14 March

Everything we label a political problem is really a social/cultural problem. Specifically that adult problems can’t be solved by adults with the understanding and attitudes of permanent teenagers. That’s not just some cheap insult, it’s an analytical assessment of the actual changes the countercultural revolution brought to Western societies. The victory of teenage life over adult life. Just as Russia and China had their revolutions that shaped how they are today, we had our own, which we always ignore. This person of Iranian descent sees it, because you have to step outside Western culture to see how it works. Fish don’t know water exists until they’re beached. Where I think she misses is that this isn’t just the youth of today. Their grandparents, the boomers, were the real vanguard of this shift. The biggest kidults in the world now are all elderly. And it’s not anything bad about any of these people, as people. It was the separation of adult and child life, through schools, that did it. A change to the mechanisms of the culture.