Peterson is an example of what I have in mind when I talk about the ‘war on youth’, a phrase which comes from Henry Giroux. In the neoconservative attack, youth are triply marginalised because it is claimed:
- they don’t know anything
they are ‘fragile snowflakes’ and ‘play victim’
they are dangerous to free speech (read: dangerous to the identity politics of wealthy white men)
These attacks are always racist and sexist, directed against people who are poor and the most marginalised and vulnerable.
Doxtdator also wonders where the hope is:
It’s difficult to see radical possibilities of hope for youth in either of the main reform movements: the neoconservatives see youth as dangerous, but the neoliberal ‘future proof’ movement also tells a story about the value of youth that too often “forecloses hope” (Henry Giroux).
This is the story that is not told when we talk about students being ‘entrepreneurs’ and creating the future.