İslami Diriliş Neden Öldü?

Yirminci yüzyılda Müslüman-çoğunluklu ülkelerin bir çoğu seküler yaşam tarzına sahip liderler ve laik denilebilecek anayasalar ile kuruldu. Türkiye’de Atatürk’ten İran’da Şah’a, Mısır’da Nasır’dan Tunus’ta Burgiba’ya, Suriye ve Irak’ta Baas Partisi kurucularından Endonezya’da Sukarno’ya kadar örnekleri sıralamak mümkün. Son kırk yıllık donemde ise bu ülkelerin hemen hepsi toplumsal olarak İslami muhafazakârlığa, siyasi ve hukuki olarak da daha İslami bir söylem hatta anayasal düzene geçiş yaptılar. Bu geçisin büyük “hikayesi” İngilizcede “Islamic revival” denilen, Türkçeye de “İslami diriliş” olarak çevirebileceğimiz kavram olarak ortaya çıktı.

İslami dirilişin üç temel sebebini sıralamak mümkün. Birincisi seküler/laik siyasi liderler ve sistemler toplumlarının siyasi ve sosyo-ekonomik beklentilerini karşılayamadılar; demokrasi yerine otoriter rejimler inşa ettiler. Ortaya çıkan toplumsal küskünlük ve talepleri dini parti, cemaat ve tarikatlar iyi değerlendirdi. İkincisi, Suudi Arabistan ve İran’ın petrol gelirleriyle beslenen uluslararası propaganda faaliyetleri etkili oldu. Üçüncüsü, sosyalizmin küresel kriz ve düşüşünün doğurduğu boşluğu dünya genelinde değişik dini gruplar ve akımlar, Müslüman ülkeler özelinde ise İslami hareketler doldurdu.

İslami diriliş denilen küresel akım tüm iddialarının ve oluşturduğu beklentilerin aksine otoriter, ranta dayalı, adalet anlayışını zedeleyen sonuçlar ortaya koydu. Endonezya gibi bazı örneklerde İslami muhafazakarların demokrasiye katkıda bulundukları bir gerçek. Ama genel itibariyle İslami muhafazakarlar demokrasi, üretim, hukukun üstünlüğü gibi kavramlarla barışık olacakları iddialarını etkili oldukları bir çok ülkede kendi elleriyle çürüttüler. Neticede Müslüman ülkeler genelinde ve özelliklede Arap ülkeleri ve Türkiye’de İslami diriliş faydadan çok zarara yol açtı. Siyasi güç bakımından bu ülkelerde İslami muhafazakarlar halen etkili olsalar da yaşadıkları ahlaki kriz uzun vadede çöküşlerinin kaçınılmaz olduğunu göstermektedir.

Bu arada İslamcı yerine, neden İslami muhafazakar kavramını kullandığımı kısaca açıklamak istiyorum. Bir çok bireysel muhafazakar, cemaat mensubu veya tarikat ehli, İslam ve siyaset konusundaki sorunlarla karşılaşınca suçu hemen İslamcılara atma eğilimindeler. Halbuki bu muhafazakârların siyaset anlayışı, lider kavramı, dünyaya bakışları İslamcılardan farklı değil. Türkiye’de bir çok tarikat ve cemaatin çok kısa sürede İslamcı bir söylemi benimsemiş olmaları da bu noktaya bir delildir.

Bugüne kadar İslami çöküşün nedenleri hakkında yazanlar genellikle iki nokta üzerine odaklandılar. Birincisi özeleştiri yoksunluğudur. İslami dirilişi temsil eden lider ve guruplar Müslümanların tarihlerini, kültürlerini, düşünce birikimlerini eleştirmeleri gerektiğini asla kabul etmediler. Bu aktörlere göre Müslümanların hemen her sorunu için Batı sömürgeciliğini, dış güçleri, karanlık odakları, içimizdeki kriptoları, vs. suçlamak gerekliydi. Gerçekte ise, dış müdahaleler azalsa bile, Müslümanlar bilim, sanat, mimari, şehirleşme, ekonomik kalkınma, barış, demokrasi, hukuk gibi alanlarda ortaya ciddi başarılar koyamadılar. Buna rağmen İslami kesim özeleştiri yerine bahanelerin ve totolojik açıklamaların arkasına sığınmaya devam etti.

İslami dirilişin çöküşü hakkında vurgulanan diğer nokta “dava” kavramının zararlarıdır. İslami hareketlerin sloganı haline gelmiş olan “dava” ilk başlarda idealist bir kavram gibi görülse de geldiğimiz noktada Makyavelizm’in, bireylere önem vermemenin ve hatta ahlaksızlığın bir aracı haline gelmiştir. Bu kavram amaca ulaşma adına her yolun mubah görülmesi, insanların birbirlerini davalarının dostu veya düşmanı diye kategorize etmesi ve kutsal davanın diğer tüm ahlaki prensipleri yutması sonuçlarını ortaya koymuştur.

Bu iki noktanın temelinde asıl eleştirilmesi gereken konu ise din algısıdır ve bu konuya girmekten çoğu Müslüman kaçınır. Eleştiri kültürünün gelişmemiş olması dini kutsallara dokunma korkusuyla ilişkilidir. “Dava”nın her tür ahlaki ve insani prensibin üzerinde olduğu düşüncesi de yine dinin sorgulanamaz ve uğruna her şeyin feda edileceği bir kavram olarak algılanmasıyla ilgilidir.

Kısacası, İslami diriliş yanlış bir İslam anlayışı üzerine kurulmuştur. İslami dirilişin ana sloganına göre “Çözüm İslam’da”dır. Müslümanlar İslam’a döndükleri takdirde sorunları çözülecektir, zira İslam tuvalete gitmekten, devlet yönetimine kadar her konuda sihirli formüller ortaya koymaktadır. Bu tarz bir ütopik din anlayışı İslamcılarla sınırlı olmayıp, neredeyse tüm İslami muhafazakarlar tarafından paylaşılmaktadır.

İslamiyet iman ve ibadet esasları ile tarih boyunca dünyanın değişik kıtalarında çok büyük insan kitlelerini kendine çekmiş manevi bir kaynaktır. Ama siyaset, ekonomi ve sosyal hayata dair bir çok konuda ya genel prensipler ortaya koymuş, ya da sessiz kalmıştır. Günümüzde İslam’ı her problemi çözecek totaliter sistem gibi sunanlar aslında İslam tarihindeki dini ekolleri, bunların insanlar tarafından ortaya konduğunu ve bu ekollerin birbirleriyle kavgalarını ya bilmezler ya da bilmezden gelirler.

