Wilfred Owen died nearly a hundred years ago, but one of his most famous poems may be oddly appropriate to characterize the unrest sweeping Europe youth. Owen’s poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth described a generation sacrificed to the fantasies of their elders in the Great War, following the prescribed path to the last drawing the blinds — a reference to a custom widely used to indicate bereavement in the family.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
The Baltimore Sun ascribes the persistence and spread of youth riots which began in Greece to a sense of hopelessness in the rising European generation. Crammed into substandard schools, facing bleak employment opportunities, stuck in an economic structure where many opportunities do not become available until the old fall off their perch — retire or die — the younger Europeans possess a fund of anger which is now in the process of being tapped.
The students complain that their universities are overcrowded, their teachers overworked, and their employment prospects close to nil. They feel trapped in a system that cares not at all about their lives or prospects. … Greece is not alone. Most of Europe’s other countries are suffering as well, particularly the larger ones like Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. They do not yet have widespread youth protests, but they do have overpopulated and undercapitalized universities. The Germans may spend twice as much per university student as the Greeks, but that only equals about half the expenditure per student made in the United States. Like the Greeks, the Germans, French, Italians, etc. have an increasing number of highly educated unemployed. In 2007, 82 percent of university-educated Greeks were employed, 79 percent of university-educated French, and 78 percent of university-educated Italians.
With the global financial crisis on track to make things worse, those who have a job — the burgeoning old — are going to hang on, while the young will have to do without. And doing without means postponing adulthood, getting a job or starting a family. It exacerbates the demographic trend in which an exploding population of the elderly must stand on the shoulders increasingly smaller youth cohort. Describing the situation in Greece Der Spiegel refers to monopoly on juicy positions by corrupt cliques in every institution of society: government, business and nongovernment organizations — even the church.
Greece has one of the highest inflation rates in the euro zone … the prosperity gap between the older generation — senior workers and civil servants — and young people who are fresh out of school continues to grow. Nearly a quarter of all adults under the age of 29 are unemployed … The system is “tailored to the needs of established and older individuals,” says sociologist Stratos Georgoulas from the Aegean University on Lesbos, “and young people are suffering from this.” …
Economic experts have begun to refer to the €700 generation ($935 generation), and student leader Barutas is a prime example: He studied electrical engineering for five years at the Athens Polytechnic and graduated with excellent grades. Now he’s working as a teacher at a high school for €8 net an hour, 12 hours a week, which is all that is allowed. Such jobs are often limited to four- or five-month contracts. “How am I supposed to survive or establish a family on that?” asks the engineer.
Yet it wasn’t meant to be that way. Many of the policies which have mortgaged the European future to provide security in the present were sold as progressive social engineering. They began as well intentioned projects; the government was going to take care of things. Everything would be alright. Nobody asked whether entrusting society to elite institutions run by fallible men would not in the end create a self-sustaining gravy train for the very same people. Whether anyone will ever ask is open to debate. Reason Magazine recently warned that America was in danger of replicating the “zombie economies” which have destroyed the future in many parts of the world by embarking on huge programs of government intervention to keep dying businesses pointlessly alive. The European model has been touted as the future of America, but not all of it may be worth emulating.
The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace, –
Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now –
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
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30 Comments
1. elby:Well, I suppose we’ll get the usual comments about how the world’s going to hell in a handbasket and the handbasket’s speed has just increased. We all seem to know what is wrong, but not how to fix it. Or even slow that handbasket down. What to do, what to do?
It seems to me that the left looks at the problems in Europe and then promotes the same policies that got Europe into the trouble (economic and demographic) it is in, as a way to ‘fix’ our problems. Do we have youth unemployment, is it difficult for young people to become economically independent? Yes? So let’s implement the same policies that Europe has!
My my, what a topsy turvy world we live in. Must be that handbasket, tumbling end over end.
Dec 19, 2008 - 10:40 pm 2. Thrasymachus:Prof. Jones’s answer is pretty retarded- more spending on universities! How is that going to create jobs for graduates? But what would you expect from the Baltimore Sun?
Dec 19, 2008 - 10:58 pm 3. Bob:This has gone on too long. Many Greek shopkeepers have had their windows broken. What Athens needs is some Korean grocers, armed.
Dec 19, 2008 - 11:16 pm 4. Brock:Bob, what Greece needs is something for those rioters to do besides riot. They need jobs. And it won’t come from government planning. What Greece needs is a British Administrator of the old school – the sort that built Hong Kong, South Africa, Mumbai and Philadelphia. The sort that knows the proper role of government and the limits of power.
Free Markets. Property Rights. Rule of Law.
That’s all it takes. That’s all any population needs from its government. And would someone please remind the US Government of that?
