The Death of Authority

If our children believe they live in a thoroughly racist-sexist-classist-ableist society that is on the brink of collapse because of rising global temperatures, it is probably because they have seen thousands upon thousands of algorithmically cued-up videos, all attesting to various incarnations of imminent doom.

Adults wonder why young people are so cynical. We wonder why they speak in memes. We wonder why they are so miserable and depressed and friendless and bereft of meaning in their lives. ... We let them abandon Shakespeare for the macabre world of YA fiction.

We did this ... by telling young people they should become more independent, more autonomous, less tethered to the ideas and expectations of those who came before. It is why colleges encourage students to “design their own major” or why it is fashionable to insist that students “see themselves” in the books they read, as if the point of literature is affirmation instead of inspiration.

Instead of explaining what we know and how we know it, we merely capitulated to the desire to be liked. This is why our children are so susceptible to every moral, intellectual, or spiritual fad that appears on their screens. We let them believe that truth is artificial, love and friendship are power constructs, all religion is a mental phantom, and history is pure narrative.

What excuse do we have for high-school counselors and college deans who plead with teachers and professors to exercise “extreme empathy,” who argue any negative consequence is punitive and therefore harmful to the student in error? This is how we justify bad behavior on campus—the non-stop cursing, the TikTok challenges, the drug use, the defiance, the resistance to deadlines.

-- The Death of Authority in the American Classroom by Jeremy S. Adams