First read: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/ a/2007/10/24/notes102407.DTL

My paper (written for assignment, not all reaction):

Mark Morford in this recent piece about how “dumb” the next generation, or rather my generation is, takes his criticism to a different level. In other articles of his, he seemed to be more veered towards taking one side of an argument and was very critical. In this piece, though, through his sarcasm and bold statements, he looks at opposite angles of the argument. He realizes that the decreasing mentality of teenagers may not just be because they are a “big pile of idiots” but because society and government are making them that way. This makes his column more believable and obviously a bit likeable for people of my apparent stupid generation.

Strong similes are also found in this article which makes it even more compelling. Statements like, “It's a bit like the melting of the polar ice caps.” And "It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it" are incredible ways of showing how society is really not progressing anywhere. We are almost at a standstill in development, but the caps are increasingly melting. Slowly but surely. These devices Morford uses promotes his ideas to the reader more interestingly than when he simply criticizes.

Morford arises some very daring statements that hit home in his article. His blunt statements which are bolded are effective in offending but making their point known to the reader. He is then able to go on and defend with examples how and why the future generation is so dumb. One issue with his piece, though, is when he states (or rather his friend states),

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

The problem present in this quote is the idea that America is actually functioning right now. Are we really? What about all those school shootings occurring, what about the effortless war we have been involved in for the past several years, what about the fact that I can not safely walk around my school without getting harassed about showing identification, what about the broadway strikes occurring, what about the homeless problems we have, what about the millions of teen parents we have that can not take care of themselves let alone a child? Are we really a “functioning American society” right now? I guess if you count living in a state of fear and hatred of one another functioning than sure we are functioning wonderfully. Maybe Morford’s buddy should have moved out a long time ago or been taught a lesson of what is and what is not functioning.

Hopefully, in future generations this dumbing down mentality will actually be beneficial. Perhaps instead of fighting a real war in which people lose their ACTUAL lives, our future “stupid, ignorant” leaders would introduce stupid ideas like having a Halo tournament or laser tag fights to see which nation is the strongest. Hey, isn’t that better than tossing around real grenades and bullets and human lives like we are doing now? I think “a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it” might actually be a good change or no change at all. What it comes down to is that if you want to destroy something, it has to be stable and intact in the first place. We are not a real managed and stable society no matter how patriotic or how much you say the opposite. So really what is it that our ignorant generation can destroy? At least most of us are so involved in blogging and video games that we do not bring destruction in the first place. Of course we do not bring much change to the way things are but show me someone who is, show me a war that we actually won because I will show you how we lost. Maybe our generation will start initiating change when previous generations show us a world we should be proud to be a part of.