Özellikle İslami bilginin neleri kapsadığı konusunda İslami kesimde tam bir tutarsızlık hakimdir. Kuran’da insanlığın tüm dini, siyasi ve sosyo-ekonomik ihtiyaçlarını karşılayacak bilginin var olduğunu iddia ederler. Sonra aynı kişiler hadislere çok ihtiyaç olduğunu, Kur’an’da beş vakit namazın nasıl kılınacağının bile bulunmadığını söylerler. Kur’an ve hadislerin her şeyi çözeceği iddiası ile aklı, felsefeyi ve bilimi hafife alırlar. Fakat kendileri bile Kuran ve hadisleri merkeze almaz; çağın tefsir kitabının ve asrın müceddidinin kim olduğu konusunda tartışırlar. Dahası Kuran ve hadisleri yetersiz görüp, mistik bilgi arayışına girerler. Adına irfan veya keşif denilen bu gizli bilgiye sadece kalp gözü açık veliler ulaşabilir. Bu velilerin rüya ve kerametlerle ulaştıkları bilgilere kitap okuyarak, eğitimle, bilimle ulaşılamaz. Bu yaklaşımların sonucu olarak eğitim adına ortaya çıkan hareketler bile akla, eleştirel düşünceye, bilimsel bilgiye ve bilim insanlarına mesafeli hale gelirler.

Bu kısır döngü İslami dirilişin bilgi ve bilim ile temel sorununu oluşturdu. İslami kesim bu epistemolojik sorunu görmezden geldi. Sonuçta İslami diriliş etkili olduğu ülkelerde vaatler üzerinden bir hayal dünyası kurdu. Şimdi bu dünya yıkılıyor.

Sovyetler Birliği’nin çöküşünün ardından, “çöken komünizm değil, gerçek komünizm Sovyetler’de hiç yaşanmadı” sözü ikna edici olmadı. Benzer şekilde, Türkiye ve Arap ülkelerinde ve hatta Müslüman ülkeler genelinde yaşanan çok boyutlu krizlere ve trajedilere rağmen İslami muhafazakârlık paradigmasının hala ayakta olduğunu iddia etmek de ikna edici değildir. İslam’ı totaliter bir kurallar toplamı olarak sunmayan; akıl, eleştirel düşünce, bilim ve bireysel özgürlükler ile barışık, yeni bir din anlayışına ihtiyaç duyulmaktadır.

Ahmet Kuru,  kitalararasi.com

“Tarihte Türk milleti diye bir şey yok” Mu?

“Tarihte Türk milleti diye bir şey yok” diye buyurmuş gene bir sevgili arkadaşımız. Bizim Türkiye gayrimüslimlerinin sevdiği temalardandır. Son zamanlarda Kürt kardeşlerimiz de keşfettiler, pek sevdiler. Türk dili de zaten toplama bir dildir, Nişanyan da öyle demiş.

Elcevap: İngiliz milleti, Rus milleti, Ermeni milleti, Kürt milleti ne kadar varsa Türk milleti de o kadar vardır. Bin beş yüz yıldan beri dünya ve uygarlık tarihinde önemli – bazen olumlu, daha çok olumsuz – rol oynamıştır. Türk dili en azından yedi yüz yıldan beri dünyanın – en önde olmasa da – önde gelen kültür dillerinden biridir. İnkâr edersen sadece kendini aldatırsın.

Kırk yıldır durmadan tarih okumanın bana öğrettiği ilk ders şu: Türk milleti, köken itibariyle SİYASİ bir oluşumdur. Yani önce bir devlet, bir ordu, bir organizasyon, bir ideoloji vardır; “millet” onun ihtiyaçlarına göre şekillenmiştir.

Daha okudukça fark ettim ki dünyadaki bütün milletler aşağı yukarı böyledir. Amerika kolay örnek, ama mesela Rusya da hiç farklı değil. Ermeniler de, ayıptır söylemesi, hiç farklı değil. Dünyanın en ilkel aşiretlerinin (mesela eski Germenlerin yahut prehistorik Arap aşiretlerinin) dibini kazısan onlar da değil. Çeşit çeşit insanlar tarihin bir noktasında bir ortak macera için bir araya geliyorlar; aralarında kız alıp verdikçe zamanla akraba oluyorlar; sonra bir masal uyduruyorlar “atamız filanca kişiydi, ezelden beri bir soy ve bir aileyiz” diye.

Hepsi anlatmışlar o masalı. Türklerin farkı (eğer varsa) şu. Osmanlı siyasi eliti, çok yakın döneme dek, siyasi nedenlerle, böyle bir “ortak köken” anlatısından özenle kaçındı. Sonra “Türk ırkı” teorisini Avrupalılardan duydular; günün siyasi ihtiyaçlarına uygun olduğunu fark ettiler; bir günden ötekine – de ki 1870’lerden 1900’e – yeni din bulmuş gibi şevkle benimsediler; bin yılda inşa ettikleri etnik kompozisyonu tahrip etmek için kullandılar. Özünde başka milletlerin ırk teorisinden çok farkı yoktur. Onlardan daha saçma veya daha yalan değildir. Farkı çok taze olması, dolayısıyla kulağa çiğ gelmesidir. (Bir yalanı bin yıl anlatırsan kulağın alışır; yüz yıl çok az süre.) Bir de, tarihte eşine az rastlanır bir dizi sosyal felakete yol açmış olmasıdır. “Türk ırkı” yalanını iğnelemekten belli bir zevk almamızın sebepleri bunlar. Hem çok kötülük yapmış, hem de kıçı açık – yani kofluğunu keşfetmek ve belgelemek nispeten kolay.

Milliyetçilik denen şey “her millete bir devlet” teorisidir. Tarihin bir aşamasında, spesifik olarak 1789 ve 1815’ten sonra, Avrupa’nın iç siyasi ihtiyaçlarından doğmuş bir düşüncedir.   
“Demek lazımmış ki insanlar benimsemiş” deyip geçebilirsin belki. Ama bu çağ ve devirde halâ bir işe yarar mı diye sormadan edemezsin. Hayatında köyünden ve mahallesinden çıkmamış insanlar bu mevzulara Fransız kalabilir. Ama biraz dünya görmüş, mesela gidip bir sene Peru’da yaşamış, ya da Japon’la evlenmiş, Hint mutfağı üstüne risale yazmış birinin devletle millet arasında zorunlu eşdeğerlik kurması daha zormuş gibi geliyor bana. 

