Are Millennials as Incompetent as They Seem? A popular debate in opinion articles now is whether or not the assumption that millennials are the worst generation ever raised is entirely accurate. Julie Lythcott-Haims wrote an article in the New York Times in December about this called “Millennials Will Soon Define ‘America,’ and That’s a Problem for Ideas” arguing that millennials will be extremely detrimental to society. Then on the other hand, Kathy McCartney wrote an opinion piece in December, also in The New York Times, called “Today’s Students Have a New Way of Looking at Free Speech”, where she argues that millennials are more open minded than they seem. While there is no right or wrong answer to the ongoing question of if the next generation …show more content…
She writes “We don’t have the right to be offended,” so she is showing what is within and outside of our rights as citizens. This is a factual claim because it is specifically restating what is in the Constitution. However, this appeal could have been more effective if the writer had cited where in the law this was stated. She also makes the claim that the civil rights movement provides direct evidence that free speech is important, for if there was no free speech in the 1960s, the government would still be systematically repressing an entire race. This claim that McCartney makes is extremely …show more content…
She uses a lot of emotionally charged words and figurative language that makes the reader picture a twenty-four-year-old sitting on the couch stuffing his ears because someone made a joke about him. One of the biggest appeals to her readers’ emotions was when she writes that millennials were presented with “the original episodes of Sesame Street with this warning: ‘Intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.’ If Oscar the Grouch is too mean, is America still America?” Lythcott-Haims uses this example to get her readers to believe that millennials aren’t even able to watch Sesame Street, but what she neglects to include is that the original episodes include themes like leaving with strangers and other topics that really are inappropriate for children, One of the strongest tactics Lythcott-Haims’ has is that she makes the readers nervous about what will happen to America once millennials are running the