One of the things we've told our children "ad infinitum" is "you can be anything you want to be." We have, over time, extended childhood into our thirties, and now into our forties (it seems), which means we're extending the "you can be anything you want to be" to later and later stages of life. We want to say "you can change direction when you're 70!" Part of the reason we have so many singles is everyone seems to sense that marrying and having children preclude other choices, and we're teaching people not to make choices that preclude other choices.
When I was growing up we never argued about where to eat dinner. Now every family I know argues about where to eat dinner...
We feel empowered to not think about the tradeoffs because "it can always be undone." Even in the case of transgender surgery, we run around talking about how it is all reversable. It isn't. There are physical limits. But progressivism is all about transcending physical limits, ultimately, and we live in a moment where, like fish, the last thing we can discover or understand is the progressivism we swim in.
It is true we can miss these career opportunities. But I have found in my own journey of faith with Jesus, that failure to be thankful for what we have is a poison.
We live in a golden age historically speaking. Longer life, more than sufficient food, modern medicine. God could have put us somewhere else in space/time. As Human history goes this is not a bad place to be.
FT is pretty much inaccessible without an expensive subscription, and it's telling this article comes out of the U.K. Some of my early memories are reading in U.S. News & World Report about how dismal England's economy was back before 1973. The EC and particularly the Thatcher years erased most folks memories of this, but they seem to be staring again into the abyss, sadly.
Europeans like to think of America as the Wild West, but there are reasons why we keep reinventing ourselves and they don't. The general premise of the article holds true here, too, but it's a much gentler narrowing of options, and there are countless examples of Americans who totally reinvented themselves later in life.
Re: Kari Lake and abortion. Let's not overthink this. Trump came out with a "leave it to the states" message on April 8. At that moment, MAGA fanatics, in Orwellian fashion, decided that was their stance, also. Had he embraced a different stance, MAGA fanatics would have decided that THAT was their stance, also.
On April 12, Kari Lake followed suit.
Neither Donald Trump nor Kari Lake is a cultural conservative nor a social conservative or anything else. Donald Trump emotes today's stance in public, based on who knows what, and his minions follow suit. Neither Trump nor Lake could define a difference between social conservatism and cultural conservatism, and it is quite possible neither has ever heard the terms used as non-synonyms.
It's a true point about "no more second chances" but for a lot of people, this sort of knowledge might be destructive instead of constructive. It gives them an excuse to wallow in self-pity instead of trying to turn things around. Learned helplessness.
I think the right way to go through life is to recognize that each choice you make constrains your future choices so choose wisely, BUT you also have more agency than you know to improve your situation if you start making better choices and apply yourself through hard work. Maybe that's too nuanced for most to hold inside their minds; they're going to lean towards one of those two thoughts. And I'm inclined to think that of those two, the second is usually the more productive one to carry around.
I'm trying to help an older teen from a broken home in my extended family get a second chance to get on the right path. He already has some hopelessness about the future, based on where he's coming from and some choices he's made. So I suspect telling him "your options in life are narrowing as we speak" is just going to overwhelm him and make him double down on hopelessness. I need to convince him that he can turn things around.
I've taken some hope from "Hillbilly Elegy", which I've just gotten around to reading (still haven't watched the movie). I'm honestly thinking that the best bet for this kid might be a military enlistment, despite agreeing with most of the arguments for why the military is no longer a good place for young men that have been presented by Aaron and others.
Though the experience is from 20 years ago, Vance's book offers a very constructive take on the military for someone in his specific situation: he didn't live up to near his potential in high school due to a crappy childhood full of bad role models, and he was therefore unprepared for college or for independent life as an adult. He was a different man when he left the Marines, ready to take on the world. There's a lot to compare to this kid.
One of the things we've told our children "ad infinitum" is "you can be anything you want to be." We have, over time, extended childhood into our thirties, and now into our forties (it seems), which means we're extending the "you can be anything you want to be" to later and later stages of life. We want to say "you can change direction when you're 70!" Part of the reason we have so many singles is everyone seems to sense that marrying and having children preclude other choices, and we're teaching people not to make choices that preclude other choices.
When I was growing up we never argued about where to eat dinner. Now every family I know argues about where to eat dinner...
We feel empowered to not think about the tradeoffs because "it can always be undone." Even in the case of transgender surgery, we run around talking about how it is all reversable. It isn't. There are physical limits. But progressivism is all about transcending physical limits, ultimately, and we live in a moment where, like fish, the last thing we can discover or understand is the progressivism we swim in.
Was this the same men's conference that had the male pole dancer and a really awkward speech by Mark Driscoll?
It is true we can miss these career opportunities. But I have found in my own journey of faith with Jesus, that failure to be thankful for what we have is a poison.
We live in a golden age historically speaking. Longer life, more than sufficient food, modern medicine. God could have put us somewhere else in space/time. As Human history goes this is not a bad place to be.
FT is pretty much inaccessible without an expensive subscription, and it's telling this article comes out of the U.K. Some of my early memories are reading in U.S. News & World Report about how dismal England's economy was back before 1973. The EC and particularly the Thatcher years erased most folks memories of this, but they seem to be staring again into the abyss, sadly.
Europeans like to think of America as the Wild West, but there are reasons why we keep reinventing ourselves and they don't. The general premise of the article holds true here, too, but it's a much gentler narrowing of options, and there are countless examples of Americans who totally reinvented themselves later in life.
Re: Kari Lake and abortion. Let's not overthink this. Trump came out with a "leave it to the states" message on April 8. At that moment, MAGA fanatics, in Orwellian fashion, decided that was their stance, also. Had he embraced a different stance, MAGA fanatics would have decided that THAT was their stance, also.
On April 12, Kari Lake followed suit.
Neither Donald Trump nor Kari Lake is a cultural conservative nor a social conservative or anything else. Donald Trump emotes today's stance in public, based on who knows what, and his minions follow suit. Neither Trump nor Lake could define a difference between social conservatism and cultural conservatism, and it is quite possible neither has ever heard the terms used as non-synonyms.
Thank you Aaron for the marriage age gap data! Very important info for my wife search, really helpful!
It's a true point about "no more second chances" but for a lot of people, this sort of knowledge might be destructive instead of constructive. It gives them an excuse to wallow in self-pity instead of trying to turn things around. Learned helplessness.
I think the right way to go through life is to recognize that each choice you make constrains your future choices so choose wisely, BUT you also have more agency than you know to improve your situation if you start making better choices and apply yourself through hard work. Maybe that's too nuanced for most to hold inside their minds; they're going to lean towards one of those two thoughts. And I'm inclined to think that of those two, the second is usually the more productive one to carry around.
I'm trying to help an older teen from a broken home in my extended family get a second chance to get on the right path. He already has some hopelessness about the future, based on where he's coming from and some choices he's made. So I suspect telling him "your options in life are narrowing as we speak" is just going to overwhelm him and make him double down on hopelessness. I need to convince him that he can turn things around.
I've taken some hope from "Hillbilly Elegy", which I've just gotten around to reading (still haven't watched the movie). I'm honestly thinking that the best bet for this kid might be a military enlistment, despite agreeing with most of the arguments for why the military is no longer a good place for young men that have been presented by Aaron and others.
Though the experience is from 20 years ago, Vance's book offers a very constructive take on the military for someone in his specific situation: he didn't live up to near his potential in high school due to a crappy childhood full of bad role models, and he was therefore unprepared for college or for independent life as an adult. He was a different man when he left the Marines, ready to take on the world. There's a lot to compare to this kid.