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Nov. 19, 2009
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Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 27, 2007 / 13 Elul, 5767

Grow up, America — before it's too late

By Diana West


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Q: What do Belgian Muslims calling for a ban on Easter eggs have to do with American parents hiring "parenting coaches" to put junior to bed? And what do imperiled Easter eggs and the advent of parent coaching have to do with U.S. foreign policy? Furthermore, what does all of this have to do with the triumphant shriek of Western womanhood on wriggling into jeans fit for a 7-year-old?


A: Plenty. In fact, I could write a book about such recent events — only that I already have. It's called "The Death of the Grown-Up," and the phenomenon it describes — Western society's relatively new tendency to replace maturity as the goal of human development with a state of perpetual adolescence — makes the connections obvious. Well, obvious if you've been spent the last two, three, five, 10 years thinking through the theory.


Let's see how the theory works, starting with Easter eggs. After the city of Antwerp banned hijabs on women stationed at the front desk in a municipal building, protests ensued. A Muslim trade union representative said, in effect, well, if that's the way you want it, "we demand that no Christmas trees be set up in city buildings and no Easter eggs be given out."


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Now, that's crust — or, croissant, since we're talking Belgium. Clearly, Antwerp's Muslim population (or some sizable portion thereof) rejects the right of the native Christian culture to express itself in terms of its traditional symbols. But what does it mean if post-Christian Antwerp accedes to this Muslim "demand"? Given the precedent set in 2003 in France, where Jacques Chirac banned the hijab — a symbol of Muslim life that upholds sharia as the law of the land (any land) — along with all Christian, Jewish and Sikh symbols in state schools, don't bet on Antwerp drawing a religious line. And if it does trade in its holiday eggs and evergreens for a hijab ban, it will mean that another outpost of the West will have agreed to strip itself of the defining symbols of its own identity. But how do sorry tales of European self-abnegation jibe with the absurd spectacle of American Mas and Pas paying "specialists" to get Baby to go nighty-night — let alone the death of the grown-up?


First, let's consider the kind of coaching that affluent America thinks it requires, as recently reported by the Boston Globe.


The problem? Lily, 3, wouldn't go to bed. The solution? The parenting coach put Lily to bed. That'll be $300, please.


In different realms, on different continents, both reactions, in Antwerp and in Boston, reveal the same alarming hollowness in the people who are supposed to be in charge. They both engage in a stunted mode of behavior that is aptly described as infantile. In the case of the European metropolis, it no longer has the self-knowledge, confidence or courage to flaunt the symbols that make up its identity; in the case of these American parents, they no longer have the self-knowledge, confidence or courage — or basic human instinct — to trust themselves to raise their young. Any way you cut it, it's hard to label such behaviors as mature, responsible or self-assertive, and they're certainly not conducive to the propagation of the culture represented here on both a state and personal level. How did we get here? In a nutshell, a half-century or so of youth-oriented, adolescent-minded popular culture has taken its toll.


And American foreign policy? Well, I'm not talking about the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy (World War I), the War to End Fascism (World War II) or even the Cold War, which ultimately brought down the Evil Empire, at least temporarily. It pains me greatly to say it, but the war to Buy Time For Iraqis to Reconcile (Iraq) — not at all the same thing as the War to Smash Islamic Jihad, which we are regrettably not fighting — is based on the childish, Flower-Powery premise, born of sophomoric, multiculti myths, that no real differences separate cultures, religions and peoples. And besides, the theory goes, if such differences do exist, it is "mean-spirited" or "intolerant" or "racist" to point them out.


Once upon a time, such adolescent naivete would have driven the grown-ups crazy — or maybe I'm just nuts. How about if we call off the struggle to squeeze into play clothes and try to find out?

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JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist for The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.


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