**
Gelelim Türk diline. Hayır, Nişanyan Türk dili yoktur, ya da toplama dildir gibi saçma bir lakırdıyı hiçbir zaman söylemedi, aklından da geçirmedi. Aksine Türk dili güzel ve zengin ve değerli bir şey olduğu için ömrünün şunca yılını onu etüt etmeye adadı. Bir dilin, ırkçıların cahilane zannettiklerinin aksine, çok geniş bir kültürel havzadan beslendiğini göstermek o dilin değerini düşürmez. Tam tersine, artırır. Bir dil eğer kültürel harmanına Çinceyi, Arapçayı, Farsçayı, Yunancayı, Fransızcayı, İngilizceyi katıp kendi özgün bileşimini yaratabilmişse çok güçlü ve orijinal bir dil demektir. Yok birtakım dıngılların iddia ettiği gibi Ortaasyalı ilkel bir kabilenin diliyse ve bin yıldır o aslından asla taviz vermemişse, asıl o zaman pek zavallı bir şey olduğuna hükmetmek gerekir.

Bugün dünyada konuşulan 7000 (sayıyla yedi bin) dil var. Türkiye Türkçesi, bunlar arasında, gerek konuşan kişi sayısı, gerek yazılı üretim hacmi, gerek sözlüktü, ansiklopediydi, filolojik çalışmaydı, üniversite kürsüsüydü gibi kültivasyon belirtileri bakımından yirminci ila otuzuncu arasında bir yerlerdedir. Yani İngilizcenin, Çincenin, İtalyancanın yanında cılız kalır, ama mesela Estoncaya, Sinhali’ye, Xhosa’ya, Swahili’ye, Özbekçeye, İsviçre Romanşçasına, Rohingya diline, hatta bizim Batı Ermenicesine ciddi fark atar. Geçmişe baktığında da önemli bir kültür dilidir. Modern çağdan önce dünyada Yunanca, Latince, İbranice, Arapça, Farsça, Hintçe, Çince, Japonca gibi yedi sekiz egemen dilin epey ardından da olsa, en çok yazılı eser üretmiş dillerden biridir. Ne yazık ki o eserlerin büyük bölümü halen yayınlanmadan durmaktadır. Başta “ecdat” muhabbetiyle beyni efsunlanmış cühela takımı olmak üzere kimsenin umurunda değil.

Sevan Nişanyan
http://nisanyan1.blogspot.jp/2017/09/turk-guzellemesi.html

Who is the colored man?

Dear white brother,

When I was born, I was black,

When I grew up, I was black,

When I am in the sun, I am black,

When I am sick, I am black,

When I die, I will be black.

While you, white man,

When you were born, you were pink,

When you grew up, you were white,

When you go in the sun, you are red,

When you are cold, you are blue,

When you are scared, you are green,

When you are sick, you are yellow,

When you die, you will be grey.

So, between you and me,

Who is the colored man?

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Hayatın Gayesi

Her şeyden evvel üzerinde durulması lâzım gelen şu ki, var olma, mutlaka kadri bilinmesi gereken önemli bir nimet basamağıdır. Evet, mademki biz varız ve bizimle beraber, bizi alâkadar eden dünyalar dolusu nimetler de var; elbette bu nimetleri devşirme, değerlendirme ve onları daha başka nimetlerin basamakları hâline getirme de bize düşmektedir.

Öyle ise her şeyden evvel, bütün istidat ve kabiliyetlerimizi hem de son kertesine kadar bu istikamette kullanarak ve Kudreti Sonsuz’un isteyip dilemesine birer davetçi mesabesinde bulunan iradelerimizin ses ve soluklarını mırıldanarak, iradî varlıklar olduğumuzu mutlak ortaya koymalıyız. Zaten bizim vazifemiz de, bu engin varlık çağlayanı içinde kendi yerimizi, kendi sorumluluklarımızı, kâinat ve kâinat ötesi münasebetlerimizi düşünmek ve ruhî mantığımızı, varlığın perde arkası değerlerini araştıran bir hikmet kaynağı hâline getirmemizdir. Bunu yapabildiğimiz takdirde, kendimizi daha farklı duyacak, daha farklı görecek, daha derin hissedecek, derken bütün varlık ve hâdiselerin dilinin çözüldüğüne, bize bir şeyler anlattıklarına ve bizimle diyaloğa geçtiklerine şahit olacağız.

The Loophole in the Hedonic Treadmill

When Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, in The House of the Dead, that “Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything,” he was talking about the cruelties and deprivations of life in Siberian prison camp. But the human tendency to adapt or “get accustomed” to situations is more profound than even Dostoyevsky may have realized.

Imagine a person who, after years of drinking bland, watery beer from a mass-market brewery, finally tastes a really good craft beer. At first she notices the intensity of the flavor. A few more sips and she comes to appreciate the beer’s complexity and the exquisite balance between bitterness and sweetness. The craft beer is so much more flavorful than what she has been used to drinking, and the experience is highly enjoyable. But check in after a few months when she has been drinking the craft beer on a regular basis. Something has changed. The experience is no longer as special as it was at first. It now takes an even greater taste sensation to yield the same thrill our beer drinker experienced the first few times she tried the craft beer.

We adapt. A great pleasure, repeated often enough, becomes routine, and it takes an even greater treat to give us the same enjoyment. When we get used to having more, it takes more to please us. (Conversely, when we get used to having less, it takes less to please us.) This is the known as the “hedonic treadmill.” It’s analogous to the well-known tendency to adapt to physical stress. When you first start lifting weights, for example, a relatively light weight might be all it takes to start putting on muscle. But once the body adapts to that exercise, heavier and heavier weights will be needed to keep getting stronger.

The idea of the hedonic treadmill can apply to discrete pleasures—like getting accustomed to better beer—or it can apply to an overall lifestyle. There is evidence that if an individual’s basic needs are met, after a certain point, increases in income do not lead to much greater happiness. As the money we have to spend goes up, so too do our expectations and desires—and with them the possibility of disappointment. A now-classic study from 1978 compared the happiness of lottery winners with a control group drawn from the same neighborhoods. The researchers interviewed lottery winners after the initial thrill had worn off. When asked to rate their present level of happiness, the lottery winners answered in the same way as did the control group. The two groups also made similar predictions about their future happiness. And when asked about a number of mundane pleasures—talking with a friend or eating breakfast—the lottery winners actually derived less pleasure than did the control group.

