Was Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz Just Another Unstable Youth?

“Don’t trust anyone over 30” was the jocular injunction uttered by Jack Weinberg during the 1964 Free Speech Movement at the University of California in Berkeley.

      He wasn’t speaking in absolute terms, but only in a general sense.  Students were relatively free from cultural restraints, under the mind control of very liberal faculty, and less tethered to the workaday cares of the adult world.

      Weinberg would have trusted the Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, but then again so did all the passengers and crew of Flight 9525 as he locked himself in the cockpit on that fateful day last week.  I couldn’t have been the only one whose first impression was his young age (just 27) and lack of experience (only 630 flying hours).  No structured military flying at all.

      Former Burger King employee Lubitz was not that long out of amateur pilot status to be entrusted alone and Goldfinger-like with so many innocent lives.  He knew how to dress stylishly and attain the usual symbols of middle-class material success.  But to what extent was he the poster child of young people across the globe today?

     Well, it’s now commonplace to talk about adolescence being extended almost into middle age.  Students marry later and sow their wilds oats later than they used to, perhaps going on to graduate school simply to postpone the inevitable period of reckoning.  Many move back in with their parents—and not just the sullen, withdrawn young Hikikomori of Japan that I wrote about earlier.

      Lubitz was not unlike youth everywhere.  Parents these days tend to both work long hours, leaving children adrift to learn values from friends and media.  Church is typically not attended and families are scattered too much to influence each other.  Education emphasizes computing fun and sports, while reading and writing is minimalized.  The lessons of literature and history are thinly encountered.  Where then does a young person’s moral compass come from?

     As we know, the PTSD service industry has gone well beyond attempting to care for the truly combat disabled (as I’ve previously argued) when it comes to claims of mental illness.  It’s not that hard to hide in the general population.  Most people have symptoms now and then during the course of normal life.  But many veterans simply don’t want to be burdened with having mental illness on their employment records—so refuse to pursue the lifetime “disability check” that acts as a government carrot.

      Lubitz was smart enough not to be “too honest” and forthcoming when it comes to employment matters and career tracking.  But was he just part of a trend toward smart and well-dressed young people who are having trouble moving into adulthood without a proper moral rudder?