Re: "The Death of the Grown-Up" by Diana West

I picked this book quite some time ago at one of many bookcrossings in my area, and it has been dusting on my shelf until recently I decided to challenge myself and regain my ability to read.

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First several chapters of the book trace path of the American society from restictive social norms through the sexual revolution to the era of "fuck" word in the prime time, "sex sells" marketing principle and drunk undergrads on the spring break.

Unless you believe this is a problem in itself, that would be quite boring reading. Actually, I saw these first chapters as mockery of my own believes. Dumbed down, concern of these chapters is "Power shifted from adults to adiolescents", my concern is "Power shifted from programmers to C-illiterates". And they both beg for a question "What is the problem, exactly?".

In the next chapters of her book, Diana West answers this question well. There is a flip side of all these advancements. Now we are restrained by the concepts of "political correctness" and "multiculturalism". Now you can say "fuck", but you can't say "a primitive culture". It is blasphemy to even consider than one subset of the population is better than another at something, no matter the supporting data.

We traded one set of dogmas, restrictions and taboos for another, and that wasn't a good trade. The author, clearly a Republican and what seems to be affinity for Christianity, seems to believe that it was an inevitable outcome. I want to believe that we could have a win without any sacrifices.

In any case, I recommend this book.