The Fragile Future: How We Built a Generation Unfit for Reality is a stark manifesto on the cultural, educational, and societal choices that created a generation unprepared for the demands of real life. Richard Sweeney examines how comfort replaced challenge, how medication replaced resilience, and how indulgence replaced discipline—producing young adults who are coddled, anxious, and unfit to face criticism, responsibility, or hardship. Through sharp cultural analysis, Sweeney traces the roots of fragility: from helicopter parenting and grade inflation, to the digital cocoon of smartphones and social media, to workplaces forced to lower standards in the face of rising sensitivity. He contrasts this with the toughness and accountability demanded by earlier generations, showing the widening gap between leaders forged in adversity and workers raised on praise and protection. This book is not an attack on youth but a call to society: to stop weakening the very people who will inherit the world. If the future is fragile, it is because we built it that way. And unless we return to truth, discipline, and resilience, we risk handing down a legacy of collapse.
