Re: Desteni
Posted by:
freespeech4tw
()
Date: October 15, 2011 07:44PM
The focus on parents seems logical, for the only demographic group Desteni can successfully target are teens and tweens, who are not exactly known for their abilities to reason or be realistic and down to earth: Give them a reason to be angry at someone, especially parents that they feel treated unjust by (as all teens do, they love melodrama and self-pity) or the 'system', that they are yet scared of - they will love you in return, just like they love every commercialised 'rebellion' that sells itself via image rather than substance.
(I've watched some new entries on their 'introduce yourself'-forum that might actually get Desteni into trouble: some of those new recruits talked about not even being out of highschool yet, which would suggest that they are quite possibly around or under 18. If any money-transactions had taken place in these cases, Desteni might get into serious trouble with the law from what I can tell.)
The fact that so many tweens are in the same emotional position regarding Desteni can only be attributed to the changing of the times. Most of these 'young' people in there are well into their twenties, most close to thirty, yet they seem to suffer from the same teenage-brattiness, stubbornness and closed-mindedness as the average underage Twitard, including respect less ranting about their parents while yet being financially dependent on them and not a single indication of being thankful or understanding, not in the least realising that their parents are just human themselves...
It seems to be a problem with this generation in general (aka also outside Desteni) that they live through their puberty (including the point where you usually separate yourself from your parents, break away, begin your own life and then look back considering all they've done for you from the perspective of an adult and not a whiney self-obsessed teenager) about ten years later than people a few generations before used to.
They are very much a product of their time in this regard, regardless of all their 'self-honesty' and everything, going through the phase of being disappointed finding out your parents are not flawless, all-knowing beings (as children often believe), channelling it in disrespect, only ten years late because the age of infantility does not stop with being physically grown up these days anymore.
And in all this teenage-disillusionment all of a sudden there is Bernard, being this self-proclaimed flawless father-figure, the lie that their inner child desperately wants to believe in, and this time, the lie can go on forever because they do not have to live under the same roof, they will never have to find out that he is not all they imagine him to be.
He appears powerful and without fault, he gives them strict guidelines as to what behaviour will make them gain his approval, because all we want is please our daddies, don't we?
He offers them a second 'upbringing' making them something better than what came out before, a second try for all those who blame their parents for their own misguided lives.
It is really childish to blame parents for all that is wrong in your life. Sure, they give you the basics you work with, but they are not responsible for the decisions you make. Desteni attacking the 'system of parenting' or whatever is nothing but catering to the self-righteous teenager within it's target-audience, that wants their own opinion - that every flaw in their lives is not their own fault but their terrible, tyrannical, weak, selfish parent's doing - repeated to themselves.
Of course they'll believe it. After all, it's what they wanted to hear all along.