What is wrong with this generation

Okay, I know the older generation has been bemoaning that topic since Aristotle's time. The kids don't know anything, they're lazy, they're immoral, they're insolent to their elders.

Well, what generation grows up polite, obedient, considerate, and intelligent if they're not trained to be? The answer is, none.

But this generation is special. Its parents, my generation, were reared under the guidance of that demon from hell, Dr. Spock. "Just leave the kids alone" was Spock's favorite saying. Not leaving the children alone would cover such objectionable parent-type activities as teaching them manners, teaching them to read, teaching them any kind of intellectual discipline or moral discipline or even self-control.

So my parents didn't give us regular chores to do and never heard of "No TV until you've done your chores and your homework." I was, however, taught to say "Please" and "Thank you" and not to hurt the animals for the fun of it. On the other hand, it would seem that many in my generation were not taught that a crap-ass who hurts other PEOPLE for the fun of it is a disgusting, shameful creature.

When this generation grew up and reproduced, we had very little to pass down to our babies. We were even taught that it was immoral to pass down anything to our kids, because kids are so brilliant and parents are such garbage. Which is pretty funny, considering that we were just the aged version of the first generation who were taught that WE were so brilliant and our parents were garbage. How did we lose all that brilliance and turn to trash just because twenty years had passed?

So our children grew up thinking they were the most brilliant generation ever to happen; even more brilliant than the brilliant generation who came before them.

Okay, so every generation has thought that they were the most brilliant generation ever. What's different about this one?

In past generations, when the kids announced "We're brilliant, we're wonderful, we're thinking these thoughts and holding these values for the first time in history and all the generations who came before us were stupid," they got laughed at. Laughed at by the very elders they were ridiculing, told they should just hold on for five or ten years and they'd see how stupid they'd been. "Just you wait, you young whipper-snapper, you'll see how silly you sound." And it wasn't long before their eyes were opened and they realized the old parents weren't so stupid after all.

But THIS generation has nothing laughing at their self-important, narcissistic stupidity. In fact, the entire culture supports their nonsense. Movies aimed at the 16-to-25 crowd, popular music, MTV, sitcoms, commercials, teenager-angst shows, games, pop literature like "Twilight" and "Harry Potter", all shout, "You're the most wonderful thing ever to happen! Your parents don't know anything! Old people have NOTHING to offer!"

Even in our schools, my generation is hard at work pumping them so full of "self-esteem" and putting them into "tasking groups" where they reinvent all the errors of the past and enshrine them in projects and papers that are glowingly approved by teacher regardless of the lack of intellectual content. They are told that the most important thing on earth is their own feelings, which is also the only subject they have to write about. Said one high school teacher, "I can't expect them to write a simple thesis and support it with arguments. But they sure can emote about it!"