I was born in the mid 20th century. I've observed this shift toward "unfreedom" happening around me and intensifying most recently. Children of today are so restricted, coddled and unchallenged I fear what sort of adults they will become. I fear I am already seeing it.
Fascinating analysis, Zineb. This makes so much sense. The economic aspect of this framing is so relevant: young people are being conditioned to expect ‘handouts’ from above and are less economically resilient. It breeds an Entitlement mentality.
You hit the nail on the head zeroing in on Anglo tradition. Every map of Europe along social and cultural lines breaks the continent into two: moving out or living with parents, do you offer guests food, is punctuality nonnegotiable, do you greet strangers, etc. The pattern that emerges is a sociable and chaotic Mediterranean, and a functioning but icy Northern core. Anglo tradition alone combines warmth and order. It’s not just colonial ambition, generic Europeanism/Whiteness, or happenstance. It’s a remarkable cultural phenomenon which enables the greatest civilization, and is evident every time a German or Scandinavian American is juxtaposed with the denizens of their ancestral lands. Perhaps that equilibrium, as illustrated by your connection to Russian and Middle Eastern living, is why it’s so fragile.
This is very thought provoking and should be expanded upon in more depth. Your sources: is the Macfarlane book worthwhile? - i have seen it mentioned before. Also, Peter Laslett's The World We Have Lost or something else?
"A prolonged adolescence under family protection delays a more fundamental passage into adulthood:"
In the west, adolesence has already been extended even among those who leave their parents because people expect to be coddled by institutions. Their shools of higher education, but increasingly also the employers and the state.
Communitarian thinking is not necessarily connected to entitlement or "learned helplessness" (which is really the unavailability or failure or agency and skills acquisition.) I will look into your sources and consider the premises they work with.
Learning skills, entering into a strange environment, coping with major changes, are all focuses of disciplines like childhood development and pedagogy, and I suspect among others.
Thanks for the article, though. To me it's a new angle for considering differences between societies. Whether it's an Anglo vs. Russian vs. middle eastern thing would requireore test cases from completely unrelated people groups across time. Mesopotamian,Roman, Greek, and biblical literature all provide narratives of families with different and similar circumstances and cultural assumptions and norms.
I wonder how you see this extended adolescence is reflected in the peculiar rise of left wing radicalism, the fracturing of political mainstream parties, and the obsession with ideologies. It seems that practical political matters such as taxes, defence and national debt no longer matter. Could it be that a generation who have forsaken adult concerns for the safe coddling of the parental home simply fill their bored lives with ideas and movements unrelated to everyday living? Or is it the collapse of normal social interaction leading to isolation and a desire for human connection through radicalism?
This is an interesting concept. Not only could this value of freedom evolve from moving away from home, could it also foster more plasticity of thought and acceptance of other’s habits and modes of operation? However, anecdotally, both my Gen Z kids left for university, returned for one summer, then never lived at home again, yet my son who went to university in Scotland and now works there has definitely turned third worldist. Hoping, because he is a free thinker, still only 25, and works in wealth management will grow out of it? (A knife in the heart for this libertarian leaning mom with a black and blue tongue from holding it.)
My curiosity is whether or not these trends were present at the peak of monetary debt cycles throughout history. I suspect some version of this has repeated, even in the West.
I was born in the mid 20th century. I've observed this shift toward "unfreedom" happening around me and intensifying most recently. Children of today are so restricted, coddled and unchallenged I fear what sort of adults they will become. I fear I am already seeing it.
At the same time, the "right of passage" for young people became going away to college. It turns out that this was a big mistake.
Intriguing and timely. Peter Diamandis recently wrote about a tangential concern in Metatrends - "The Most Dangerous Demographic in History Is About to Get a Lot Bigger" - https://metatrends.substack.com/p/the-most-dangerous-demographic-in?r=ch1ue
Fascinating analysis, Zineb. This makes so much sense. The economic aspect of this framing is so relevant: young people are being conditioned to expect ‘handouts’ from above and are less economically resilient. It breeds an Entitlement mentality.
Linked in comments at the Chicago Boyz 'worthwhile reading' roundup:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/77512.html
You hit the nail on the head zeroing in on Anglo tradition. Every map of Europe along social and cultural lines breaks the continent into two: moving out or living with parents, do you offer guests food, is punctuality nonnegotiable, do you greet strangers, etc. The pattern that emerges is a sociable and chaotic Mediterranean, and a functioning but icy Northern core. Anglo tradition alone combines warmth and order. It’s not just colonial ambition, generic Europeanism/Whiteness, or happenstance. It’s a remarkable cultural phenomenon which enables the greatest civilization, and is evident every time a German or Scandinavian American is juxtaposed with the denizens of their ancestral lands. Perhaps that equilibrium, as illustrated by your connection to Russian and Middle Eastern living, is why it’s so fragile.
This is very thought provoking and should be expanded upon in more depth. Your sources: is the Macfarlane book worthwhile? - i have seen it mentioned before. Also, Peter Laslett's The World We Have Lost or something else?
Yes, for Laslett, see also "Household and Family in Past Time"
"A prolonged adolescence under family protection delays a more fundamental passage into adulthood:"
In the west, adolesence has already been extended even among those who leave their parents because people expect to be coddled by institutions. Their shools of higher education, but increasingly also the employers and the state.
Communitarian thinking is not necessarily connected to entitlement or "learned helplessness" (which is really the unavailability or failure or agency and skills acquisition.) I will look into your sources and consider the premises they work with.
Learning skills, entering into a strange environment, coping with major changes, are all focuses of disciplines like childhood development and pedagogy, and I suspect among others.
Thanks for the article, though. To me it's a new angle for considering differences between societies. Whether it's an Anglo vs. Russian vs. middle eastern thing would requireore test cases from completely unrelated people groups across time. Mesopotamian,Roman, Greek, and biblical literature all provide narratives of families with different and similar circumstances and cultural assumptions and norms.
I wonder how you see this extended adolescence is reflected in the peculiar rise of left wing radicalism, the fracturing of political mainstream parties, and the obsession with ideologies. It seems that practical political matters such as taxes, defence and national debt no longer matter. Could it be that a generation who have forsaken adult concerns for the safe coddling of the parental home simply fill their bored lives with ideas and movements unrelated to everyday living? Or is it the collapse of normal social interaction leading to isolation and a desire for human connection through radicalism?
This is an interesting concept. Not only could this value of freedom evolve from moving away from home, could it also foster more plasticity of thought and acceptance of other’s habits and modes of operation? However, anecdotally, both my Gen Z kids left for university, returned for one summer, then never lived at home again, yet my son who went to university in Scotland and now works there has definitely turned third worldist. Hoping, because he is a free thinker, still only 25, and works in wealth management will grow out of it? (A knife in the heart for this libertarian leaning mom with a black and blue tongue from holding it.)
Very interesting article. Thought provoking.
I am trying to think laud. Can this phenomena be related to Gen Z attitudes. I mean not necessarily economics.
My curiosity is whether or not these trends were present at the peak of monetary debt cycles throughout history. I suspect some version of this has repeated, even in the West.
We’re in one awhile we’re just saying it out loud.