More of a gap than there should be
Posted on July 17, 2006 - Filed Under Uncategorized
Virtually anyone has heard a conversation or two regarding how their generation was better or had it better than the current one. The basic feeling of these talks is condescending and dismissive. The interesting thing is that, although they may not form together in groups, young people often have the same kind of notions regarding older folks; in fact, the older the people being complained about, the more pronounced and abrasive these attitudes.
I don’t think the older folks appreciate their own roles in creating the current generation. Common is the idea that we must protect this thing or that for the sake of our children. Well, my question is, if things are so bad now and you viewed it as your responsibility to ensure against this supposed devolution, then do you not bear at least some level of responsibility? In other words, if the previous generation allowed certain things to transpire which they knew could develop into something undesirable, how can they be so self-righteous and claim it’s all about how the youngsters have it wrong? Any sociologist worth anything will tell you that generations are interconnected and that influence spreads bidirectionally. The younger generations throughout all of human history are the byproducts of those which came before, whether it be genetically, intellectually, culturally, or materially. Therefore, it is logically impossible to level an indictment against the young’ns without also recognizing the culpability of the old farts.
Us young people have no idea how important it is to talk to those who are older than us and to know how things used to be. We are so caught up in work, family, keeping up with the neighbors, and the pursuit of things which are just not worth it that we forget these people have a great deal of experience from which we could glean wisdom. Suppose you’re talking to your grandparents one day and they begin to reminisce about their childhoods. Grandpap tells you about how he and his friends used to spend all day in the cornfield next to the house playing hide and seek; Grandma used to care for her goat, milking it in the morning and, if she didn’t want to sew a new dress, would accompany it out to pasture, maybe stopping for a dip in the creek along the way. When they grew up and had kids, they would go into town once, maybe twice, a week to shop for that which allowed the house to function. It took a little while because they would have to go the store which sold the food and then to the one when Papa could pick up that saw blade he needed and to yet another when Mama suggested they stop for a special treat of locally produced ice cream. Fast forward to present day: Dad works on Saturday, because he feels he needs to (”We really need that bigger house, second expensive car, and Junior needs to go to the most prestigous school.”), Mama goes to the Wal-Mart and buys everything the family needs (the vast majority of it having come from a foreign country), Sally is participating in organized sports (although she’s told her parents she’d rather not), and Johnny is spending an inordinate amount of time calculating how to come up with the best science project so he can a get a leg up on the competition (his competitors being a bunch of fellow sixth graders).
No generation is better than another. Each is faced with challenges, some of which are heroic (e.g. The Greatest Generation and their rise over the planned global domination by Hitler) and others which are more subtle (e.g. the current widespread problem of obesity, especially among children). Despite the differences, we really ought to try and understand one another, appreciate what the others have to offer, and stop focusing on what we consider to be the negative characteristics. There’s probably enough positive stuff that if you spent the rest of your life learning about it, you still wouldn’t get to the end; who has time to spend on the negative?
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Remember it was our generation that protested the war in Vietnam as unjust. Unfortunately the vets who came home were treated badly. We also caused a president not to run for a second term. We were the generation that marched with Dr. Martin Leuther King for Civil Rights, We had a president who ask what you could do for your country and not what it could do for you. He and congress also made it possible for students who could not go to college a chance because of loans. Now they are cutting them. We also brought to focus the environment and made wooded lots seem better. i feel the country needed to change and it did, hopefully many wrongs will be righted by your generation.
Well, as is with all generations, the accomplishments of your’s were certainly not all positive. While some members were protesting the war, others were willing participants in the My Lai massacre, an event that still brings disgrace upon the U.S. nearly 40 years later. Regarding presidents, members of your generation could be viewed as largely responsible for the re-election of the current president, someone who is being accused in some circles of very serious criminal offenses, much more serious than Nixon’s. James Earl Ray, a member of your generation, was the convicted and confessed murderer of Dr. King. Our generation elected a president who is largely credited with turning the largest budget deficit in history into a surplus. I can’t argue that your generation brought environmental issues to the fore; our’s however brought issues like genocide to that same place (what was the response from this nation, it’s people and/or it’s government, to the activities of the Kamer Rogue, which inicidently killed as estimated 1.7 million people?). I really don’t think any one generation can marginalize the importance and contribution of another; as I said in the original post, we really ought to learn from and value one another.