COTD: Overshooting The Mark

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The challenge of progress is managing the transition from childhood to adulthood. Children are dependent and self-absorbed. Adults are independent and other-focused. At some point, we all have to change from the former to the latter. For millennia, we pushed children into adulthood too early; they didn’t have the time to get a good education, largely because they were needed to put food on the table in order for the family to survive. But as wealth grew in the West, we were able to leave children in school longer. This had many positive effects, including huge increases in knowledge and wealth-generation capability. Eventually, however, we overshot the mark. Now we the spectacle of permanent childhood, a state of perpetual dependence and self-absorption. But our culture, and therefore our nation, cannot survive if the psycho-social pyramid is too bottom-heavy. There are too few adults supporting too many children. Left to its own, such a situation will self-correct.