Our nation, and indeed the world, is under attack. Not only physically, through terrorist organizations, hostile nations and the like, but we are also under attack morally and politically. Battles rage around us, and each is fought with it’s own distinct weapons. But the greatest battle isn't being fought in some distant land, with guns or law books, but is being fought here on the home front with ideas. In fact, this battle is being fought overran idea, the idea of “the teenager.”
On the surface, the idea of the teenager may seem harmless, even natural. The growing up process is natural, inevitable and God-given. Becoming a teenager isn't. Many people believe that the teenager has been around since the dawn of time, when in reality, the teenager wasn’t invented until after WW2. At this point, many people may may be wondering “if teenagers weren’t invented until WW2, what was there before?”
In his article “the Myth of the teenager,” Dr. Michael Platt, a professor of philosophy, said this: “there were no teenagers before WW2, instead there were youth. Youths were young people who wanted to become adults, no matter how confused,wayward, or silly they acted, they looked to the future. They were aware that life is more than youth."
Teenagers have no such horizon. Beyond the teenage world, there is no adult life, no past with heroes, no future with goals. beyond the world of "self", there is nothing.
The creation of the teenager was a sad day for young people everywhere. On this day, young people became "Peter Pans," human beings that never grow up.
In order to more clearly describe the teenager, we need to clearly establish what a youth is. A youth is someone striving to become a man or a woman. They want to be trusted and given responsibility. A youth likes good tests, and they want to enjoy adult pleasures, only after they have earned them.
I know that this all sounds surreal, and that it seems that a person like this could not physically exist in the real world. I'm here to tell you that they can, and they do!
The only reason that we don't see more youth than we do, is because a youth must possess 1 thing that society has deemed; "Crazy, wrong and destructive." this thing that all youth must possess is: vision. Youth know that in order to succeed in life, you must take the high road, and be willing to do some really hard things. there are two hard thing that especially apply to youth; conquering the comfort zone, and going against the crowd.
Two of these especially apply to youth: the comfort zone and going against the crowd.
The comfort zone is a mental place in which everything you do and every action that you make is easy, comfortable, low-risk and/or non-invasive. The comfort zone is generally caused by fear: fear of pain, fear of humiliation and fear of failure. Imagine the comfort zone as a nice little patch of grass, surrounded by a fence. in this patch of grass, everything is comfortable and easy. a youth views the comfort zone as a challenge and as an opportunity to grow. The teenager, on the other hand, views the comfort zone as a restriction or even as a crutch. The reason the teenager has such a hard time with the comfort zone is because he is an animal of fear. Fear of responsibility, fear of solitude, fear of pain and the list could go on. But right now I'd like to focus on the fear of solitude and the other hard thing.
There are times in life when we are required to stand up for what we believe in. Let me share with you a story.
Helmuth Hubner lived in Germany during the reign of the Nazis. He was what you would call "The poster-boy Nazi." He was brilliant, strong and loved his country. Helmuth would have made an exceptional Nazi except for the fact that he was a Mormon. One of the key Latter-day-saint beliefs is that we should spread truth to all the world. Not just moral truth, but all truth. Helmuth did exactly that. When his older brother came home from battle, he smuggled in a foreign radio which could receive stations such as BBC England. After listening to foreign radio for a little while, Helmuth realized that the Nazis were spreading false information about the war, and that people should know the full truth. Long story short, he started spreading the truth, got arrested, and was put to death for standing up for what he believed.
Standing for something is a very lonely occupation. Teenagers do NOT stand because they fear solitude. I have heard it said that "solitude is the breeding grounds for wisdom." When you are alone, you ask the hard questions, the deep and soul-searching questions of: "Who am I? What have I done with my life and what should I be doing? A youth loves this time because it is during times of solitude when the greatest growth and change happens, it is in these times when he makes the biggest strides toward manhood. a teenager fears these times of solitude because he is afraid of wisdom. There is a quote that says; "With great power comes great responsibility." Wisdom is power, and since the greatest fear of the teenager is responsibility, a teenager will naturally shy away from wisdom.
Earlier in my speech, I brought up Dr. Michael Platt, and I would like to do so again. Dr. Platt calls the teenager "a myth," also, he says; "There has never been a being more dangerous than the teenager.
In Websters New World dictionary, the definition of a myth is; "any fictitious story, person, or thing." The teenager is a fake person, and as such, they pursue fake things. this is the reason that things like Facebook, online gaming, and internet dating are so appealing to teenagers. These things provide an easy escape from reality. they offer all of the pleasures of relationships, without any of the responsibility. the teenager fears reality because subconsciously, they know that if they have to face reality, then they would have to accept the fact that they aren't perfect, and that they need to change. The effects of this fear are the teenage actions, distancing themselves from their family, etc. The teen knows that he cannot face reality, but they also know that something must be real, so the teenager does something that up to this point in history, has never been done; they create their own reality.
The reason teens are so dangerous is because they have this fake reality. When a teenager comes to power, they don't know how to deal with what is true reality, and so instead , they try to force their skewed version on others. The teenager mentality is that work is bad, responsibility is evil, and life is all about you. When society excepts these ideas, that is the day when society will crumble. Benjamin Franklin said;"A moral people is necessary to the security of a free state."
But there is hope. Just as the story of Pandora's box, after all the demons were let loose and Pandora sat weeping, there came the little fairy called Hope. Lucky for us, the third generation of teenagers, who are now the parents of the world, have realized the emptiness of their material youth and have resolved to give their children something truly good; an education in the virtues. I would like to quote Dr. Platt once more. He says; "Nothing should make us more happy about our children and more confidant about our future public life, than the number of parents who have chosen to educate their children at home. In order to teach, you must know and in order to know, you must learn. Thus both generations grow up at once. The parents leave their own teen-age self behind and become true adults, and the children never have to become teenagers at all."
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