High School Boys Are Trending Conservative

[Dill]

(08-01-2023, 01:19 PM)pally Wrote: Too many teenage boys see the world as absolutes instead of understanding that much of the world and society don't fit nicely into predetermined boxes

That's a normal developmental stage. Girls too. Used to be called "black and white thinking" back in the 70s-80s.

Doesn't change much though without challenge and guidance. 

Complicating that thinking was one explicit goal of education before it became all about job training.

The Deep Reading I mentioned above was helpful in challenging/comlplicating. It develops the ability to follow extended
arguments and integrate evidence into nuanced logical frameworks. So I'm thinking that absence of that, as young
people grow up surfing the net and responding to bells and whistles and click bait soundbites, may 
slow or block that development. Everything becomes just "opinion" then. Developed arguments are boring.

There is a political dimension to this too, as not all adults want children to move beyond the B/W stage.

*Now it seems mostly used to describe a persistent and limiting emotional orientation rather than 
a developmental stage.