The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization

The Death of the Grown-Up, How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilizationby Diana West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 256 pp, paper $12.99Syndicated columnist, Diana West, has written a hard-hitting book to proclaim, and document, that Western societies are coming apart at the seams because adults have left the playground of our world and turned it over to the children. Worse yet, adults have become children and there is no one left to monitor the playground at all. She writes, “If The Death of the Grown-up tries to unravel the mysterious disappearance of adults in society, along with the manners and morals that once defined the lines and boundaries of ‘conventional’ behavior, it also examines what, over the past half century or so, has happened in their absence... we have lost our bearings (p. xi). She traces the shift not back to the Baby Boomers and the 1960s but to their parents, the so-called Greatest Generation. Before Baby Boomers had grown out of their diapers, their parents had stopped behaving as adults. Prior to WWII families in the western world were adult-centered, now, thanks to new ideologies epitomized by Dr. Benjamin Spock, it became child-centered and permissive (pp. 16, 33, 57). The concept of adolescence, which had not previously existed, emerged, along with a newly minted word, “teenager,” in 1941 (pp. xv, 1), and the first issue of Seventeen magazine focusing entirely on teenage girls in 1944 (p. 25). Adults were systematically pushed aside in the 1950s, (pp. 11, 17, 26, 88) as a new form of music, geared specifically for teens, was created. Never before did children have their own music separate from the adult genre. Now they had Rock and Roll, their own rock stars, their own form of dress, and the peer group began to replace the family (p. 15). Parents, afraid of losing their children, stopped acting like adults, went into hiding and attempted to somehow keep their teens safe, rather than teach them morality, virtues, and how to mature to be responsible adults (pp. 23, 73-88). Worse, adults slid back into childhood so that perpetual adolescence is the way of life for many today (p. 6).As evidence of these accusations, West points in many directions; take music, for example. Plato taught us to “mark the music” to analyze a culture; West shows how music prior to the 1950s was dominated by love songs, but with the rise of rock it is increasingly about sex (pp. 37-47). MTV is exhibit “A” with its ubiquitous references and depictions of sexual acts. Young people (and adults) mimic what they see and hear on the dance floor with little, if any, adult protest. Extreme political correctness, disintegration of morals, and values replacing virtues have been the fallout of the absence of grown-ups in our society. “So,” West asks, “the question that defines our age becomes: when anything goes, why shouldn’t anything go?” (p. 98).West, however, perceives the encroachment of Islam into western culture as public enemy #1 (pp. 148-217). In America this infiltration began with the new immigration laws in 1965, which favored non-Europeans and welcomed Muslims into the country (p. 128). She opens her book with a dialogue with a critic, “Are you saying that multiculturalism is juvenile?”... “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.” (p. xi). She spends the last third of her book documenting how Islamic ideas, and the American adaption to and fear of Islam, are changing the western culture.The Death of the Grown-Up is a disturbing book, not only because it clearly confirms West’s thesis, but also because it offers little in the way of correction. The closest West comes appears toward the end of the book when she writes, “A clear moral standard would serve to anchor its clear cultural standard as well” (p. 216). But she quickly adds that this is not a call to sainthood or religion or “turning back the clock.” “What is required, rather, is some serious contemplation of the notion that, to put it simply, virtues are for striving grown-ups and values are for perpetual adolescents” (p. 216). This is all well and good, but what is missing is a foundation. West does not recognize that the real issue is not merely the absence of grown-ups, but the rejection and/or dismissal of God and Scripture. Our world is spiraling out of control for many reasons, but they can all be traced back to an untethering of our society from the Lord and His ways. The Death of the Grown-up does well at exposing the problems, but the solution resides not in producing more mature adults, but in calling people back to the truth of the Word, which produces biblically informed maturity.Reviewed by Gary E. Gilley, Pastor/teacher at Southern View Chapel

