For this blog I read the article “8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance”, by Bruce E. Levine, found on this website: (http://www.alternet.org/vision/151850/8_reasons_young_americans_don%27t_fight_back_–_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance?page=entire). After reading this article I cannot say that I agree with everything that Levine had stated. Although many of his statements are true, I do not feel that they can be correlated to this idea that today’s youth is not able, or wanting to resist. For some points, not all of the facts of each situation are stated, so a valid analysis cannot be met. In this blog I will be addressing the points that the author has written about and give my own opinion on the issue.
I do not agree with Levine when he states that “The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation.”. I feel that what is taught in school is not to follow orders, but to be respectful of their elders, and their peers. What is taught in school should not take away from your own opinion about different topics. Even though you need to have respect for those around, you should be able to come to your own conclusions on a subject matter. Schools teach respect, and facts, along with debate. For most schools, their mission is to teach facts to their students. They try hard not to add their own personal opinions into the subject matter, but instead to teach the different sides or ideas of subjects baring multiple theories. Though, this is not always the case in schools. Not all educators are able to keep their own beliefs away from the subjects. This can greatly affect the students in their own ideas about life and other subjects. Children’s minds are easily molded. So to have an authority figure tell them one thing (that they strongly believe in) is true, it is only logical that the student would right away believe in or even change their mind about the subject.
The author also talks about how surveillance takes away from one’s wants to rebel. At one point he refers to the surveillance starting at a young age with parents watching their children’s activities closely. I think that this has increased over time because it has followed the change in technology and availability to the younger generations. With these increased changes parents have to work harder to keep their children safe and pure for as long as possible. Society has changed in this sense very rapidly over the years. For instance the media’s idea of sexuality and what is accepted may not be the same for most parents with their children.
Another point made was Levine’s idea that the reasoning of this lessening resistance upon our newer generations is because of society’s outlook on being “followers” rather than “leaders” I feel is not the complete truth. I can see how some of that reasoning would reflect on some of the choices that one would make. Though, I also feel a big part of this decreasing need for resistance is simply because the need is not there. If there is no conflict, there is nothing to face.
The Article “Is American Youth Too Coddled To Revolt?” by Nikki Arena is one I think can easily blend both my opinion and that of Bruce Levine. I think this article is true to the social trends of our youth and has good explanations for them; Seen on this website: http://goodmenproject.com/on-occupywallstreet/is-american-youth-too-coddled-to-revolt/.
The author mentioned that people in other countries such as Egypt and Iran have recently rebelled to the extent of being killed to get there point across. These actions are taken because they are trying to fight for freedom. But here in America we already have freedom. Many countries and peoples want freedom as well so of course they will give up everything in their power for it. America has done so many times. If America had lost its freedom, I am positive that every one of us would go out and fight for it. That kind of liberty is definitely something that people would die for. And is something that many still do today in America, the only difference is that we have created a system so that our young are not subject to pay the price for it. Resistance should not be a characteristic of a person, yet only an emotion when it is truly needed; you should not set out to find something to resist just because you as a human have the power to do so.
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