they seldom have done, they have recourse to artifice, dissimulation, hypocrisy, flattery, empiricism…”
But this is more than an interesting philosophical discussion about human nature.
It actually cuts to the very heart of reality.
Because of our thirst for honors, and because façade honors are easier to obtain, all our manmade institutions eventually fail.
Adams mourns that government cannot solve the problems of humanity, nor will institutions of commerce and business.
Families and churches come the closest, but even here we spend the generations warring about whether husband or wife should be the head, how long fathers should maintain dominance over their sons, and whether newly married couples now report to paternal or maternal grandfathers.
Likewise, too many churches in history took up arms against unbelievers, and various religions and secular groups resort to violence when they fail to convince in other ways.
Indeed, as soon as men create institutions of any kind, they usually begin to war—within the institution and/or with other institutions.
The solutions, the real fixes to our challenges, Adams teaches, will not come from manmade institutions.
We should set up the best institutions possible, but we can’t rely on them for everything because man’s hunger for approval and applause is always at work undermining progress.
Adams quotes the English poets to make his point:
“The love of praise, howe’er conceal’d by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in every human heart;”
—Edward Young
“All our power is sick.”
—William Shakespeare
All our power is sick. If so, how can mankind progress?
It turns out there is a solution, and Adams is excited to share it.
In the cases of family, church, relationships and business, one should simply dedicate one’s life and efforts to truly serving in genuine, if challenging, ways that really make a positive difference.
This was also recommended by C.S. Lewis, who said to ignore trying to impress and instead set out to genuinely serve.
Both Adams and Lewis note that such service is only authentic when we give up concern about getting the credit.
But Adams wants our political leaders to do the same.
He sees real government leadership as deep, committed service, devoid of seeking credit or reward.
He doubts that many will truly forget their drive to impress and seek only to frankly serve, but he holds out hope that a few will rise to such heights of true leadership.
The best honors for such exceptionally great leaders aren’t the praise or baubles of men but the highest of all tributes—emulation.
And in this Adams gives us mankind’s solution to its biggest challenges.
Specifically, while mankind limits itself from great achievements to fight the petty battles of impressing others, becoming more impressive than others, fitting in, and fitting in better than others, the solution is to emulate those who do it better.
Parents who emulate great parents are the hope of the world, as are great teachers, inventors, artists, statesmen, entrepreneurs and others who emulate the greats.
Emulation includes improving upon the best of the past, and as generations of parents and other leaders emulate the best and improve upon it, the world drastically improves.
This, as Adams puts it, is a desire not to impress and fit in, “but to excel,” and “it is so natural a movement of the human heart that, wherever men are to be found … we see its effects.”
Moreover, Adams assures us, it blesses communities and society as much as it helps individuals succeed.
For those who are religious, nothing is more effective than trying to emulate the Son of God, the great prophets, Buddha, and other examples of charity, service and wisdom.
We fall short in many ways, but in trying to answer the question, “What Would Jesus Do?,” as the modern saying goes, we reach for our very best.
Our greatest heroes, regardless of our views on religion, should be the great men and women of history whose sacrifice and greatness makes them most worthy of emulation.
Emulation is as strong an emotion as seeking admiration, and in fact most children learn emulation first.
Which brings us to the topic of this article—How to fix Washington and put America back on track as a standard for freedom, opportunity and goodness in the world.
According to John Adams (and C.S. Lewis, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and many others), the answer is not to turn to leadership from our big institutions, even if they have as much power as the White House, Congress, Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the Federal Reserve or even the Supreme Court and Madison Avenue.
The solution lies in leadership, but not from the top down.
We will not get back on track as a society until we lead from below, until we become a society of leaders, and the right kind of emulation is our most powerful means of lasting influence and change.
Who you and I choose to emulate—really, truly, deeply, fully—will determine the future.
It is the most powerful symbol, because who we want to be like on the greatest days of our lives will color the rest of time on earth.
But it is much more than a symbol.
Too much of modern life is merely a façade.
Too many of our institutions are hollow shells of what we need them to be—and of what they claim to be.
Too often we choose the path of prestige over the path of quality.
Too frequently we listen to the credible rather than the wise.
Too many of our hours and days are spent on the things that are least important.
It was Nietzsche, I think, who said that modernism began when we started substituting the morning paper for our morning prayers.
Allan Bloom called this the closing of the American mind.
Adams told us that such things are hollow, but in the Information Age the voice of understanding is too frequently drowned out by the roar of the crowd.
In all this, however, there is an anchor.