Maybe those lottery winners weren’t more happy because they spent their winnings on the wrong things. A 2011 survey of the available empirical research indicates that spending money on experiences (for example, vacations, dance classes, or nights out with friends) makes people more happy than does spending money on material goods. One of the reasons is that, while we quickly adapt to that new handbag or pair of shoes, a good experience provides a happy memory that can be revisited again and again, with less threat of adaptation.

JEANETTE BICKNELL, Nautilus

Also check: Hedonic Treadmill

Sıradan Bir Cinayet - Karel Capek

“Gizem…” diye devam etti Başkomiser, rahat bir sandalyeye oturup düşünceli bir biçimde botlarının ucundaki karın erimesini seyrederken. “Yüz kişiden doksan dokuzu o ayak izlerinin yanından geçip gider ve hiçbir şey fark etmezdi. Siz bile son derece gizemli yüz olaydan doksan dokuzunu fark etmezsiniz. Bu dünyanın işleyişi konusunda kara cahiliz. Ama gizemli olmayan bazı şeyler vardır. Kanun ve düzen gizemli değildir. Adalet gizemli değildir. Polisler gizemli değildir. Ama sokakta yürüyen her insan gizemlidir, çünkü bayım, onu tutuklayamayız. Oysa bir şey çaldığı anda bizim için bir gizem olmaktan çıkar, onu içeri atarız ve iş biter. En azından artık ne yapmakta olduğunu biliriz ve istediğimiz zaman onu hücresinin camından seyredebiliriz, öyle değil mi? Ama sorarım size, neden gazeteler “Gizemli Bir Ceset Bulundu!” şeklinde başlıklar atarlar? Bir cesette gizemli olan nedir? Biz bir ceset bulduğumuzda, ölçülerini alır, fotoğrafını çekeriz; keser biçer, içindeki her dokuyu inceleriz. En son “atarlar? Bir cesette gizemli olan nedir? Biz bir ceset bulduğumuzda, ölçülerini alır, fotoğrafını çekeriz; keser biçer, içindeki her dokuyu inceleriz. En son ne yemiş, nasıl ölmüş ve daha ne bilmek isterseniz hepsini buluruz. Ve biliriz ki, muhtemelen biri para için işlemiştir cinayeti. Her şey apaçık ve dolaysızdır… Şu demli çaydan bana biraz daha koyar mısınız?

Tüm suçlar apaçık ve dolaysızdır bayım, en azından cinayet sebebini bilirsiniz. Ama kedinizin ne düşündüğünü bilemezsiniz, işte bunlar gizemdir; hizmetçiniz neyin hayalini kuruyor ya da karınız camdan bakarken aklından neler geçiriyor… Ceza davaları hariç her şey gizemlidir bayım. Bir ceza davası katı tanımlamaları olan, hudutları belli, gerçek hayattan bir kesittir; ışığa doğru tutabileceğimiz bir kesit. Eğer burada etrafıma bakınsaydım, sizinle ilgili pek çok şeyi anlardım. Ama bunun yerine şu anda botlarımın ucuna bakıyorum, çünkü sizinle resmî olarak ilgilenmiyoruz. Demek istediğim, kimse sizden resmen şikâyette bulunmadı,” diye ekledi, sıcak çayını içerek.

“Polislerin, özellikle de dedektiflerin gizemlerle yakından ilgilendiğine dair tuhaf bir inanış var,” diye tekrar söze başladı Başkomiser. “Oysa gizemler umurumuzda değildir, bizi ilgilendiren asayişi ihlal eden davranışlardır. Bayım, suç bizi gizemli olduğu için değil, kanuna karşı yapılmış bir eylem olduğu için ilgilendirir. Üçkâğıtçıları entelektüel meraktan ötürü aramayız; onları kanun namına tutuklayabilmek için kovalarız.  Bakın, çöpçüler sokaklarda, ellerinde süpürgeyle, insanların tozda bıraktıkları izleri keşfetmek için dolanmazlar. Kanun ve düzende zerre kadar gizem yoktur. Düzeni sağlamak pis bir iştir ve her kim ki işlerin temiz ve nizami olmasını ister, her türlü pisliğe bulaşmak zorundadır. İlla ki birisinin bu işi yapması gerekiyor,” dedi umutsuzca, “danaları birinin kesmesi gerektiği gibi. Ama danaları meraktan kesmek, işte bu barbarcadır, bu iş sadece ticaret olarak yapılmalıdır. Bir insana bir şeyi yapma görevi verildiyse, en azından insan o şeyi yapmaya hakkı olduğunu bilir. Bakın, çarpım tablosu ne kadar sorgulanıyorsa, adalet de o kadar sorgulanmalıdır. Her hırsızlığın yanlış olduğunu kanıtlayabilir misiniz bilmiyorum, ama ben size her hırsızlığın kanunlara aykırı olduğunu kanıtlayabilirim, zira her seferinde sizi tutuklayabilirim. Eğer sokağa inci saçarsanız, bir polis size sokağı kirlettiğiniz için ceza kesebilir. Ama bir anda mucizeler yaratmaya başlarsanız, buna, toplumun huzurunu bozacak davranış ya da kanundışı gösteri adını koymadığımız takdirde müdahale edemeyiz. Bizim devreye girebilmemiz için kanunun bir şekilde çiğnenmesi gerekiyor.”

A Look into Russian Politics

Debov joined the secret "Lenin Mausoleum" unit in 1952, a group of scientists that embalmed the revolutionary leader, who has been lying in state in Moscow since his death in 1924. For almost 40 years, Debov, who also embalmed Stalin, freshened up Lenin's body with a secret solution twice a week.

Then the Soviet Union and communism collapsed and President Boris Yeltsin slashed the secret unit's financing as well as the honor guard in front of the mausoleum. Lenin became a national pariah and citizen's initiatives began calling for him to be buried in a cemetery in St. Petersburg. Debov told me he was shocked: "Removing Lenin from the history of Russia -- that's unacceptable."

**

It's a common story in Russia. Even when the leadership tries to do something good for its people, things go wrong -- because the government takes decisions on its own and then presents them to the people like a Christmas present. And because it tries to realize its projects in a Bolshevik manner. The notion that there could be objections among the people is not something that Russian politicians tend to consider.