Dec 19, 2008 - 11:50 pm 5. Bob:The window pane replacement business is booming in Greece, at least.
Dec 19, 2008 - 11:58 pm 6. Edgewise:Folks, check out this ancient piece from National Review, originally published in their 6/10/1991 issue, and reprinted on National Review Online 9/1/2005:
“A Riot Primer: The importance of using force to control the spread of urban riots.”
by Eugene H. Methvin
http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200509011316.asp
Anyone agree or disagree with Mr. Methvin’s conclusions? Anyone want to hazard to what extent Methvin’s conclusion applies to the current situation in Greece?
Dec 20, 2008 - 12:08 am 7. Lifeofthemind:@Bob,
Dec 20, 2008 - 12:13 am 8. Lifeofthemind:Or Americans who would damn the law and defend their property and families. It should never get to the point where vigilantes actually hurt anyone. In the 19th century in America if you were a bum or a crook you got tarred and feathered ridden around town on a rail and told to keep out. A little of that would probably end the violence. Given how small the supply of educated young people are they should be at a premium in the job market. The problem is the sclerotic European hiring and firing regulations. Until recently America provided a safety valve for educated Europeans, like we did for uneducated Mexicans. Now that the American economy is contracting there is no place to run to. After all that time running down the American-zionist-capitalist economic model while coming here for cheap living and easy girls they are finding the gravy train has stopped. Of course I take this seriously and know an answer must be found but please give me a minute to compose myself. I’m really all broken up over this.
@Edgewise,
Dec 20, 2008 - 12:23 am 9. Morton Doodslag:Thank you for the NRO article. P7 If you don’t plan now you can’t act later. If you don’t train now you will bleed later.
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
Rampant anti-Americanism. Check.
Arrogance of unparalleled proportions. Check.
Violence and rampaging. Check.
Complete inability to look into the mirror and see the problem staring right back. Check.
Failure to thrive. Check.
Blaming everyone else. Check.
Insane adherence to an utterly failed social, political, economic model. Check.
Sounds like Europeans are much further along on that Islamization project than one might have expected. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of worthless tools.
Dec 20, 2008 - 1:04 am 10. hdgreene:Yes, Elby, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But who is carrying the handbasket? We don’t really know. That’s because the person carrying the handbasket is hidden. Even the hand is hidden. Which economic system features the Hidden Hand? Huh? Capitalism. Capitalism is carrying the planet — not just the world, mind you, but the planet entire — to hell in a handbasket. Only it’s more of an overpriced designer hand bag — designed in New York but made in the sweat shops of the third world and sold in the sweet shops of London and Paris!
Meet the new Revolution! Same as the old Revolution!
Dec 20, 2008 - 6:14 am 11. 3Case:“Crammed into government substandard schools, facing bleak government employment opportunities, stuck in a[n] government economic structure where many opportunities do not become available until the old government fall off their perch — retire or die — the younger Europeans possess a fund of anger which is now in the process of being tapped. -emphasis added
Dec 20, 2008 - 6:25 am 12. Al_Batross:“What Greece needs is a British Administrator of the old school…The sort that knows the proper role of government and the limits of power.
Free Markets. Property Rights. Rule of Law” Brock:
No, that is what Britain needs.
Dec 20, 2008 - 6:32 am 13. 3Case:Government must be made susceptible to the vicissitudes of the market and their own ineptitude/corruption. I don’t know how that could be done other than indexing their pay, benefits and retirements to the health of the overall economy; vest then an interest in the rest of us rather than the current state where we are the bottomless piggy bank. If CEOs are rebuked and hectored into $1/year salaries while the employees lose jobs and/or bonuses, should not government employees share the loss which was caused by government actions (CRA –> subprime loans –> housing crisis)? Government employees must share the beating in some significant way. They certainly “wet their beaks” when times are good. Perhaps President Obama, as a man of the people, can fix this inequity. I will not be holding my breath.
Dec 20, 2008 - 6:35 am 14. 3Case:should read “vest them”.
Dec 20, 2008 - 6:36 am 15. steveaz:I like your checklist, Morton (#9)
The other night I was pondering the difference in the deliberate media caricatures of Americans and Europeans. The differences are stark.
First, in Europe, it appears there are only two sorts of people: really smart fashionable people who Americans should want to imitate, and rioting urban, never-named “youths.”
But, in America, global media has proliferated countless caricatures, almost all bad. There is the “fat American,” the SUV-driving wasteful American, the stupid “Cowboy” American, and the “trailer-trash” American. There is also the uncouth American – these are US citizens that think the death penalty and Bush’s tax-cuts should remain. And there is of course the “racist,” slave-owning American who must still, over a century after abolition, repent to the “World Community.” I could go on and on.