Where have all the grown-ups gone? It's a question that has perplexed me. Why is it that young people these days seem unwilling, or perhaps unable, to grow up? What is so attractive about youth, about perpetual adolescence, that is so attractive? My wife and I have discussed these things at length, trying to understand why so many of the young people we know (young people who are really not so young anymore) seem stuck. They are working on second or third college degrees; they are living at home with mom and dad, even into their thirties; they are looking at marriage only in their late twenties or early thirties. What is happening? When I was young I could hardly wait to pass through my teenage years so I could live life as an adult and in so doing I think I followed generations before me. What has happened since?Diana West has asked the same questions and The Death of the Grown-Up is her attempt at an answer. A book that has generated no small response, it concludes that America is suffering from a case of arrested development and that this will, this must, bring down Western civilization. This is no small claim. Neither is it a popular one (as evidenced by a near 50/50 split in Amazon reviews between 1-star and 5-star reviews). But it is one West manages to legitimize.It seems that one of the driving forces behind the death of the grown-up was the rise of the teenager. Before the 1940's, the term teenager was unknown; before this period humans tended to fall into only two groups--children and adults. Exactly when a child transitioned to adult could vary, but what was clear was that there was no intermediate period. Furthermore, children, or those in their teen years, would seek to identify with adult culture--they would seek to behave like adults, to dress like adults, and to be taken seriously like adults. Today the tables have turned. "That was then. These days, of course, father and son dress more or less alike, from message-emblazoned t-shirts to chunky athletic shoes, both equally at ease in the baggy rumple of eternal summer camp. In the mature male, these trappings of adolescence have become more than a matter of comfort or style; they reveal a state of mind, a reflection of a personality that hasn't fully developed, and doesn't want to - or worse, doesn't know how."It is teenagers who are respected and teenagers who are envied. Adults now seek to recapture youth and to return to their teen years. They dress like teens, think like teens and increasingly act like teens. This intermediate period between childhood and adulthood, this recent development, is being continually extended. Some organizations today go so far as to suggest that adolescence continues until age thirty. Some go further and suggest thirty-four. Thus a thirty-three year old man or woman should not truly be considered an adult. Any other generation would laugh at the mere suggestion.After the idea of adolescence became popular, it took only a generation before popular culture, and particularly the medium of television, began to portray age as "square" and youth as "hip." The dignity of age was replaced with disgust. Where children used to orbit around their parents, today the opposite is true. Parents orbit around their children, "abdicating their rights and privileges by deferring to the convenience and entertainment of the young." No wonder, then, that people wish to avoid adulthood.There are consequences to our disregard for maturity. "Even as age has been eliminated from the aging process, they have a hunch that society has stamped out more than gray hair, smile lines, and cellulite. What has also disappeared is an appreciation for what goes along with maturity: forbearance and honor, patience and responsibility, perspective and wisdom, sobriety, decorum, and manners--and the wisdom to know what is `appropriate,' and when."Having laid a foundation for the death of the grown-up, West surveys a variety of topics, showing how they are contributing to the downfall of society or how they played a role in the rise of the adolescent. She looks to popular music and entertainment, to parents who need parents, and to a society that values excess rather than control. And then the book takes an unexpected turn. As she moves from the past to the future, West suggests why this matters so much; she turns to the consequences of the death of adulthood and the death of maturity. Focusing on the ideas of multiculturalism and political correctness, cultural forces she believes could only be accepted by an immature society that is willing to pretend that differences are non-existent and unimportant, she suggests that these leave us entirely unequipped to deal with the forces seeking to destroy us. And here she points primary to Islam and to terrorism. She writes about how our immature thinking leaves us unable to grapple with the reality of what we are facing in global Islam. Our society sits passively by, anaesthetized with movies, music, television and video games, while Islam plants deeper and deeper roots within.The Death of the Grown-Up is a compelling book. While it is certainly not the only book examining the growth of adolescence, it is perhaps the most far-reaching and the most courageous in its analysis of where this will and must lead. If West is correct, our society needs to grow up and needs to do so before it is too late. Yet whether or not you find you agree with her prescription, only a person blind to the culture could disagree with her initial analysis. And on this basis alone this book is worth reading and enjoying. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in understanding the culture we find ourselves in.

Great work Ms West! A book that hits the nail on the head as to why there are very few adults left in society!

Excellent book! Diana West is one of America's Best Writers.This book was written back in 2007 before Obama's 8 years in office.This book was and still is a prophetic book of events that are happening right now.

I found Diana West's text hard work until I upped my reading rate to a level that skipped words here and there. Now I understand what she is at. The premise is that we are submerged in a sea of irrelevance just attractive enough to be able to penetrate consciousness unbidden and largely ignored, except that there is so much of it that some is bound to cling. The stream that flows into the lake is from a factory up the road owned by people who know what we like best. It's got to be easy to understand and easy to use, like a detergent. What may that be? We're all kids.That general principle chooses our clothes, our food, our entertainment and the way we talk. It's easy. Hard tasks and hard choices don't exist because they are not easy. Ms West has a point and presses it home saying that the result is an all-pervasive indifference (non-confrontational) to morality, honesty and truth. Kids you see must not be confronted with real live trouble. Trouble has been replaced by issues, questions that you can talk under the carpet.A most troubling issue is that of negotiating with Islam. It seems that it doesn't listen to reason. Its values are not ours, they are fixed and immutable a fact that infantilism cannot accommodate in its vast and patronising fund of inclusivity and diversity. It seems that there are some beliefs that are too diverse to be included.Ms West tells a good tale but is that all? Christian democracy has been called to account and its apologists are in hiding facing charges of prejudice, arrogance and lack of charity (among other crimes). The kids find it hard to assume the role of defenders of the faith. What are we prepared to defend, who will and how? Ms West's analysis carries weight but we don't know how far she is going with it.

In this well-written book, author Diana West show how from the 1950's onward, the western world has allowed its youth to take command of the culture and steer our civilization in the direction that they want. Prior to this, youngsters wanted to grow up and be adults. Now, adults want to act, dress and talk like youngsters. She shows how rock music has pushed all other types of music aside and how the silliest and stupidest fads become mainstream simply because no one has the guts to condemn them. Our youth oriented culture determines our politics and our political leaders, revamps our language and decides which movies and books will succeed or fail. A civilization which allows its youth to lead them is a civilization that will not last. My only complaint with this book is that the print is so incredibly small, it is difficult to read without a magnifying glass!

This book brings out some very interesting, thought provoking material. It clearly shows how society has abandoned adulthood in favour of being cool with the younger set. We've done a huge disservice to this generation by trying to stay one of them instead of being the adult in control of the situation. I recommend this book to any 'adult' out there.