**

Several months ago, I had a dispute about this with respected filmmaker and theater director Andrei Konchalovsky. He is turning 80 this year, has made some of Russia's best films and has lived in Hollywood for a long time. Despite our disagreements, we were very close to one another in our views of many things. Konchalovsky says Russians have retained the soul of a peasant over the centuries, arguing that Russians never became citizens in the true sense of the word and always positioned themselves in opposition to the state, because the government is always trying to take something away from them. At the same time, he argues, Russians are so enormously patient that they can more easily accept injustices. He also argues that Russian thinking is Manichean -- that Russians only know black and white.

And then Konchalovsky said that Putin initially thought like a Westerner, but ultimately realized why every Russian ruler struggles to lead this nation: Because its inhabitants, in accordance with an unshakable tradition, freely delegate all their power to a single person, and then wait for that power to take care of them, without doing anything themselves.

In that sense, the relationship between people and state in Russia is a vast misunderstanding. Is a foreigner allowed to say such a thing? I think so. I have been reporting on Russia for over 30 years and lived half of that time in the country. It's clear to me why the liberals associated with Boris Yeltsin failed in the 1990s. Liberalism has no chance in Russia. The people won't allow it.

The strange relationship between many Russians and their government is also manifest in myriad everyday details. Two or three years ago, Moscow's mayor tried solving the parking problem by introducing an online parking system. The charges were low, with an hour usually costing less than a euro. The problem was largely relieved and the system worked for everyone. And then what happened? Muscovites began covering their license-plate numbers so that the inspection vehicles couldn't scan the numbers as they drove, thus making it impossible for them to find any violators.

Another example: For decades, few new streets, let alone highways, have been built in Russia. But now there are plans to build a new highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The first stretch, which leads to Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport, is already open. As a toll road, however, it is hardly getting used, despite the relatively low charges. Russia's drivers believe it is a government rip-off and prefer sitting in traffic jams on the old road.

**

The notion that citizens must do something for society and that they will get something back is only rarely encountered in Russia. The Russians may honor their actors and poets far more than the Germans do theirs, but they take a skeptical view of the truly creative people, who, in their own way, try to advance the debate about the future direction of the country.

Writer Boris Akunin sells millions of books, but he lives outside the country because he can't stand his government's politics. The same is true of fellow writer Vladimir Sorokin, who was long harassed by political organizations close to the government. Internationally renowned director Kirill Serebrennikov has also been pressured, with police units recently having stormed his theater. His ballet "Nureyev" at the Bolshoi Theater was canceled three days before its premiere after having faced heavy resistance from conservative politicians. The cancellation also affected me, because I had managed to obtain one of the hard-to-get Bolshoi tickets for that evening.

Such overreach bothers only a small number of Russians. Apart from a few voices in the Moscow intelligentsia, there are no protests.

**

Demagogy, Half-Truths and Lies

The things I have written about here were not invented by Vladimir Putin. He merely discovered things that already existed and factored them into his calculations. Fear of personal responsibility? Marginalization of people who think differently? Resignation to fate? Feelings of inferiority toward the rest of the world? These are traits against which the state should be acting. Instead the government strengthens them, because it is useful for it. I only realized in the last few years how much it bothers me, even among Russian friends, most of whom have now succumbed to their president's demagogy.
Putin fires up the Russians' feelings of contempt for Ukrainians, even though -- and I'm convinced of this -- the Russians are jealous that the Ukrainians will now succeed in getting closer to Europe. And he reinforces a feeling of moral and military superiority among the Russians over the West. It has little connection to reality, but isolates the state and the people more and more from the outside world. Putin is making Russia a dissident from the world order and the people are thrilled by it like it's a fairground attraction, even though for many Russians, Europe and America remain the primary reference point for their own lives.

As I said, Putin didn't invent any of this. He only learned how to masterfully exploit it and to serve this Russian mentality with demagogy, half-truths and lies. That, for me, is the most important realization 25 years after Russia's rebirth.



Christian Reef
Der Spiegel

Being Bilingual

What does it mean to be multilingual? At the most basic level, we all are. If you speak English, if you have ever been to a ballet or seen an alligator. If you’ve ever talked about your angst or ennui, played a guitar, smoked marijuana, sipped champagne on a yacht or studied algebra in the boondocks, you have already been speaking the language of the other. “English,” this solid behemoth that depending on your politics should either be preserved or purged, is actually, when you cut it open, quite a shape-shifter. What is English? A relative newcomer to the club of languages, (in use a mere 1400 years compared to truly ancient tongues like Tamil which reach back to the third century BCE) and not all that original: Mostly German, Latin and French with some Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit.

But even if you’re not a linguist and even if you don’t speak anything other than this closeted polyglot called English, you are probably still speaking in tongues. Do you have a different language for your parents than you do for your mates? Do you speak the language of lawyers? Of doctors? Of your hometown? Of your own particular tribe?

**

And it is impossible to talk about multilingualism in the United States without acknowledging the politics of language and culture. We cannot forget that in the 1800s thousands of native American children were forced into schools that beat their languages out of them. In Texas and New Mexico, those states that were not long ago part of Mexico, students—up until the 1970s—were not allowed to speak Spanish at school. Sadly, none of this is ancient history. Just this year, Donald Trump chastised Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish and a broadcaster was attacked for pronouncing Spanish words a bit too correctly for the tastes of some of her English speaking listeners.

**
Cicero, Saint Matthew and Erasmus were all literate in more than one language. Rumi, the 13th-century poet who has enjoyed such popularity lately, was born to Persian speaking parents in what is now Afghanistan. He wrote in Persian, with a smattering of Turkish, Greek and Arabic. To be educated then, as now, meant being able to write in an imperial language.


Ana Menéndez, lithub.com

Benim Afrika’m

 


On dokuzuncu yüzyılın sonlarında, Avrupalı sömürgeci güçler Afrika’yı paylaşmak için Berlin’de toplandılar.

Selvalar, nehirler, dağlar, toprak üstü ve toprak altından oluşan sömürge ganimeti için verilen kavga uzun ve çetin oldu. En sonunda yeni sınırlar çizildi ve 1885 yılında bugün, her şeye muktedir Tanrı adına, Genel Anlaşma imzalandı.

Avrupalı efendiler 

-altın, elmas, fildişi, petrol, kauçuk, kalay, kakao, kahve ve palmiye yağının adını hiç anmama nezaketini gösterdiler;

-köleliğin kendi adıyla anılmasını yasakladılar;

-dünya pazarına insan eti sunan şirketleri hayırsever topluluklar diye adlandırdılar;

-ticaretin ve medeniyetin gelişimini özendirme arzusuyla yanıp tutuştuklarını dile getirdiler,

-ve herhangi bir kuşku kalmış olabilir diye, yerli toplulukların manevi ve maddi huzurunu arttırma kaygısıyla hareket ettiklerini ilan ettiler.

Böylece Avrupa, Afrika’nın yeni haritasını uydurdu. Bu zirve toplantısında, göstermelik dahi olsa, hiçbir Afrikalı yer almadı. 


  
Ayrıca Bakınız:
Borders Drawn With Rulers

Return of the city-state

If you’d been born 1,500 years ago in southern Europe, you’d have been convinced that the Roman empire would last forever. It had, after all, been around for 1,000 years. And yet, following a period of economic and military decline, it fell apart. By 476 CE it was gone. To the people living under the mighty empire, these events must have been unthinkable. Just as they must have been for those living through the collapse of the Pharaoh’s rule or Christendom or the Ancien Régime.

We are just as deluded that our model of living in ‘countries’ is inevitable and eternal. Yes, there are dictatorships and democracies, but the whole world is made up of nation-states. This means a blend of ‘nation’ (people with common attributes and characteristics) and ‘state’ (an organised political system with sovereignty over a defined space, with borders agreed by other nation-states). Try to imagine a world without countries – you can’t. Our sense of who we are, our loyalties, our rights and obligations, are bound up in them.

Which is all rather odd, since they’re not really that old. Until the mid-19th century, most of the world was a sprawl of empires, unclaimed land, city-states and principalities, which travellers crossed without checks or passports. As industrialisation made societies more complex, large centralised bureaucracies grew up to manage them. Those governments best able to unify their regions, store records, and coordinate action (especially war) grew more powerful vis-à-vis their neighbours. Revolutions – especially in the United States (1776) and France (1789) – helped to create the idea of a commonly defined ‘national interest’, while improved communications unified language, culture and identity. Imperialistic expansion spread the nation-state model worldwide, and by the middle of the 20th century it was the only game in town. There are now 193 nation-states ruling the world.

Jamie Bartlett, aeon.co

The Case for the Rebel

Disruptive students may not be the easiest to have in class, but perhaps defiance should be encouraged.

It tends to be common knowledge that Albert Einstein was bad at school, but less known is that he was also bad in school. Einstein not only received failing grades—a problem for which he was often summoned to the headmaster’s office—but he also had a bad attitude. He sat in the back of the class smirking at the teacher; he was disrespectful and disruptive; he questioned everything; and, when he was faced with the ultimatum to straighten up or drop out, he dropped out. That’s right: Albert Einstein was a dropout. And yet, he grew up to become one of the greatest thinkers in human history.

One can write off Einstein’s accomplishments as an exception to the rule; they can reason that his behavior was actually a symptom of being so smart that school didn’t challenge him, which is probably somewhat true. But what if what made Einstein a change agent was his rebellious nature rather than his intelligence? After all, the world is full of brilliant people who accomplish very little compared to Einstein.

I have a student like this in my class right now. He is a brilliant creative writer. I give him highly intellectual books, articles, and authors to read on his own because he often asks me highly intellectual questions that I can’t quite answer, but for which I know he will find answers in those texts. He typically brings the book back to me in a few days, having read it cover to cover and dog-eared most of its pages.

He is failing two classes but stays up all night long to write short stories and comes to school overtired and irritable. He rolls his eyes at anything he deems as busy work, comes into class and intentionally sits with his back to me, and continues to chat with friends long after I have started the lesson. He barely completes most assignments, if at all, and I have to constantly nag him to focus and stop distracting other students.

He is, in short, a huge pain. But when his parent came in to have a conference with me last fall, I found myself looking a worried adult in the eye and telling him what I believe to be the truth: His son is going to be okay. In fact, I told him that his son will someday stand out from the others; he will find a career he loves because he is passionate, intense, brilliant, and fiercely independent. Even though this student is a pain to teach, he is someone I will likely respect when he matures into an adult.

Throughout my years as an educator, the colleagues I admire the most tend to fit the same description. My favorite colleagues ask tough questions of school leadership, are impatient with the status quo, and often intentionally break rules if it means a better education for the students in their classrooms. What tends to be expected of students in schools is the opposite of what many people admire in adults. And yet, students who raise their hands, sit quietly, do their work without question, and generally have figured out how to “do school” are the ones who tend to benefit most from the system and the ones who seem to have the strongest “work ethic” in the classroom. In a study of teacher expectations and perceptions on student behavior, most teachers noted that self-control and cooperation were the most important indicators of school success.

I can attest that students who are self-disciplined, quiet when asked to be quiet, and generally do what they are told in a cooperative manner tend to be easier to teach. Like many teachers, I have validated these behaviors through extrinsic rewards and praise. But I have also found that sometimes the students who are uncooperative, undisciplined, and even rude tend to be strong leaders. In fact, in a recent study, children who were found to be defiant rule-breakers tended to grow up to be academic over-achievers and high-earning adults. Other students seem to gravitate toward these types of students. This is why people often speak admirably of the “class clown”—there is something intriguing about a rebel, even if the rebel’s behavior is destructive.

I recently heard on the radio a state legislator speaking of the importance of developing “soft skills” for the workforce. He elaborated on the merits of understanding the importance of a firm handshake, showing up 10 minutes early, and being a “team player.” As I listened to him, I thought these were admirable traits—traits that my own father tried desperately to instill in me, which I generally ignored—but they were mostly values held by an older generation. And he isn’t incorrect; research shows that “conscientious” and “agreeable” people are often more successful in the workplace. But maybe the problem is with the various definitions of success, rather than with individuals who do not fit the profile of an agreeable worker. After dropping out of school, many would have believed Einstein to be unsuccessful, but I doubt many people would say that now.

If the definition of success can change according to perception, so too can the definition of work ethic. Millennials tend to have a vastly different definition of work ethic than traditional business employers do. For example, 9 percent of college students define preparedness as “work ethic,” compared to 23 percent of business leaders and 18 percent of recruiters. And while the definitions of work ethic and success are already evolving given the Silicon Valley mentality that rebellious youth can be valuable disrupters, the general, traditional perception is that the employers have it right, while the millennials need to be whipped into shape considering they are “often the last hired and first fired.” But maybe it’s employers who need to adapt to a new generation of thinkers and not the other way around.

