Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennialsby Malcolm Harris
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book is a must read for any Millennial, if for nothing else than a brief overview of all the ways our generation is uniquely challenged by hardships and levels of competition our parents never had to face. From the pervasive, crushing burden of student debt, to the ubiquity of unpaid internships, the dearth of good, well paying jobs, and the almost nonexistence of things like job security and upward mobility, Millennials have it rough in many ways. This book is an excellent starting point for looking in to and combating those issues, it's great as an introduction but by no means should it be that only volume you read on any of these subjects, instead use it as a tutorial to get you thinking about the issues of exam oriented education, rabidly competitive job market and exploited "student athletes". ( ) Four and a half stars. This book packs an incredible amount of information into a relatively slim book. I saw a ton of my own experiences here. The author doesn't try to make things pretty. This was a bleak read, with well-placed comic relief. I nodded a lot, and even gasped a few times. I was more aware of what was going on than I originally realized. I'm glad I read this book. I hope it's widely read now and in the future. Malcolm Harris is insightful and really, truly cares about his subject. Squeezed from every angle, the room for error in the millenial generation is nil, and the anxiety about performance is palpable. We fight over the crumbs left for us as profit drains the content and meaning out of every institution from higher education to entertainment. Tooth and nail, we struggle to gain access to the dry husks of what our parents (who emptied these vessels, or at least stood by while the process occurred) insist are the most important aspects of life. That Malcolm doesn't offer a solution but problematizes "Bop-It" command solutions is refreshing if bleak. It's straight talk, and it prompted many discussions in my family about how to raise my child with unstructured and unsupervised joy, creativity and exploration. This book is relentless - an examination of the litany of systemic factors that have shaped and continue to shape our generation's material well-being, our subservience to capital, and even the psychology of an entire birth cohort. It's fairly grim reading but it's an excellent accounting of the myriad ways in which who we are and where we can go are, essentially, overdetermined. I am also very much here for a good Bop-It allegory, particularly one decrying the "policy prescriptions" that have proved ultimately futile. A quick read and an informative one, too. no reviews | add a review
"A Millennial's groundbreaking investigation into why his generation is economically worse off than their parents, creating a radical and devastating portrait of what it means to be young in America. Millennials have been called lazy, entitled, narcissistic, and immature, but when you push aside the stereotypes, what actually unites this generation? The short answer: They've been had. Millennials are the hardest working and most educated generation in American history. They have poured unprecedented amounts of time and money into preparing themselves for the twenty-first-century workforce. Yet they are poorer, more medicated, more precariously employed, and have less of a social safety net than their parents or grandparents. Kids These Days asks why, and answers with a radical, brilliant, data-driven analysis of the economic and cultural forces that have shaped Millennial lives. Examining broad trends like runaway student debt, the rise of the intern, mass incarceration, social media, and more, Harris shows us a generation conditioned from birth to treat their lives and their efforts-their very selves and futures-as human capital to be invested. But what happens when children raised as investments grow up? Why are young people paying such a high price to train themselves for a system that exploits them? How can Millennials change or transcend what's been made of them? Gripping, mercilessly argued, deeply informed, and moving fluidly between critical theory, political policy, and pop culture, Kids These Days will wake you up, make you angry, and change how you see your place in the world. This is essential reading-not only for Millennials, but for anyone ready to take a hard look at how we got here and where we're headed if we don't change course fast"--
"Millennials have been stereotyped as lazy, entitled, narcissistic, and developmentally delayed. In fact, they are the hardest working and most educated generation in American history, a generation that poured unprecedented amounts of time and money into preparing themselves for the 21st century market. Yet here they are: poorer, more medicated, more precariously employed, and with less of a social safety net than their parents or even their grandparents. To find out why, Malcolm Harris, himself a Millennial, decided to conduct a meticulous, data driven analysis of the cultural, technological, and (especially) economic forces over the past 40 years that have shaped Millennial lives. What he discovered, and the sense he made of it, will change how you see yourself, your country, and our future - whether you're a Millennial or not. Examining broad trends like the professionalization of childhood, runaway student debt, the rise of the intern, mass incarceration, social media, and more, Kids These Days charts the rise of an American ethos so normalized that we forget to notice it: the treatment of children as investments, and he dares us to confront the consequences when those children grow up. Gripping, mercilessly argued, and deeply informed, Kids These Days is essential reading, not only for Millennials but for anyone ready to take a hard look at how we got here and where we're headed if we don't change course fast"-- No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)305.2420973Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Age groups Early adulthoodLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |