Teaching young people to follow a philosophy of life, not fads

And how to stand for, rather than against, something

A crowd of Millennials sang along with Green Day during their latest tour to celebrate both their albums, Dookie, released 30 years ago, and American Idiot, released 20 years ago. During the title song of the latter, American Idiot, Billie Joe, the lead singer, switched up the lyrics on his fans: instead of singing “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda,” he sang “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda.” What followed this switch-up was not all that surprising: cheers erupted.

American Idiot was released during the post-9/11 Bush Jr. years, a time when many young people raged against the war in Iraq and President Bush himself. “American Terrorist” t-shirts adorning Bush’s face were common, and songs spewing anger at the war and the general tenor of the United States at the time were blaring from cars across America. I was bumping along to Eminem, others to Green Day. 

Post-9/11 ballads were set in a specific time in history, but they shared sentiments towards government actions and subsequent cultural responses that are not new or unique to the Bush years. The song “American Idiot,” specifically its message about the media invoking hysteria, could be sung at any given point since 9/11, and be directed at any given cable news outlet.  But artists like Green Day are blind to this fact. 

I don’t pretend to know their politics because I don’t pay much attention to them, but Billie Joe seemingly skipped from anger at President Bush to anger at President Trump without noticing similar media hysteria invoked under the banners of President Obama or President Biden. 

Billie Joe’s underlying philosophy is inconsistent and, if I had to guess, so is the philosophy of the cheering fans. 

Young people—and adults, if we’re going to be honest—are easily swayed one way or another by celebrities, politicians, and the crowds they find themselves in because they lack a deeply rooted philosophy of life—of what is good and morally right. Green Day, who I’m using as a symbol of a larger problem, stands against Republicans and rednecks, the latter of which he is now referring to as MAGA, and the media who spreads hysteria in their name. They don’t stand for a more honest and open media environment, because if they did they would insert a moniker of the current administration, whose media allies are just as good at invoking hysteria, into their song.

To be sure, Green Day is just a band who puts on a theatrical show, thus Billie Joe could have simply assessed the politics of his fanbase and switched up the lyrics to appease them and receive applause in return. And he did. Their concert, nonetheless, shows that when young people lack a philosophical framework, or objective values as C.S. Lewis referred to them, they simply follow along with the crowd or share the opinions of their favorite band.

Niall Ferguson and Jacob Howland, in a recent Atlantic article, argue that, upon stepping foot on campus, college freshmen should be introduced to the life of the mind—an aim, arguably the aim, of a college education—by taking a core set of courses with the intent of building their intellectual foundation. One of the readings they recommend is Plato’s Apology because it is a story of “heroes who seek to tame the dark forces of aggression and appetite.” 

I agree that young people should read this piece of writing but for different reasons and at a younger age.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates, who is on trial for offending the gods and corrupting the youth, defends his philosophical life—his love of wisdom and pursuit of the truth. In the dialogue, he delivered the now famous line: “the unexamined life is not worth living for men.” He refused to live a quiet life absent of discussion because he believed to do so would be to disobey “the god” who he claims has called him to be a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, and because he believed that the greatest good of man was to discuss virtue and how to live a virtuous life every day. 

Socrates’ defense of his convictions led to the sentence of death. 

Young people, upon entering adolescence, should read the Apology because the dialogue invites them to ponder what it means to have deeply held beliefs, convictions so strong and down to the core of one’s being and purpose in life that they are willing to stand up in front of a jury of their peers and defend them, even if that means they may be severely punished for holding them.

Young people should read the dialogue Crito, the sequel, if you will, to the Apology, for the same reason. In Crito, a friend of Socrates conceives of a path to freedom for him and tries to convince him to flee Athens to avoid death. Socrates would simply need to travel to another city, but he refused. Instead, he accepted his sentence because he was convicted through the legal system of Athens, and, as he asserts, using his typical method of questioning, that by not accepting the verdicts of the court, he would be destroying the Athenian people, the city’s laws, and the city itself. In his mind, a city and its people cannot survive if laws are meaningless and verdicts have no force.

One can argue, in Athens and in the modern world, that some laws are unjust and therefore so are the verdicts handed down in the name of those laws. But the point of reading Crito is to further the question: what beliefs do you hold so deeply that you would face punishment even when you know there's a path available to avoid that punishment?

Deeply held beliefs grow, ideally, from a tradition followed in one’s family life that are reinforced within their community. But reading works like the Apology and Crito in school at the cusp of entering adolescence aids young people in pondering the belief system that has been embedded in them through their home-life and how they will defend those beliefs when faced with the inevitable pull to follow the group, the “in-crowd.”

Green Day is just a band, and the concert goers were there simply to have fun. I have used them as an example because the anti-MAGA lyrics that everyone cheered for is an example of a larger problem: inconsistency in thought; a lack of deeply held beliefs through which to form opinions about political questions or other, deeper, philosophical questions. Whether in one’s home, in one’s community, or at school, there ought to be a place where young people, before venturing as adults to college or out into the world, form and learn to adhere to and articulate their philosophical framework, their deeply held beliefs.