In his book Originals, Adam Grant gives example after example of original thinkers like Einstein who changed the world by rebelling against the status quo. He notes that procrastination, consistent tardiness, and a tendency to upset authority figures are actually important characteristics for original thinkers. I’m sure the state legislator on the radio would have been infuriated by a young Einstein with a bad attitude. But the rebels in the world are often the ones who change it the most.

A few years ago, I taught a student who, like the aforementioned one I currently teach, was awful in class. He was rude, disrespectful, disengaged, and spent every ounce of his energy trying to entertain his peers regardless of the frustration it caused me as the teacher. He didn’t care about getting into trouble—detentions, suspensions, and daily visits to the principal’s office were utterly ineffective in managing his behavior. I would love to say that through hard work, persistence, and a few heart-to-heart talks, he was suddenly a great student who made straight As, but that isn’t what happened. He was a difficult student from the start to the end of the school year, and for the rest of his high-school career, as my colleagues often shared.

But this former student recently found me on social media and wrote to explain that he had matured after high school, enrolled in college, and started acting in the plays produced by his college’s drama department. He got his degree and now manages a drama camp for teens. This didn’t surprise me: As the drama director back then, I saw a difference in him on stage versus sitting at a desk. He even had some pretty good days in class if we did skits or readers’ theater. He wasn’t a bad kid; he was a performer. Yet I worried about his future—in fact, I wished desperately for him to switch schools—because he just couldn’t seem to “get it together” and often made my job much more difficult.

Now I see that he wasn’t the problem at all—rather, it was the traditional expectations of school behavior and subsequent definition of success. The influence that traditional thinking had on me as an educator affected how I viewed him.

Granted, teaching is difficult enough without expecting individual teachers to encourage defiant and difficult behavior in the hopes that it will lead to children who grow into original thinkers as adults, but there are ways for teachers to encourage and set boundaries for such behavior. Teachers can create strengths-focused classrooms that help students like the class clowns and the rebels see the value in their gifts and reframe them positively, rather than seeking negative attention. As with my former student, this isn’t always possible on a day-to-day basis, but because I found ways to integrate dramatic arts into my lessons and offer him opportunities to perform inside and outside the classroom, I do think I was able to guide him to a positive outlet for his natural talents and instincts.

And there is no denying that rebels can be dangerous, both inside and outside the classroom. There is inherently a destructive nature to rebellion. A disruptive student can utterly destroy a positive learning environment for him or herself, the other students, and the teacher. And embracing dangerous rebels can also have negative impacts elsewhere. Yet, his continued brand as a rebel outsider bringing in his friends does gain support from many. It occurs to me that by providing opportunities for young rebels to find positive outlets for rebellion as my current student has with writing and my former one did with drama, they could become assets to society’s institutions, rather than a liability.

Even though the class clown, the snarky kid in the back, and the D-student may create problems for teachers and the school, they often have skills that can’t always be taught. They tend to be courageous, outspoken, persistent, and creative people—kids who may not make great students or become the kind of employees with a “really strong handshake,” but who instead become the kind of people who lead and forge new paths for others. As a teacher and a parent, I want to help create those kind of people. I want to help mold people who don’t just learn to show up on time, but bring something positive and original to the table when they get there.

Ashley Lamb-Sinclair
The Atlantic

Newton ve Toprağın Karşı Konulmaz Çekim Gücü

 

1643’te bugün (4 Ocak) İsaac Newton doğdu.

Newton’un, bilindiği kadarıyla, asla kadın ya da erkek sevgilisi olmadı.

Kimse tarafından dokunulmadan, bulaşıcı hastalık tehdidinden ve hayaletlerden ödü koparak bakir öldü.

Ancak bu korkak beyefendi birçok şeyi araştırma ve ortaya çıkarma cesareti gösterdi:

yıldızların hareketi,
ışığın yapısı,
sesin hızı,
ısının iletimi,
ve yerçekimi kanunu; bizi çağıran ve çağırırken de bize kökenimizi ve kaderimizi hatırlatan toprağın karşı konulmaz çekim gücü.

Bizanslı Türkler

Gerçekten de, Heredot veya Strabon’dan gayet iyi bildiğimiz gibi, Anadolu’daki Yunan kolonilerinin tarihi M.Ö. 5-6 yüzyıllara kadar gider. Bizans kaynaklarında ise, Peçenek, Kuman ve Uz gibi Hıristiyan Türk boylarından gelen askerlerin yanı sıra, ayrıca ‘Türkopol’ diye adlandırılan Selçuklu Türkleri ve Anadolu Türkmenlerinden oluşan Bizans birliklerinden de söz edilir. Malazgirt’te Selçuklulara karşı savaşan Bizans İmparatoru Romen Diyojen’in ordusunda Hıristiyan Türklerin olduğu bilinmektedir. Yine on birinci yüzyıldan itibaren, Bizans kaynaklarında ‘Türkopoulos’ diye anılan Aksuhos, Maniakes, Kaloufes (Halife), Prosouch, Tziglognos, İsak, İsa, İlhan, Kutalmış gibi pek çok Türk ailesinin adına rastlanır. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun kuruluş yıllarının önemli figürlerinden Gazi Mihal ve Evrenos Beylerin de aslen Hıristiyan Türklerden olduğu söylenir.

Buna karşılık, 1437 tarihli Basel Konsili’ne sunulan Latince bir raporda, Anadolu’da yaşayan Hıristiyan din adamlarının sadece “Türk kâfirlerin kıyafetlerini giymekle kalmadıkları” onların dillerini de aldıklarından yakınılmaktadır. Rapora göre Yunanca, sadece ilahiler, İncil ve Resulün mektupları okunurken kullanılmakta, buna karşılık vaazlar Türkçe verilmekteydi.

Micromastery

Over the past four years, I’ve been working on a book about polymathy and how we can nurture multi-talentedness to improve happiness and mental wellbeing. I had been fascinated by a research finding that, compared with ordinary scientists, Nobel prize-winning scientists are more likely to also practise some art or craft and also more likely to be competent at acting, dancing or performing magic. These specialists were, in fact, multitalented. The polymath’s central ability is a lack of fear in learning something new. The specialist’s secret pessimism is: “I’ll be crap at that, so why bother?”

