so what is your advice to young people
when you talk about you need to be
individually responsible but when there
are things that are so far out of our
control like climate catastrophe like
the precarious job economy like what is
you what is your answer do you think
that you're worse off than you think
that you're worse off than your
grandparents I think there are different
challenge do you think you're worse off
than your grandparents the argument I
think is the individual responsibility
does not change the climate does not fix
the problem that needs global collective
responsibility so I think that's the
core of the question do you have a
theory about that well fundamentally I'm
a psychologist and my experience has
been that people can do a tremendous
amount of good for themselves
and for the people who are immediately
around them by looking to their own
inadequacies and their own flaws and the
things that they're not doing in their
lives and starting to build themselves
up as more powerful individuals and if
they're capable of doing that and then
they're capable of expanding their
career and if they're capable of
expanding their career and their
competence then they're capable of
taking their place in the community as
effective leaders and then they're
capable of making wise decision instead
of unwise decisions when it comes to
making collective political decisions
not suggesting in the least and have
never suggested that there's no domain
for social action I'm suggesting that
people who don't have their own houses
in order should be very careful before
they go about reorganizing the world
which happens in many ways
and I just just - if a young person
believes that the client at the global
warming problem on the climate is
something that needs to be tackled
quickly and they can't wait until they
grow up and become Prime Minister's to
do it do you think collective
responsibility overrides individual
responsibility in a huge issue like that
no I think generally people I think
generally people have things that are
more within their personal purview that
are more difficult to deal with and that
they're avoiding and that generally the
way they avoid them is by adopting
pseudo moralistic stances on large-scale
social issues so that they look good to
their friends and their neighbors a
major difference between the right and
the left concerns the way each seeks to
improve society conservatives believe
that the way to a better society is
almost always through the moral
improvement of the individual by each
person doing battle with his or her own
weaknesses and flaws it is true that in
violent and evil society such as fascist
communist or Islamist tyrannies the
individual must be preoccupied with
battling outside forces almost
everywhere else though certainly in a
free and decent country such as America
the greatest battle of the individual
must be with inner forces that is with
his or her moral failings the left on
the other hand believes that the way to
a better society is almost always
through doing battle with society's
moral failings
thus in America the left concentrates
its efforts on combating sexism racism
intolerance xenophobia homophobia
Islamophobia and the many other evils
that the Left believes permeate American
society
one important consequence of this
left-right distinction is that those on
the left or far more preoccupied with
politics than those on the right since
the left is so much more interested in
fixing society than in fixing the
individual politics inevitably becomes
the vehicle for societal improvement
that's why whenever the term activist is
used we almost always assume that the
term refers to someone on the left
another consequence of this left-right
difference is that since conservatives
believe Society has changed one person
at a time they accept that change
happens gradually this isn't fast enough
for the left which is always and
everywhere focused on social revolution
an excellent example of this was a
statement by the then presidential
candidate Barack Obama just days before
his first election in 2008 through a
rapturous audience he declared we are
five days away from fundamentally
transforming the United States of
America conservatives not only have no
interest in fundamentally transforming
the United States of America they are
strongly opposed to doing so
conservatives understand that
fundamentally transforming any society
that isn't fundamentally bad not to
mention transforming what is one of the
most decent societies in history can
only make the society worse
conservatives believe that America can
be improved but should not be
transformed let alone fundamentally
transformed the founders of the United
States recognized that the
transformation that every generation
must work on is the moral transformation
of each citizen
thus character development was at the
core of both child-rearing and of young
people's education from elementary
school through college as John Adams the
second president said our Constitution
was made only for a moral and religious
people it is
wholly inadequate to the government of
any other and in the words of Benjamin
Franklin only a virtuous people are
capable of freedom why is that because
freedom requires self-control the free
are the society the more self-control is
necessary if the majority of people
don't control themselves the state
meaning and ever more powerful
government will have to control them
from the founding of the United States
until the 1960s schools and parents
concentrated on character education but
with the assent of left-wing ideas
character education has all but
disappeared from American schools
instead children are taught not to focus
on their flaws but on America's social
issues have replaced character education
an example is a new K through 12 science
curriculum the next generation of
science standards which will teach young
Americans starting in kindergarten about
global warming and when they get to
college American young people will be
taught about the need to fight economic
inequality white privilege and the
alleged rape culture on their campuses
ironically if there really is a rape
culture that permeates American college
campuses
the only reason would have to be that
there were so little character education
in our schools or for that matter at
home fathers and religion historically
the two primary conveyors of self
control are non-existent in the lives of
millions of American children we are now
producing vast numbers of Americans who
are passionate about fixing America
while doing next to nothing about fixing
their own character the problem however
is that you can't make society better
unless you first make its people better
I'm Dennis Prager
you