This generation of kids...

[Baron Kurtz]

That was earlier in this thread, wasn't it? Perhaps in response to the very same post?

Baron Kurtz has made some very insightful comments on the nature of sleep patterns.

 

[Pompidou]

The concept of "part of society" needs to be defined for the sake of the argument as well. From what I've gathered, it's just a measure of conformity. Thankfully, it's not like the 50s as presented in those social-propaganda films I've been watching Mystery Science Theater 3,000 lampoon on YouTube. The level of conformity desired by the authority 60 years ago would lead only to stagnation. It makes us comfortable when we're with others that are like ourselves. I'm not sure the goal should be everyone feeling comfortable.

How compatible are the ideas of "diversity" and "society"? I'm not talking superficial diversity, such as skin color, but diversity at the programming level. How many of the rules we frame as "showing respect" are really just intended to cater to a need to fit in? We do a lot of things simply because people tell us they're the right things to do - without questioning. They form some sort of core of our being. We don't like those foundations being shaken. In reality, the foundation is composed of relatively arbitrary decisions. "You must wear a suit for this," "You address person X as Y during Z," etc. There's no real logic to it all, not like other rules like, "don't steal" and "don't murder".

Is it disrespectful to dress in Hell's Angels/Harley Davidson biker attire to a wedding, for example? It is, if you ask almost anyone. Dress code rules weren't designed with respect in mind. They were invented to clearly distinguish social stratification back when societies were first starting to stratify. I'm all for respect, but one thing I think we should do is really ask why we do the things we do, and if we do them "just because it's what we do", then maybe ask if it's really that important. There are so many useless little rules that don't really accomplish much more than letting people believe "I'm not the only one who thinks the way I do", or something to that effect.

I like to think people can be as different as night and day and still function as a team.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One question might be, "Soldiers must behave strictly because they're in a life-or-death situation. Must athletes? employees? students? How much authority is needed in different situations and why?"

I think any situation where people are working toward a common goal will require a certain level of order and discipline if they're to actually accomplish anything. Ever sit thru a meeting where nobody was in charge? It might be "fun" for the participants with all the goofing around that will happen, but very little will actually be accomplished.

Sports is another good example. A ballplayer who swings away when the bunt sign is on is compromising his team's chances of winning the game -- and when he goes back to the dugout, he shouldn't be shocked when the manager doesn't slap him on the back and say "great try up there!"

Same with employees. I've had direct experience with this -- I had a kid working for me who insisted I constantly adjust the staff schedule to suit *his* needs, his activities, whatever, regardless of the inconvenience it placed on everyone else. Resentments built and built, the other employees couldn't stand him, and I showed him to the sidewalk. I'm not interested in having people around who want the whole operation to revolve around them, because it doesn't.

Students? Well, they're supposed to be learning and acquiring the skills they'll need to sustain themselves in adulthood, right? It's pretty hard to learn anything meaningful if you don't have the discipline to show up for class on time and do the work assigned.

 

[Foofoogal]

I took a whole course once on Authority. It was taught by a Doctor, a specialist of specialist. In the medical field it is necessary (life or death) to know who the authority is at all times.
I do ? a lot as I get older as to why it comes so easy to me. I do think it is because of the example of our Father. We knew he was in charge. I respected and adored him.
It is as simple to me as I may not want to stop at stop signs but it is a necessary thing for all.
I completely believe people desire and even crave structure. Some more than others.
This may even speak into politics and/or people who have whole followings left or right.
I do believe in self expression but when it completely intrudes on others for one to have that expression at a point it is bad and I mean really bad. I have seen it.
One rotten kid left to themselves can ruin most any event or family even. Amazing really. I personally do not blame it on the kid though. Exceptions of course.

 

[Undertow]

Pompidou, I've seen many of those films (I'm a big MST3k fan), and after reading your post, I wonder if there is a simple reason for the way those films paint "society".

Imagine post WWII when 18 year old boys returned to the farm as 20 year old men who had witnessed the savage, brutal aspects of European genocide. Many of them experienced PTSD, called shell shock at the time. Many, like my grandfather, were wounded multiple times and returned to the farm, simple country bumpkins no more.

