Tea at Trianon: Screen-addicted Millennials

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Screen-addicted Millennials

From Life Site:

“What we are seeing now when we look at 30-year-olds in America today is really the fruits of that lack of a good, solid intellectual formation,” Bauerlein said. “They’re not that happy. The rates of depression and anxiety [and] narcissism are up. Suicide is up. They’re not getting married and having kids, which is a sign of pessimism about the future.”

Millennials, the English professor continued, also exhibit high rates of vindictiveness and distrust of others — quite at odds with their designation as “the most tolerant generation.” Bauerlein said many of them just “don’t have the tools” to handle the struggles and setbacks of the real world.

The biggest culprit is modern technology: iPhones, iPads, and so on. It’s telling, Bauerlein noted, that program and device designers in Silicon Valley don’t let their young children use this technology. He said they even send their children to low-tech, screen-free schools like the Waldorf School in Los Altos, California.

Bauerlein said the “signs of deterioration” are so strong they can no longer be swept aside. To close out the episode, he gave practical advice to parents looking to reduce the harmful effects of too much screen time on their children. (Read more.)