A recent study shows that young people increasingly feel they have no control over their lives:
Children ages 9-14 and college students increasingly believe that their future is not in their control and nothing they do matters, according to a new study to be published in the August issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review.
The research, led by SDSU Psychology professor Jean Twenge, Ph.D., SDSU master’s student Charles Im and Case Western Reserve University Ph.D. student Liqing Zhang, shows that 30 percent more young Americans now believe their lives are controlled by outside forces rather than by their own achievements as compared to the beliefs of young people in the 1960s and 1970s.
“These findings are very disturbing, because previous research found that young people with these beliefs are more likely to be low achievers in school, exhibit delinquent behavior, cope poorly with stress, and become depressed,” Twenge said. “Our generation has given up. We’re looking at ‘Generation Whatever,’ with many kids feeling like they can’t make a difference. Most feel that luck is a stronger determinant of their future than their own power to make things happen.”
Titled “It’s Beyond My Control: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of Increasing Externality in Locus of Control, 1960-2002,” the paper measures changes in childrens’ and young adults’ “locus of control,” or beliefs about what controls their lives. The results show a strong increase in cynicism, helplessness and general negativity among young adults of this generation as compared to kids 30-40 years ago.
The project studied nearly 25,000 young people from two age groups (children ages 9-14 and college students) who completed questionnaires in the years between 1960 and 2004.
[...]
[C]ollege students are now more likely to agree with items such as “Getting a good job depends mainly on being in the right place at the right time,” and “The world is run by the few people in power, and there is not much the little guy can do about it.” They are less likely to agree that “Becoming a success is a matter of hard work; luck has little or nothing to do with it,” and “The average citizen can have an influence in government decisions.”
“No one marches in the streets anymore. Kids feel there’s no reason to – it won’t do any good,” says Twenge. “And if you believe that success comes from luck rather than hard work, why work hard? It’s not surprising that this trait is linked to poor achievement in school.”
Many of these beliefs seem to me to be quite rational. When millions of hard-working and increasingly well-educated individuals, who have spent their lives gaining expertise in a given area, are the victims of downsizing, offshoring and outsourcing, personal effort becomes at best a necessary as opposed to a sufficient condition on success (and indeed, arguably not even a necessary condition, as per Benj's addendum below). Indeed, never mind being a success---whether you are employed at all becomes an accident of circumstance; and hence so does being healthy (as the 40-some million of uninsured can attest); and hence so does being able to live in half-decent circumstances; and hence so does being able to engage in something meaningful rather than menial; and so on, and so on.
The world is in fact run (and extremely poorly) by the very few people in power, and there doesn't seem to be much that the little guy can do about it. The average citizen in the supposed democracy that is the U.S. has almost no ability to influence government decisions, compared to the influence of rich donors and associated corporations. What meagre influence citizens do have via their individual votes for their so-called "representatives" is being increasingly cancelled by redistricting, voter intimidation, voter roll manipulation, and voting machine failure and/or tampering. And this is not to mention the many other means by which the average citizen's franchise is corrupted, via, for example, the continual barrage of right-wing propaganda aimed at getting people to vote in ways clearly against their own and the country's best interests, and the fact that, given the decimation of unions and the increased isolation of persons in their homes, there is effectively no social infrastructure enabling citizens to get together, figure out their interests, and work together to influence policy.
Moreover, it's time for us to take note that marching in the streets and other forms of protest in the U.S. and U.K. have had little if any effect on public policy in these countries. What good did the record-setting protest in Britain do? Blair just kept on keeping on; and of course Bush similarly ignored the millions of protesters across the U.S.. Those in power have evidently realized that they can effectively ignore even the most massive displays of protest, swatting these away with a dismissive "I don't make decisions on the basis of opinion polls (or whatever)", the repetition of a lie, or a chest-thumping "We must stay the course".
And the media, owned or otherwise in service to the same corporate elite that profits off of death and destruction, either fails to report on the protests or else duly mouths the rightwing talking point responses above. Nor do they now point out that these protesters were, in retrospect, right that the stated reasons for invading Iraq were clearly ungrounded; nor observe that the only reasons still standing for the war are those that the protesters identified: to get control of Iraqi oil, shock and awe the world with the crushing power of the U.S. boot, lay Iraq bare for the rampages of capitalist foreign investment, and funnel hundreds of billions of dollars of hard-earned taxpayer money into the pockets of those who profit from the military-industrial complex. Nor is the fact that millions saw all too clearly what was going on ever contrasted with the insincere mea culpas of media pundits and government toadies to the effect that "aw, shucks -- we were duped!".
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of human beings have died, hundreds of thousands of human beings have been gravely injured, tens of thousands of human beings have been sickeningly tortured, and Iraq is socially and economically devastated. Such is the price of complicity and betrayal of the truth, and every government official and media representative who turned their head from the evident facts and motivations for this war has as much blood on their hands as if they had murdered, injured, or tortured these innocent Iraqis themselves. But I digress.
Not content to merely ignore protest, of course, the powers that be are taking measures to shut it down, as witness the so-called "free speech zones" to which protesters of events are restricted---fully operative during our cherished Democrats' convention---and denials of permits to protest. Oh, and by the way, if you're going to Crawford, for god's sake don't wear an anti-Bush button.
Though the mainstream mouthpieces attempt to downplay the many indications of economic and political powerlessness, the crummy reality is out there for people to see for themselves. And it is very bad news for the future of the U.S. and similar countries that our young people---the traditional optimists in society, and the segment of civil society most willing and able to put their time and energy where their hopes are---don't think they have any way to change it.
ADDENDUM
Certainly it's no suprise that the youth of the country feel that hard work is worthless and luck and circumstances are everything -- that the Oval Office is occupied by a do-nothing, ignorant, lazy loser who is only there due to being "well-born" cannot but set a bad example. -- Benj
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