They Say We're Young and We Don't Know...

I know who Alain Finkielkraut is, naturally, but you don't. He's that rare bird: a French intellectual who doesn't have his head up his cul. I see him on the teevee now and again, usually in round table situations following some Major Event, taking heat from all sides. But, not to worry, he gives as good as he gets.

Following a link on a Takimag article, I ended up at an obscure blog post where the author has translated a few choice cuts from his latest book (so I don't have to). Here, submitted for your approval, is a random quote from Monsieur le Philosophe, on "Kids with screens, ignoring the real people around them":

"What they've forgotten in their fervor for equality and liberty, is that bourgeois customs had a moral foundation. ... They force you to feel, all while playing into the social comedy, concern for others. When I'm polite, I'm following a custom, of course; I'm playing a role, no doubt; I'm betraying my roots, possibly. But above all, as Hume showed, I'm letting other people know that they count in my view. I greet them, I bow to them, I acknowledge their existence by de-stressing my own. A child who's been left to the devices of his inborn egocentricity and new technologies does the opposite: he denies the existence of the person who's right in front of him. He snuffs out the external reality which, in other eras, he would have been forced to face. "

This is nothing new, of course. From the first Walkman in the eighties, to the Game Boy in the nineties and the iPod in the aughts, the kidz have been progressively isolating themselves from the world around them--on the street, in the subway, in waiting rooms and restaurants and bars--which must be a godsend for pickpockets everywhere, by the way--but the smartphone with its infinite attractions has taken the game to a new level.

And it ain't just the sullen youth anymore. In fact, those Game Boy kids have grown up and are having little darlings of their own. Every day I see dead-eyed young mothers staring into their palms, oblivious to their offspring in the stroller they're absently pushing into the back of my legs. Sure, a handful of Luddites still engage with their children, "Loook sweetie, a homeless man peeing on the sidewalk! Can you say pee-pee? Peeee-peeee.", but they're a dwindling minority, soon to become extinct.

And what kind of antisocial freaks will this next generation become, I ask you, having been raised by parents who are more interested in Candy Crush than little Candice, more intimate on Facebook than in face time with their own family? Sure, TV blunted the best minds of my generation, but we still had to sit down to dinner together and engage in conversation and make eye contact.

I foresee a future swarming with the feral and the benumbed, and it will be frighteningly dull.