I studied how children learn, how we learn when we teach ourselves and I also used my experiences in Japan training in a martial art. There, the subject was broken up into moves that were complete in themselves but led to greater mastery if you so chose. I called these micromasteries. I quickly found dozens: make a perfect omelette, learn a tango walk, do an eskimo roll in a kayak, make a perfect IPA beer, do a 720-degree turn on a skateboard, make a 15-minute speech with no preparation, sing the Marseillaise in French … it was hard to narrow it down to the 30 or so for my book.

Doing a passable illustration seemed like a good art micromastery. I asked my daughter to show me (she had already done the illustrated maps for a travel book I had written). She said, “It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look exact as long as it looks good.” Suddenly, I realised that all that pressure at school to make drawings look like something was only half the story. The other half was the decorative aspect of art. If the picture looked good, it didn’t matter if it didn’t quite look like the model. I liked making doodles that were pleasing, repetitive patterns. I added that aspect to my own micromastery challenge: producing drawings to illustrate my new book. And they’re OK. Not brilliant. But OK.

The main thing I got from watching my daughter was to take it slowly. I had seen famous artists doing lightning-fast sketches. Just as there are some fast writers (I’m one), there are brilliant slow writers. If it takes you time to do a good sketch, then slow down. Doing this improved my output immediately. So did copying from any source I could.

I began to ask other artists for tips (asking lots a large number of experts became my preferred method for developing a micromastery) and the equestrian painter Gill Whitworth showed me several sneaky tricks. “Even Rubens used to borrow tracings from other artists to do difficult poses,” she said. From this, came my notion of the micromastery “entry trick”. This is something that instantly elevates your performance and gives you much needed encouragement. Entry tricks could be cunning (for wood stacking, buy a dampness meter) or simple – for better handwriting just hold the pen higher up and increase the height of the long upright strokes on the letters y, l, p and h. And write more slowly.

Children make far better teachers of micromasteries than adults. They don’t overtalk it. They look carefully and take note. They find their own way to do something. This is key. The official way of learning something may not suit everyone. By messing around with a subject we find our own way in. For me, it was about getting a Derwent fineliner pen and drawing very clean lines. I was having fun with art instead of finding it depressing.

Indeed, having fun with something is a kind of expertise in its own right. While writing Micromastery I examined what we think of as an expert. It’s a slippery concept. Many are masters of the explicit. They can give a good talk on their subject and convince others. But tacit and implicit expertise is just as important. Things you can’t necessarily talk about. Stuff you just do. I think of a child who can pick up some electronic device and not even know what it’s for and yet have the expertise to have fun with it.

Getting children to teach is not new. George Stephenson, inventor of the first commercially viable steam train, could barely read or write though he was a skilled metal fabricator and innovator. He paid for his son Robert to go to school and after lessons were over, Robert would have to teach his dad what he had studied. George learned to read and write “proper English” and do mathematics. This method of learning continued until Robert was studying higher aspects of engineering and physics in his late teens.

And George was a true polymath. Not only was he the principal inventor of the steam train, but also he shared with Humphry Davy the credit for inventing a miner’s safety lamp; he was also something of a boxer, an athlete and a gardener. He grew exotic plants in a hothouse and experimented with different ways of increasing agricultural yields. Privately educated Robert went on to build railways all over the world, equalling but not surpassing the man he had taught to write “properly”.

George was a proud man and learning from a child is a great way to avoid the loss of face of admitting you know nothing. Kids don’t want to make you look small, especially if you are their parent and control internet access.

It is also a great way to give attention to a child without it being icky “ooing and ahhing” over anything they make. Involvement is the higher form of attention giving, and working with a child on a project is a good method of exchanging this much-needed nutrition. It’s also good for teaching adults some restraint. Just watch the child, and don’t ask too many questions.

Robert Twigger, Guardian

iGen: The Smartphone Generation

I’ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology. Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. Beliefs and behaviors that were already rising simply continue to do so. Millennials, for instance, are a highly individualistic generation, but individualism had been increasing since the Baby Boomers turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then I began studying Athena’s generation.

Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s—I had never seen anything like it.

At first I presumed these might be blips, but the trends persisted, across several years and a series of national surveys. The changes weren’t just in degree, but in kind. The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.

**
I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet. The Millennials grew up with the web as well, but it wasn’t ever-present in their lives, at hand at all times, day and night. iGen’s oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010. A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone.

**
To those of us who fondly recall a more analog adolescence, this may seem foreign and troubling. The aim of generational study, however, is not to succumb to nostalgia for the way things used to be; it’s to understand how they are now. Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, and many are both. More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills.


Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.

Even when a seismic event—a war, a technological leap, a free concert in the mud—plays an outsize role in shaping a group of young people, no single factor ever defines a generation. Parenting styles continue to change, as do school curricula and culture, and these things matter. But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.

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Gen X managed to stretch adolescence beyond all previous limits: Its members started becoming adults earlier and finished becoming adults later. Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again—but only because its onset is being delayed. Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.

Why are today’s teens waiting longer to take on both the responsibilities and the pleasures of adulthood? Shifts in the economy, and parenting, certainly play a role. In an information economy that rewards higher education more than early work history, parents may be inclined to encourage their kids to stay home and study rather than to get a part-time job. Teens, in turn, seem to be content with this homebody arrangement—not because they’re so studious, but because their social life is lived on their phone. They don’t need to leave home to spend time with their friends.

If today’s teens were a generation of grinds, we’d see that in the data. But eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders in the 2010s actually spend less time on homework than Gen X teens did in the early 1990s. (High-school seniors headed for four-year colleges spend about the same amount of time on homework as their predecessors did.) The time that seniors spend on activities such as student clubs and sports and exercise has changed little in recent years. Combined with the decline in working for pay, this means iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less.

So what are they doing with all that time? They are on their phone, in their room, alone and often distressed.

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The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out. That’s something most teens used to do: nerds and jocks, poor kids and rich kids, C students and A students. The roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.

You might expect that teens spend so much time in these new spaces because it makes them happy, but most data suggest that it does not. The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and designed to be nationally representative, has asked 12th-graders more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991. The survey asks teens how happy they are and also how much of their leisure time they spend on various activities, including nonscreen activities such as in-person social interaction and exercise, and, in recent years, screen activities such as using social media, texting, and browsing the web. The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.

Jean M. Twenge
The Atlantic, Sep 2017