I understand that the tax for being the world’s policeman is to bear the brunt of “pig” jokes and their surrogate insults. But, I’m still left with a nagging question: Is Europe’s electorate being served by their media’s rampant caricaturing of us, Europe’s cultural son?
Or is this tendency to disproportionately caricature her historic ally actually a symptom of Europeans’ rampant denial of the dire straits that they’re in?
In the ongoing contest over the Continent’s future, the battle of Havel vs Chirac is in its fifth round, and I’m firmly in Havel’s corner.
Dec 20, 2008 - 7:55 am 16. steveaz:In case some have forgotten…
Jacques Chirac’s opinion of Vaclev Havel paraphrased: “Sometimes shitty little countries [like your pissant Czech-Republic] need to learn when to shut-up.”
And dear ol’ Jacques was being diplomatic when he said it, too. They teach effective diplomatic techniques at the Sorbonne, don’t they?
Dec 20, 2008 - 8:04 am 17. programmer:I wrote a somewhat off kilter comment a few posts ago, in which I remarked about the cognitive dissonance brought about by repetitive political correctness. Especially when it comes to young men being subjected to the constant erosive drivel that every one else (not a young man) is better at everything than they are. And they know this is not true. And so, they flex their muscles. They exercise their inventiveness (think molotov cocktails, etc.) They lash out in destruction to demonstrate their power, they break the flimsy bonds of politically correct govenance and damn, it feels good. They can do anything they want. They can take anything they want. And there are others, that seeing this freedom, jump on board. And the politically correctness restrained law officers stand by watching, fearing prosecution if they harm the rioters in anyway. And one wonders, what happens when government becomes too estranged from reality. I suspect we are getting a first class, front row seat to observer from.
Dec 20, 2008 - 8:30 am 18. programmer:govenance = governance
Dec 20, 2008 - 8:31 am 19. Starling:Wretchard wrote: “Yet it wasn’t meant to be that way. Many of the policies which have mortgaged the European future to provide security in the present were sold as progressive social engineering. They began as well intentioned projects; the government was going to take care of things. Everything would be alright. Nobody asked whether entrusting society to elite institutions run by fallible men would not in the end create a self-sustaining gravy train for the very same people.”
“Progressive social engineering”, particularly the security for all variety, is a ponzi scheme not unlike that pulled off by Madoff. It is simply unsustainable over the longer term and destructive or morale, social fabric, and economic wealth in the near term.
Dec 20, 2008 - 10:38 am 20. Mike Sylwester:Wretchard:
Reason Magazine recently warned that America was in danger of replicating the “zombie economies” which have destroyed the future in many parts of the world by embarking on huge programs of government intervention to keep dying businesses pointlessly alive.
That’s an excellent article. Unfortunately, it’s probably also a correct prophecy of the USA’s economic future.
Dec 20, 2008 - 10:58 am 21. Insufficiently Sensitive:…the younger Europeans possess a fund of anger which is now in the process of being tapped.
In the USA, the Obama campaign just finished tapping into a lavish fund of anger against the Bush administration, the younger citizens (and illegals) foremost. How was much was invested into that fund by our one-track media is worthy of thought.
So far, outside of the ACORN cadres, there has been no success at instigating street mobs, and the CarBQue is still an unfamiliar sight here. But starting this winter, with the paroxysm of government seizure of command and control of industries, and the enormous eruption of taxpayer dollars into a dubious economy (with enormous opportunities for Chicago-style graft once those dollars get down to cadre level), we might see some ‘direct action’ by the frustrated, no matter whose politics they profess. They might hope for a truckload or two of said dollars, if they’ll just lighten up a tad. Fair’s fair.
Dec 20, 2008 - 11:19 am 22. whiskey:I think people are missing what is going on here.
It’s not PC itself (which is the symptom not the disease). It’s not multiculturalism itself either, or the sclerotic social and economic policies that lock in the advantaged and disadvantage young men.
These are all merely symptoms of cultural, political, and social power shifting from one group to another.
Which is the shift in all Western nations from male-dominance to female dominance.
Sclerotic, stasis-driven economies with status and connections determining who “wins” and who “loses” in a zero-sum game with no expansion of total opportunities?
That’s a classic case of a female-dominated society with defacto aristocracies. Or more to the point, single women. Who enjoy “relative” (though rapidly declining) secure, “hip” urban environments and prolonged single hood, with “hip” and “fashionable” clothes, politics, and so on ending in single motherhood or simply being alone.
We are seeing that in the US as well, anyone watching HGTV can see the same types of people show up again and again in “Househunters” and “Househunters International” coming from the same international single young yuppie class for the most part. Desiring “hip/young” places in urban centers to be “cool” in the status fights for mating/dating/socializing that simply never ends.
