Just another aspect of arrested development?
I suppose that I was supposed to identify aspects of myself in the
recently published book review (on The American Spectator web site) of The
Death of the Grown-Up by Diana West. I haven't read the book, and probably
won't. (As someone who probably fits much of the arrested development profile,
I probably can't read a book, or follow a coherent argument, from start to finish.)
Strangely, however, the book review never mentions the internet, or the addiction
to fast information that supposedly accompanies it. In such a scathing critique
that seems to touch all the predictable bases - from adults imitating teen fashion
and playing video games, to shirking responsibility and (of course) multiculturalism
- the quick fix of information, the preference toward folksonomies rather than
hierarchic taxonomies, are passed over. Aren't these also, and perhaps even glaringly,
additional signs of arrested development? Grown-ups should be decisive, should
make clear distinctions, rather than let everything flow.
It would seem to me that there's something almost obviously 60's counter-cultural
about an approach toward information that legitimizes all points of view, that
sees value in letting multiple points of view co-exist. In this same way, those
who would view such an approach as juvenile would also feel that it presents
an imminent danger to western civilization (at least as much as adults dressing
like kids). Being disorganized is, after all, a prerogative of kids who are
yet to learn the necessity, if not the pleasure, of being organized. Adults
understand that everything has its proper place, and it's their job to see to
it that each thing finds that place.
Go to: Please organize me.