Seattlest Weighs In: Are Kids Today Jerks?

Yesterday, the AP released a finger-wagging report on a recent study conducted of young adults, asking whether or not they found various slurs offensive--or if, as the majority of them did, they thought that the slurs were the result of their peers "just trying to be funny".

The report goes on to explain that, while a lot of kids reported being offended or hurt by the use of hurtful names, whether gender-based, racially motivated, or otherwise, more young people reported that their would either not be offended at all, or would think that the person was attempting to be humorous. The study, by the way, is a joint project with MTV, and part of the war on cyberbullying.

Seattlest Staffers had varied reactions and, unable to present a united front, decided to contribute our varying opinions on the survey, the AP's handling of the story, and whether or not kids are just dicks.

Below are the actual responses of Seattlest Staffers, presented without further comment:

• Ugh, the tone of this- kids these days! Spendin' all day in juke joints listening to jazz music and taking Benzedrine! Lousy good-fer-nuthin'...
  
  Annoyed granpappy tone aside, I see this shit all the time, and it drives me insane: "Oh, I didn't mean fag like fag, I just call my friend a fag when he's being faggy" or "no, no, you see, I was striking a blow for equality by telling black jokes ironically." It's not hard to understand- DON'T SAY TERRIBLE THINGS! Nobody cares about whatever bullshit "context" you invented to excuse yourself from behaving like a decent person.
• "Fifty-seven percent say "trying to be funny" is a big reason people use discriminatory language online."
  
  I dunno, am I just being a typical entitled douchebag who should be dehumanized at all costs, or is this kind of inspirational?
  
  Whenever I see studies like this, I just imagine some disgruntled southern gentleman recalling the halcyon days when "racism really meant something."
  
  Maybe its spreading a casual, callous attitude towards the abuse of minority groups... maybe. But what dumb, empty, reckless usage of slurs seems to boil down to is a failure of basic etiquitte writ large into some sort of human rights abuse -- usually because most of these linguistic crusaders are really intent on dehumanizing someone to raise their own social capital. This is really helpful, because (*broad generalization alert*) the most frequent offenders of F and N-Bombs are lower class youth who are already thoroughly used to being marginalized.
  
  It's the same thing with the anti-bullying movement. There's no earnest wish to turn the world into a safer, more inclusive place, it's just looking for a social group to thoroughly demonize, prop your own sense of morality up a peg or two, and still feel safe to high five all your buddies afterwards.
• Parents: your kids are dicks. Teach them better, or they will grow up to be grown-up dicks, which is why internet commenters are all assholes.
• People are assholes. The world is a mean and scary place where not everyone is hugging it out all the time. It's not an epidemic, it's the way it fucking is. Kids are mean because they have no filter, their self-esteems are made of shit, and they have yet to conceptualize themselves in true integration with others. They've always been that way, they always will be that way. When we grow up to be adults, we develop wonderful skills like passive aggressiveness, binge drinking, and anonymous accounts to handle our crippling anxieties and fundamental insecurities. Give teens time, pretty soon they'll direct it all inwards and will be hooking up with craigslist strangers and embezzling funds instead of calling people cunts and white trash.
• It's not like I would prefer for kids to be calling other kids sluts, but this is hardly the reason why adolescence is difficult. Rather, it is a byproduct of adolescence being difficult.
  
  Besides, these are words -- which hurt, yes. But adults have learned to cut much deeper, and much more maliciously.
• I feel like a lot of you guys are criticizing the manner in which people often complain about things like offensive speech. I'll agree with you all- it's often sanctimonious, useless, and pursued for self-gratification. Then again, for a huge segment of the population, that description holds true for any public behavior.
  
  Let's not lose sight of the fact that so-called "not PC" language is degrading, dehumanizing and ultimately undermines the mutual respect required for a functional pluralistic society. Words have meaning, sometimes even meaning beyond what the people using them intend. A lot of the words listed in that article aren't just mean names to call someone, they are harmful to an entire group of people, and bad for society. Someone shouldn't get a pass on something like that just because the person calling them out is obnoxious.
  
  Part of the issue is a lack of respect not just for other people, but also for words and their innate power to do damage.
• This isn't another tract about how the webbypages and twitfaces of the world have devalued language, no, there's another cliche being called upon, one touched on earlier: Parents, not only are your kids dicks, but you've made it easy for them to become dicks.
  
  Not the teachers, not the other school kids, not the TV or hip hop or video games or whatever. You, the first and last line of defense against boorish behavior.
• I take responsibility for my kids' boorish (or not) behavior, yes. I'm sort of appalled that my daughters are routinely praised for saying "thank you" to the lady who serves up ice cream. Most kids don't, the astonished cashiers tell me. That's a parental failure, I'd say.
  
  I'd also argue that the ability to say something anonymously (and do it all the time) versus to someone's face, has contributed to the devaluing of language and its ability to do damage. When I taught college, I'm not sure many of my students took commenting (venue, rhetoric, or audience) seriously. And I do hold the internets partly responsible for that, across generations.