An Army of One free essay sample

Twenge begins her argument by explaining that before the 1960’s, â€Å"self-esteem† did not have a pronounced role in the average life. Most people as Twenge explained learned at a very early age that recognizing others as opposed to only recognizing oneself, was much more important. In addition to this dating back hundreds of years ago, people had very little say in the decisions that were made in one’s own life. Who one married, what one’s job was, what one’s religious affiliation was-these were all decisions made by one’s parents. Slowly but surely however, as time went on people began more and more to become more individualistic and make decisions for themselves. The Baby Boomers as Twenge describes, in the 1970’s were the first real generation to truly focus on â€Å"meaning and self-fulfillment†. Despite that this is true, Twenge makes the argument that the boomers are not in fact the â€Å"real† Generation Me because they were not born into a world with these ideologies, but instead later explored it. We will write a custom essay sample on An Army of One or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In addition to this, the boomers generally did most things in groups and not on their own and therefore, are not considered to be Generation Me. Twenge then compares the two generations and how the two groups differentiate. The reader is able to see how being born into an environment where you are raised with the ideas of having to have high self-esteem leads to entitlement more self-absorbed people (GenMe) versus trying to fulfill oneself on ones own. The importance of having a high self-esteem has become very significant in the 80’s and 90’s and Twenge truly exemplifies through songs, children’s books and TV shows throughout her essay. Twenge then shows how this almost has a negative effect as kids are becoming less competitive and grade inflation has even reached its highest. Twenge continues on by discussing the self-esteem programs and how they relate to lower grades among students. It is important to acknowledge the fact that she is not saying it is a bad thing to have high self esteem, she just simply believes kids need to learn to have it for accomplishing things on their own-similar to the ways of the baby boomers.