Kerby Anderson

This weekend students will hold demonstrations demanding gun control legislation. As I have said in previous commentaries, these young people have every right to express their views. And since they are making their arguments in the public arena, we have every right to discuss, debate, and correct what they say.

Jonah Goldberg, writing in USA Today, focuses on a broader concern. We seem to be resurrecting “an old American tradition of celebrating young people as inherently wiser and more moral than adults.” He adds that this is an ancient confusion, for a number of reasons.

First, we celebrate that young people see the world with fresh eyes. In some ways, that is a plus because they cut through some of the fictions of modern life. We all remember the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The child didn’t understand you were supposed to placate the king’s vanity.

The other side of that is that young people are not, as a group, wiser and better informed than older people. You can prove that with lots of social science research, but Jonah Goldberg has a simple test in the form of a question. Were you wiser and smarter when you were half your current age? I doubt very many people would answer in the affirmative.

Some of the student leaders blame the previous generation for the problems they face. Again, they are free to do so. But they ignore the many blessings they have inherited. Former President Barack Obama put it this way, “If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or your economic status might be, you’d choose today.”

This weekend when these students take to podiums to criticize politicians, corporations, and the previous generation, they might also want to express some gratitude for the freedom and opportunities available to each of them.