Who we decide to emulate, and how faithfully we do so, will make the future.
And that goes for Washington as well.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Citizenship &Community &Culture &Current Events &Featured &Government &History &Leadership &Politics &Statesmanship
Losing the Battle
July 14th, 2012 // 4:29 pm @ Oliver DeMille
Sometimes domestic politics can be so engaging that we miss the forest for the trees.
The Chinese government and government-run companies have been busy for a decade buying up oil, minerals and other natural resources in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia, while U.S. firms face massive amounts of red tape and regulations from Washington when they try to compete for world resources.
This is creating a new split between the haves and the have nots—China has resources and the rights to resources around the world, while the U.S. increasingly does not.
Free enterprise is a better system than state-owned, authoritarian economics, but in this case Washington isn’t allowing free enterprise.
It’s more like a statist, authoritarian economy in Beijing versus an over-regulating, short-sighted bureaucracy in Washington. And totalitarian dictatorships are notoriously more effective than bumbling bureaucracies.
There is an excellent article on the topic in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2012): “How to Succeed in Business: And Why Washington Should Really Try,” by Alexander Bernard.
Bernard notes that the motive behind China’s state-owned purchases of resources around the globe isn’t to make money, but rather to “fuel the country’s economic rise.”
Certainly military might and political clout will follow.
Nor is China the only nation in the game.
India, Brazil, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, among others, are far more aggressive in tying up the world’s resources and contracts than U.S. companies.
Again, Washington’s regulatory scheme makes a reversal of this trend unlikely.
When our own government shuts down free enterprise, our corporations can’t compete with the biggest governments in the world.
Bernard writes:
“Among its peers, the United States is by far the least aggressive in promoting commercial interests…. China has managed to plant its commercial flag even in countries that are U.S. allies.”
In all this, the future of American wealth, prosperity, investment and jobs is drastically impacted for the negative.
We are failing to reboot our domestic economy because of our addiction to high regulation and high taxation, and the same things are causing consistent failure for U.S. commercial interests abroad.
Free enterprise works, but American policy has turned against it.
We are losing the battle, but losing the war.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through Leadership Education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Business &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Government
Common Wisdom versus Greatness Part II
July 14th, 2012 // 3:59 pm @ Oliver DeMille
Choosing a Vice President
In an earlier post I noted that Americans sense a turning point in our history, that our challenges will get bigger in the years ahead and that we need leaders at the level of FDR or Ronald Reagan.
Yet our candidates for president are playing it smaller, avoiding great risks and trying to keep from making mistakes rather than going “all in” and leading America toward a great vision of America’s future.
This is all in contrast to the way Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, with huge messages of hope, change, a new era of unity, and the promise that “Yes, we can!”
In the 2012 election, neither candidate has yet stepped up with a moving, overarching grand vision of a great American 21st Century.
I also mentioned that if we don’t have a Great-Theme election, Obama will probably win, so the ball is really in Romney’s court.
Few things will signal whether the Romney campaign plans to play it safe or go all in for American greatness more than the selection of a running mate.
As George Will pointed out (This Week, July 8, 2012), there is little evidence that the running mate has an actual significant impact on votes.
But Romney’s selection does indicate whether he’s planning to avoid risks throughout the fall election season or boldly go for it with an all-out campaign for American greatness. Ford or Reagan.
If Romney emulates Ford, we’ll know we’re in for a risk-averse campaign where the big debate will be “no more of Obama’s failed policies” versus “we can’t go back to the failed policies of Bush.”
Such a scenario will be excruciating for the majority of independents, who see both the Bush and Obama eras as serious failures to really address America’s economy and future.
The Ford-style candidates, like Tim Palewnty or Rob Portman, signal more of the same and won’t likely be popular with independents.
The Reaganesque candidates like Chris Christie, Paul Ryan or Condaleezza Rice would signal that Romney is primed for a campaign of American greatness.
Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio are on the bolder side, but not quite as Reaganesque—though either might grow into this role.
Actually, we would really know Romney is “all in” for a great American turnaround if he selected Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, or Sarah Palin. Not likely, but the symbolism would be moving.
Perhaps less publicized potential running mates like Meg Whitman or Kelly Ayote would allow the campaign to write its own story, but that didn’t work so well in the McCain candidacy.
There may be other possible candidates that Romney is considering, and his eventual choice will signal the current direction of his campaign—avoid risk and just keep talking about the economy, or roll out a powerful vision of American greatness.
It is time for Romney, or Obama, to stop playing small ball in order to win one election and instead get serious about putting America on the right track for the rest of the Century.
