Seen On a Post-It Note While Filling in on the YA Desk Down in Teen Central
"Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves." - J.B. Priestley
Labels: Ain't It the Truth?
posted by fusenumber8 @ 12:09 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Ouch! But yeah, so true.
Reminds me of Erica Jong's quote: "Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood."
Put the two together and you get... teen movies.
Sorry, can't fully agree with this Priestly quotation. Parental influence is much more important than "societal," whatever that word even means.
Oops, I mis-typed Priestley's name. Sorry.
Who says that parents aren't a part of society? Or that how they influence their teens isn't affected by the society in which they live? Besides, the question here isn't "what influences teens?" but rather "do we deserve the ones we have?".
I don't know, it still feels sort of like "one of these things is not like the others" to me. The implication with the war and politicians part is that we voters collectively influence who is in charge of the government, and bad voting choices by the majority result in bad decisions on our behalf by these elected officials. One caring, responsible person alone can't change the political outcome. But one caring parent CAN influence the development of a child, and so to me the teenagers didn't belong in that analogy.
I also find the use of the phrase "society" to be awkward when placing blame. It's pretty nebulous.
But I don't see this statement as blaming anyone. "Deserves" just means you get out of a kid what you've put into them. And what you hand a kid in school, on the streets, in the malls, and online does affect who they become, for good or ill. This may not be the primary influence, but the statement is looking at society, not individual households. And what about the parents of politicians? Surely you could say that they had influence over their offspring as well.
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