Posted
12/13/2007 05:48:00 PM
by Douglas
As my momma would say, "put on your big-girl panties and
grow up."That’s Diana West’s argument: Fork over your applesauce for the meat and potatoes of adult thought, behavior, and responsibility, though they may be harder to digest. “Once upon a time,” she writes, “childhood was a phase, adolescence did not exist, and adulthood was the fulfillment of youth’s promise. No more. Why not?” She indicts the music industry, the laissez-faire or even actively deleterious parenting style of the Baby Boomers, and the fact that the young are now regarded as sophisticated when they are merely knowing. She blames multiculturalism and political correctness. She complains about misnomers like “adult bookstore” and “mature audience.” And, as William Grimes wrote in The New York Times (I thought he was joking), she even tackles “declining standards of shame among Rotary Club members.”
Sadly, I don't think we as a culture are going to grow up anytime soon. Hell, they gave that smokin' turd of juvenilia worship
American Beauty five freakin' oscars. 'Cause it was so, ya know, liberating, I suppose.