Good Intentions and Smooth Talk: When Psychological Neotenates Elect Themselves

Will Americans be electing a psychological neotenate as US President this November? As time goes by, the odds of electing someone who has never actually had to prove themselves in the real world grows larger. At least Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had been re-elected state governors--an administrative position of responsibility. Bush had flown multiple flights in particularly difficult to fly jet fighter aircraft as an air national guardsman, without crashing, and had at least some experience in the private sector before entering politics. McCain proved himself in the Navy performing as a pilot and in many other duties. What has Obama done to prove himself, other than sliding almost unopposed into his current undistinguished position?

How do you create a world of pyschological neotenates? A world where it makes sense to elect another psychological neotenate as the most powerful leader of the free world? You do just what western countries have been doing recently. Have only one or two children per family. Make the kids feel special even though you know they aren't. Teach them self esteem they have not earned. Make them feel entitled.

Having only one or two children allows parents to shower a great deal of attention upon each child. And that must be a good thing, right?

No other generations of kids have been so curried and cultivated, so pampered and primed, though primed for what exactly is a bit unclear. Children are given a voice in lots of decisions formerly not up for their consideration. "If it's your child, not you, who gets to choose your weekend brunch spot,"

...Every high school now has its battery of counselors: guidance, psychological, college. A larger and larger segment of the student population seems to bring its own psychological tics and jiggeroos to school with them: ADHD, dyslexia and other learning disabilities, various degrees of depression requiring regimens of pills and therapy sessions. Some of these defects and disabilities are the result of parents' having their children at a later age. Might others be that the children are so intensely watched over and tested that more and more defects and disabilities show up, some among them possibly imaginary?

...So often in my literature classes students told me what they "felt" about a novel, or a particular character in a novel. I tried, ever so gently, to tell them that no one cared what they felt; the trick was to discover not one's feelings but what the author had put into the book, its moral weight and its resultant power. In essay courses, many of these same students turned in papers upon which I wished to--but did not--write: "D-, Too much love in the home." I knew where they came by their sense of their own deep significance and that this sense was utterly false to any conceivable reality. Despite what their parents had been telling them from the very outset of their lives, they were not significant. Significance has to be earned, and it is earned only through achievement. Besides, one of the first things that people who really are significant seem to know is that, in the grander scheme, they are themselves really quite insignificant. __Source_via_aldaily.com

Even only children who are full of self-esteem and their own specialness, are in reality "quite insignificant." Sequestered in classrooms until their twenties or later, protected from any real responsibilities, prevented from being tested by the larger world, they are finally tossed into reality demanding everything but qualified for little or nothing.

These "special" children are turning into psychologically neotenised lawyers, politicians, journalists, judges, political activists, bureaucrats, educators, clerks, and any other occupation where they can frequently turn their feelings into a quasi-truth. Heaven helped these poor children who fall into a field where they are actually tested against reality in a meaningful way. Working physicians, engineers, IT workers, technologists and technicians, maintenance and construction workers, pilots, lab workers who are required to develop things "that work", business people who must "deliver the goods"--these are examples of people who have to go beyond their feelings and actually be competent.

There are many examples of psychologically neotenised people who got into "competence-tested" fields by mistake. They flew the plane drunk, or operated on the patient under the influence of drugs. They fudged their data, produced sloppy code, and designed buildings that fell down.

Unfortunately, parents in developed societies are turning their few progeny into more and more psychologically neotenised princes and princesses. Full of self-esteem and a sense of entitlement, they are spilling out into all occupations and fields. What have they done? Nothing. What can they do? Nothing. What are they willing to learn to do? Almost nothing. What do they want? Everything!

In November, voters in the US will have the opportunity to elect a US President who has done essentially nothing. Never flew a jet fighter or served in any type of military or national guard unit. Never operated a successful business or served in an important administrative position. Barely served half a US Senate term. Never faced re-election as US Senator. No record of achievement, legislation, or accomplishment. The very picture of a quite special psychological neotenate, sliding his way toward an important position at a time in history where challenges to western civilisation are growing critical.

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