This will require real leadership, bold risk and greatness of soul.
It is precisely what the American voter is looking for right now, and hopefully we won’t have to wait for 2016 or beyond to get it.
We want a great leader.
Either candidate can still rise to this challenge, and if somebody does this well it will be the most effective political strategy—and tactic—of 2012.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Current Events &Featured &Government &Leadership &Politics
The Adultescent Phase
July 14th, 2012 // 3:15 pm @ Oliver DeMille
With more and more college graduates returning home to live with their parents, many adults are becoming frustrated with the rising generation.
In the book Slouching Toward Adulthood, Sally Koslow shows how this trend is the natural result of the last two generations of parenting.
The problem is not so much the slumped economy and high unemployment, although these are realities, but the fact that using student loans to get through college is now the norm, so when students graduate they are loaded with debt and many can’t afford rent.
Even more difficult, the Boomer generation tended to bring up their children with an attitude that left little room for the lessons learned from failure.
This was mixed with a strangely controlling approach to scheduling and achievement.
As reviewer Judith Newman wrote in People (July 9, 2012):
“Recognize that channel-surfing, chips-snacking lump on the couch? It might well be your adult child. Koslow writes wittily about the infantilization of American youth as increasing numbers treat getting a job and moving out as just an option. The solution? Stop trying to inculcate our kids against failure, for starters.”
Koslow wrote the book in response to frustrations with her own sons.
One of them was a college graduate, twenty-five year old in her home who frequently slept until noon and then played with friends for the rest of the day and most of the night.
Over six million adult children now live with their parents, pay no rent, eat without limits from their parents’ fridge, and use the house, yard, cable and computers without paying for them.
Many consider their parents an ATM.
Moreover, very few of them are out actively seeking employment.
The irony, Koslow notes, is that most of these adults were raised in a culture where they were constantly told they were special.
The result is that they value having fun with friends, want to travel extensively, and look down on working for the money to pay for their lives, hobbies and interests.
Many of the generation see themselves as free spirits, but unlike the sixties generation they want the expensive yuppie lifestyles of freeloaders.
As Diedre Donahue put it in USA Today,
“The adults aren’t helping. Koslow believes parents often infantilize their adult children because it makes parents feel needed. The result: entitled but incompetent children and exploited but enabling adults.”
Of course, this doesn’t describe the entire generation, or even a majority of them, but it does accurately depict far too many.
This new adultescent trend, as Koslow calls it, doesn’t show any likelihood of slowing in the years ahead. If anything, it will likely increase.
Koslow writes of her own generation, the parents:
“The boomer generation, with its idiomatic immaturity and fury at the very idea that we have to age, is in no small part to blame for adultescents feeling as if there will always be time to break up with one more partner or employer, to search for someone or something better, to get another degree or to surf another couch, to wait around to reproduce.
“Thanks to our parents listening to Dr. Benjamin Spock and to us sucking up to TV ads that pandered to our kiddie greed, we established the model of unprecedented self-involvement, enhanced by our ceaseless boasting.”
As if that’s not enough, the new generation of adultescents “…crave attention and often cash from parents, whom they frequently ask to help them move from place to place; create a mess; rack up debt…”
Then, all too often, they blame their parents for their plight, anxiety, and lack of opportunity.
Koslow’s own sons have now moved away from home and on to adult lives, much to the relief of any reader who has adult children, and in most cases the adultescent phase does eventually pass even if it takes about a decade longer than it used to.
The Boomer system of consistent coddling has borne dismal results.
Sadly, the Tiger Mom approach to forced excellence and settling for nothing but top achievement also often results in adultescentism.
In contrast, helping young people take responsibility for their own learning, careers and lives right from the beginning pays off when they are adults.
Leadership education works.
The economy is difficult, jobs are scarcer than in three generations, and the feelings of youth entitlement at are a century (perhaps all-time) high.
But those with a leadership education know that they have a life mission and need to use initiative, innovation, ingenuity and tenacity to rise to their potential.
They may still want to join their generation and experience an adultescent phase, but in most cases it will be much shorter than that of their peers.
Maybe the best thing about this book is that it is all shared with a hilarious sense of humor. It’s not stressful, it’s fun.
So smile and enjoy your adult kids’ time with you. Give them real chores and rules in the home.
It’s your home, after all.
The key to helping the kids become adults is to be one yourself.
Oh, and charge them rent or have them work it off in equivalent ways. They’re adults, and treating them like it is a sign of respect.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Book Reviews &Culture &Family &Featured &Generations
