Sean McDowell's reflections on the entitlement culture are featured in today's Culture Briefs:

If you were going to give a label for the generation of under-35-year-olds, what would it be? ... San Diego State professor Jean Twenge ... has aptly offered the name "Generation Me." ...

Young people today have grown up in a culture that takes it for granted that they should feel good about themselves, that they are special, and that they ought to follow our own personal dreams regardless of the cost to others.

The rise of "self-esteem" as the primary value in America's education system has puzzled me since my days covering schools in north Georgia nearly 20 years ago. The indulgence of "self-esteem" is directly contrary to what we know about child development.

A child begins life with a completely egocentric worldview -- a hungry or tired baby will cry until his demands are met, without regard for the feelings of others. In truth, an infant does not even understand that objects have a separate existence outside his own perception of them. This is why a baby so often will cry when his mother leaves the room: To the infant's mind, the absent mother has ceased to exist, and the infant has no understanding of the likelihood of her return.

It is the object of child-rearing and education to expand the child's horizons beyond such narrow limits. One of the most important lessons, is to teach the child that other people have needs, desires and feelings which must be considered in fairness. The child who fails to learn this lesson will grow up to be willful, selfish and cruel, because he will lack an understanding of the full humanity of others.

Viewed in this light, then, the contemporary emphasis on "self-esteem" in education is a perfect recipe for creating a generation of monsters. For if one's feelings about oneself are the primary consideration, other people have no value except so far as they serve to enhance one's self-esteem. People are thus reduced to instruments to be manipulated, and the humane basis for social cooperation is destroyed.

This fundamental flaw with the contemporary pedagogic emphasis on "self-esteem" is so obvious, one wonders how it ever could have been overlooked.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times