The US Census Bureau announced that it is measuring “parenthood” in a new way, to combat the plague of single-motherhood: any two people cohabitating with children in the household however briefly are defined as “parents” no matter the biological or matrimonial relationships. So if Mom’s boyfriend lives with her a month, that’s a two-parent family.
Yes of course young Greek Men, who have no chance at a family, or for many of them any significant dating/relationship opportunities (the women being soaked up in the “soft” Polygamy of Europe/America’s rich urban centers of a few hereditary male winners), are rioting.
Wow, what a concept. Men fighting over women! Who could have thought that would happen in “enlightened” socialist Europe? Heck it’s the whole point of a socialist economy/culture. Advantaging women (who generally prefer a soft polygamy) and a few hereditary male winners.
Is this system stable? I would say not. There is simply too many male losers who can use violence to even the odds. “Burn the system down” to make the hereditary male winners into losers, and perhaps kick out the supports for single mothers.
Dec 20, 2008 - 11:34 am 23. Sparky:To compare European youth today to the generation that lost most of its males to the Great War is just ludicrous. For one thing, those rioters are alive, and they will likely live to a ripe old age. For another, they have TVs and MP3 players. Give me a break.
Dec 20, 2008 - 1:11 pm 24. ricpic:The obscenity called socialism marches on.
Dec 20, 2008 - 1:18 pm 25. whiskey:Sparky — an Ipod does not replace a wife and family. We are reaching the limits of substitution with cheap consumer goods for the biological drive for family.
One way or another that cost will be paid.
Technology and PC makes violence cheap and easy. Therefore, I expect a lot more of violence from the losers to upend the winners.
What, a female dominated society is going to call out the police? The Army? Please.
Dec 20, 2008 - 1:55 pm 26. NahnCee:We’ll see rioting and marching in the streets when the black folks who are union members and voted in Obama realize that Bush’s temporary bail-out of Detroit was just to see them through Christmas, and there’s not a damned thing Obama can do to save their jobs and their lifestyles.
Unless Obama wants to nationalize the car industry so that (white) taxpayers are paying for those outrageous union wages, and then the rioting will be done by whites pissed off at having their tax dollars used to maintain a dead industry.
I wonder how many other poison pills Dubya has left for Obama to trip over and explode in the coming months.
Dec 20, 2008 - 4:17 pm 27. Bob:women (who generally prefer a soft polygamy
Not the women I know.
Dec 20, 2008 - 6:10 pm 28. cjm:agrarian collectives are the answer, with special prizes for the largest yam, etc.
Dec 20, 2008 - 9:36 pm 29. Herb:The objection that I have is that these twerps are responsible for preserving our irreplaceable physical heritage. Notre Dame as a mosque? cut the remains of the Acropolis up to make one?
Dec 20, 2008 - 9:40 pm 30. Spindok:They want to imbed one in London.
These are our ANCESTRAL HOMES.
They want to abandon it to the goths.
Disenfranchised youth?
Yes the euros have created a society in which jobs are near-permanent once you have one. Seniority is everything.
In the US there are such things but more limited to certain fields.
Oddly enough, these are mostly university students with a major complaint about the education system. Education is one such field here (I know, I am married to a teacher).
There are some good reasons for that but that is a whole different discussion. Education is somewhat seperated from the ‘market’. Engineering should never be.
So, I am on vacation in Mexico talking to an obviously talented and personable Swiss man in his late 20’s. He was the hotel executive in charge of such things as business-style functions and requests of guests for something a bit ‘out of the ordinary’.
I do not know the title of his position but he was exceptionally good at doing it. In my case it was arranging a Passover Seder for two Jewish families in a Puerto Vallarta resort. It went perfectly – except we didnt need a whole dang quarter roasted lamb – just a little burned bone. Fine all the same.
We had a martini together one night and he told me that in his homeland, despite all of his abilities; he could speak 4+ languages fluently and several others reasonably well, he has several degrees from respected Universities. He could not get a job in his home country or anywhere nearby. Basically the paradox of “you cant get a job without years of experience”.
That is not a good situation anywhere. I am a Medical Doctor and have taught students and residents. Every time I do that I know that my time is limited and we need the next one to pick up the torch, or the needle or catheter in my particular field.
If the students are pissed I can understand.
Getting the “A” in Organic Chemistry or something else equally difficult has its own rewards but those are short lived when your little car craps out and you dont even have the prospect of a better life ahead.
I have no easy solution to this. It is the obligation of those with more grey hairs to step back, educate, and make way.
Spindok
Dec 23, 2008 - 11:10 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.