The economy is back on the rise...

You old timers are missing the point; nowadays we read while playing youtube in the background - double information intake, maximum time efficiency!
And, of course, you youngsters are missing the point -- usually because you miss it through an inability to concentrate.

Cheers,

R.
 
Haha, touché!
If you want a REALLY stupid pronouncement by (presumably) old people, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24173194 in which you will be told that you are still a child: "Child psychologists are being given a new directive which is that the age range they work with is increasing from 0-18 to 0-25."

Now, who would be made angrier by such a cretinous statement? You, or me? Calling an 18-year-old a child is bad enough. Calling a 25-year-old a child suggests to me that someone's head should be on a spike. And not the "child's".

Cheers,

R.
 
If you want a REALLY stupid pronouncement by (presumably) old people, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24173194 in which you will be told that you are still a child: "Child psychologists are being given a new directive which is that the age range they work with is increasing from 0-18 to 0-25."

Now, who would be made angrier by such a cretinous statement? You, or me? Calling an 18-year-old a child is bad enough. Calling a 25-year-old a child suggests to me that someone's head should be on a spike. And not the "child's".

Cheers,

R.

That was an interesting article, it pretty much sums up what I've been seeing among my peers in the last ten years. Some grow up quickly, leave the birds nest and try their own wings as soon as possible, while others live at their parent place and watch kids movies til 25. I also call these people kids sometimes, but I do hope that you wont impale my skull for doing so.
The issue seems to be concentrated in metropolitan areas, where finding somewhere to live is becoming increasingly difficult in Sweden. Contrary most of the people I know in rural areas has a house and a kid by that age.
It's a horrifying development, and I still find it very disturbing every time I meet a twentysomethings who cannot cook, wash or even change a light bulb.
It wouldn't surprise me if we get similar directives over here as well in time, in fact I'll ask my girlfriend tonight - she's in psychology school.
 
That was an interesting article, it pretty much sums up what I've been seeing among my peers in the last ten years. Some grow up quickly, leave the birds nest and try their own wings as soon as possible, while others live at their parent place and watch kids movies til 25. I also call these people kids sometimes, but I do hope that you wont impale my skull for doing so.
The issue seems to be concentrated in metropolitan areas, where finding somewhere to live is becoming increasingly difficult in Sweden. Contrary most of the people I know in rural areas has a house and a kid by that age.
It's a horrifying development, and I still find it very disturbing every time I meet a twentysomethings who cannot cook, wash or even change a light bulb.
It wouldn't surprise me if we get similar directives over here as well in time, in fact I'll ask my girlfriend tonight - she's in psychology school.
Sure, like you, I've met "kids" in their 20s, 30s and older. But I'd regard it as a sign of mental or cultural retardation. To try to promote it (or even accept it) as the norm is, to use your word, horrifying. A very old friend's daughter has become so close to Frances and me that we often reckon she has five parents: her real father and mother, her stepmother, and us. Of all her "mothers" she's closest to Frances. When we go anywhere together we act pretty much like parents and child: it's just easier than explaining every time that no, she isn't really our daughter. Her birthday is the same day as mine, but 40 years later, and we spent out 19th/59th, 21st/61st and 23rd/63rd birthdays together; in Hungary, Magdeburg and the Pyrebees respectively. More than once we've been told how much she looks like one or the other of us, which shows what part people's expectations play.

She hasn't been a "child" since we first got to know her well when she was 18 (we were living in different countries until she was 12, so that was when we first met). She's 23 now, living on her own (until she moves in with the new boyfriend) and, to be honest, she's slightly more grown up in some ways than I am. Mainly, she's better at dealing with idiots. Of course she's changed in the last 5 years but hell, so have we all.

Cheers,

R.
 
I recommend reading some Slavoj Žižek too.

"The Year of Dreaming Dangerously" (2012, London: Verso Books) addresses these recent issues.

He's an acute and uncomfortable thinker. If you're not used to the language of structuralist or Marxist criticism, or your Hegel is a bit rusty, you can skip over those bits - there's plenty more to take in and chew over written in plainer language too.
 
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