When I grew up, persecution was a dark and powerful force--the frightening oppression of a group of people whose origins, race, class system, or religion were systematically abused by those in power.

But today if you’re an American teenager, you can easily own a share of such suffering.

We know that the narrative of suffering is one of literature’s most enduring archetypes. Nearly every fairy tale or legend has at its core an element of persecution. Whether it’s Cinderella herself, rapper Eminem, or the narrator in Dave Pelzer’s bestseller A Child Called It, the suffering narrative speaks to teenagers in particular because, by comparison, they probably feel relieved to know that their own lives are not as lousy they thought.  

Lately, however, the suffering narrative has become a slick marketing campaign for everything from LGBT power to a cheaply made T-shirt. Apparently, whatever you want to sell to teenagers, especially an ideology, is best sold when it’s shrink wrapped in persecution. 

My high school students have no idea how to die.

How do I know? In class this week we’re reading an old school emo poem with the puzzling Greek title “Thanatopsis.” A seventeen year-old poet named William Cullen Bryant wrote his “vision of death” in 1813, a time when teenagers were apparently thinking about death more often than their modern peers. With the Puritan legacy in his rear view mirror, he defies the Christian worldview of his ancestors and basically says that when you die, that’s it. Young Bryant suggests that you shouldn’t worry about dying because you will join the gazillion other corpses rotting underground who are part of one big annihilated family—and he feels this should be rather comforting to you.

Quite frankly, it isn’t.