Jessica Lussenhop says our kids are awash in pornography, but for the most part they can handle it, or at least exhibit a nonchalance about it. Shudder inducing quote (for me at least):

“I have 140 gigs of porn on my computer,” one of his buddies says. “I was going to put it all on an external hard drive and pass it to all my friends. And I said this in front of my friend’s parents.”

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, his frankness is astounding. Second, this very nice boy with the 140 gigs of pornography gives his first and last name to include in this article. I’m not going to print it here.

I’ve thought some about this ubiquitous pornography question because we had Naomi Wolf come to our campus a few months back and give a thought provoking talk about how the deluge of porn had the effect of demystifying (rationalizing – although she didn’t use that work) the female body. Channeling Max Weber, She called for bringing courtship and magic back into relationships.

My own view is similar to Weber’s in lamenting that “the romantic mystery ship has failed.” The broarder implications for me as a parent and as a political scientist is the hyper-rationalizing of our youth. Our students, in my view, are evolving into “hyper-processors” who are able to synthesize vast amounts of information. I think, in general, this makes them more goal oriented and focused. The flip side is that they are less reflective. I think my big fear is that our young people are losing an ability to be intentional in their behaviors….i.e. they are too preoccupied by their increasingly complex habitus that they find it increasingly difficult to exhibit the agency necessary to alter their habitus. Not to get all sci-fi, but it would seem like the technology pushes structural change in ways that are not rational or driven by conscious thought.