Joe in PNG left a comment on my last AOC post that got me thinking.
Now imagine you’re a 20 something with a six figure student loan debt and a masters degree in the Semiotics of Trans-Post Feminist Intersectional Basket Weaving in Queer Literature. You don’t have a real job, as you have the habit of writing “F^%$& The Patriarchy!” on every space on every job application you have ever filled out.
I love the book World War Z.
One of my favorite scenes is from the end of the book. I forget which chapter it is, but the author is interviewing someone talking about the war time recovery.
In one particular instant, the interviewee is telling a story about a rich woman who was rude to her instructor, calling her by her first name. As it turns out, the instructor was the woman’s former cleaning lady. So many of the upper crust of pre-war society had no useful skills beyond brokering favors and maybe fondling money.
When the zombies came and the economy crashed, all of their power evaporated overnight.
They had to be retrained, and most of them were so worthless at even the most rudimentary tasks, they had to be given crash courses in how to properly clean a toilet so they could serve some function in society.
I think so many of the social and economic problems that young people in particular and the US (or the Western World as a whole) in general has is that we are approaching the tipping point where those steeped in Trans-Post Feminist Intersectionality education outnumber those who won’t have to be taught how to scrub a toilet when the zombies attack.
Recently, a news story broke about Millennials taking adulting classes.
Millennials lacking life skills – like cooking, budgeting, or time management – are now signing up for classes designed to teach them those basics. These are crash courses in Adulting. pic.twitter.com/EzzR54758k
— KDKA (@KDKA) December 13, 2018
The great Iowahawk Tweeted a very insightful thread about this.
He’s right. Good for the Millennials who know their shortcomings and are trying to overcome.
I will be the first to admit I am far from perfect. I am a homeowner. I am having to learn all sorts of home repairs to do my own upkeep.
I hope and pray that for these kids, as they learn one skill, they get the inclination to learn another and another until they crest the hill into self sufficiency.
What worries me is the number of Trans-Post Feminist Intersectionality majors who don’t want to learn to cut an onion or unclog a drain and will vote for the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who will promise them pre-packaged diced onions and single payer plumbing services as a right to insulate them against any inconvenience or self sufficiency.
You don’t have to experience a zombie apocalypse to see this in action. Just watch Miami after a hurricane. The people who can clean up and fix their own stuff vs. the people who have to pay a contractor for everything.
It might be best for society if rather than read Wuthering Heights in high school, kids read World War Z.
Maybe the best shift we could have in society is getting kids to think about the question: “if the Zombies (or any other disaster – natural, man made, or economic) happen, am I going to be the kind of person that has to go to a government camp to teach me to clean a toilet because I have absolutely no useful skill in society?”
I can only dream of a day when parent averts their eyes and stares down at their shoes and mumbles some noncommittal response in shame that their child chose to go Harvard to be a Women’s Studies major instead of becoming a machinist or electrician like they wanted.
Okay, I’m a boomer, my dad was a WWII vet, taught me how to camp, hunt and fish. Mom taught my how to cook, shop for groceries, respect women, mend clothes (not that I’m any good at that, but I can sew on a button if i have to). My parents gave me a value system to live by, got me into Boy Scouts and gave me enough freedom to learn from my mistakes without killing myself. Circumstances didn’t work our for me to have children, and pass on the knowledge I have earned. However, I think most Boomers I know were raised as I was. What I have observed is that the values and skills we were raised with became a joke in the schools, media, and leftist propaganda. Although the millennials blame everything on the boomer generation, for the most part they are the boomer’s grandchildren, not their children. I am pleased that some are recognizing that they need help learning basic life skills, but I am disappointed they didn’t learn them from their parents.
When an intersectionalist considers a hammer to be “a tool of the patriarchy” zhe or xim can’t in good conscience drive a nail.
On the positive side our local high school has thriving construction and automotive programs and an active FFA chapter so some of the youth can make stuff and fix stuff. I also teach my children since my son’s high school shop classes involved AutoCAD and 3d printing but no hand tools and the Liberty Mutual “what’s a lug wrench” ad stuck with me.
Yes, I was wondering about that ad, too. What ever happened to “just change the tire, kid”?
While I applaud those who are taking these “adulting” classes seriously, part of me can’t help but laugh (mentally, of course) and shake my head at the rest of them millennials… specially when I see stuff like this:
https://twitter.com/cheddar/status/1074398004616998912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2018/12/17/come-on-invention-of-underground-fridge-that-keeps-food-cold-without-any-electricity-rocks-science-tech-world-wait-maybe-not/
I wholeheartedly admin that I don’t know much, but I try to make up for that handicap by researching and reading a bit on multiple subjects that I consider useful.
Millenials have the internet, but can’t be bother to research anything because the know it all. RMESHISMB We didn’t have that luxury when I was their age, yet these idjits waste it on FakeBook, Twatter and Instacrap arguments.
Likewise, I don’t blame yoots and Millennial for uselessness. They’ve been lied to and actively scammed by government school guidance counselors that college is the only way to a prosperous future, and further scammed by college guidance counselors who push them into these useless courses of study.
They don’t know history, especially the history of the inevitable failure of any sort of top down statist system, because they’re not taught history. Only Zinn derived oppression by the West.
And kudos to the ones who are able to admit their ignorance, and are willing to learn.
My take on required reading:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Zombies, hurricanes, earthquakes, whatever- when it comes down to crunch, do you want to be the guy who can do useful stuff… or the guy who can deconstruct Derrida?
I’ve said similar about it not being the Millenial’s fault — it’s a world created by their parents and other adults.