So I wonder if that "mass militirization" didn't seep in to the overall psyche of the country. I also wonder if the resulting PTSD, and other maladies, didn't require the simplicity of a repressed, disciplined society in order for some men to keep sane.

 

[Feraud]

MST3K is a comedy program with the intent of making fun of whatever movie they show.
We should not take a few films out of context and generalize a decade.
Television makes a bad history teacher.

 

[Michael Carter]

"I'm all for individualism as long as we all do it together!"

...Maj. Frank Burns

 

[LizzieMaine]

One generation's "repressiveness" is another generation's "self control."

 

[Undertow]

MST3K is a comedy program with the intent of making fun of whatever movie they show.
We should not take a few films out of context and generalize a decade.
Television makes a bad history teacher.

Sorry if I implied that I took the MST3k movies as historical sources (including the movies they were lampooning). I was just using them as a segue for musing on the possiblity that a relatively rigid code of conduct (relative to today's code of conduct) may have been a result of things such as PTSD, mass military service, etc.

One generation's "repressiveness" is another generation's "self control."

Yes, sorry for the word choice; repressed has a pretty negative conotation. The coffee hasn't kicked in!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Pompidou, I've seen many of those films (I'm a big MST3k fan), and after reading your post, I wonder if there is a simple reason for the way those films paint "society".

Imagine post WWII when 18 year old boys returned to the farm as 20 year old men who had witnessed the savage, brutal aspects of European genocide. Many of them experienced PTSD, called shell shock at the time. Many, like my grandfather, were wounded multiple times and returned to the farm, simple country bumpkins no more.

So I wonder if that "mass militirization" didn't seep in to the overall psyche of the country. I also wonder if the resulting PTSD, and other maladies, didn't require the simplicity of a repressed, disciplined society in order for some men to keep sane.

I think you can go back even further. The recklessness of the twenties was seen by most people as a major contributing factor to the Depression: hedonism in personal life led easily to hedonistic investing habits, buying stocks with money that didn't actually exist. There's nothing like a near-complete collapse of the economic structure to impress the value of self-control on a nation that had forgotten how to stay out of trouble.

 

[Undertow]

I think you can go back even further. The recklessness of the twenties was seen by most people as a major contributing factor to the Depression: hedonism in personal life led easily to hedonistic investing habits, buying stocks with money that didn't actually exist. There's nothing like a near-complete collapse of the economic structure to impress the value of self-control on a nation that had forgotten how to stay out of trouble.

I'm certain America wasn't as involved in WWI as they were in WWII - but couldn't one argue that the same thing occured in both generations? Namely, a militarized population comes home, lives a relatively rigid life, the kids go berserk and become philistines, ruin it all for everyone, we experience a time of hardship, bounce back and do it all over again?

That's more of a mold, and our current situation and past situations don't quite fit the mold, but do you believe some of that premise has merit?

 

[LizzieMaine]

There certainly does seem to be a pattern there, but I think today's generation is different in that the WW1 generation, born in the 1880s-90s and the WW2 generation, born in the 1910s-early 20s came out of very different cultural backgrounds than the current era. Most of those earlier generations grew up with self-control impressed upon them as one of the cardinal virtues -- at home, in school, in church, in the Scouts, wherever a kid came in contact with authority figures. So it was much easier for them to return to that philosophy once they'd had their fling. Today's generation, raised for the most part by post-counterculture boomers, didn't come out of that background at all -- and increasingly have little to no contact with anyone who did -- and consequently finds it alien and scary.

As for the boomers themselves? Well, they were the first generation of kids to be raised as much by the mass media as they were by their parents. And the generations since, even more so. It's never been in the interests of the mass media to encourage self control.

 

[Fletch]

Another difference is that WW2 was total war in a way WW1 wasn't.
WW1 was mechanized war, but WW2 was scientifically managed war.
Training methods, homefront sacrifices, mass mobilization - all had a much deeper effect on even the non-combatant and non-military populations.
Upshot: civilian, postwar life was much more militarized after WW2 than after WW1. And one might argue it remained so during the Cold War.

Even before WW1, industrial and business life had been remade by scientific management: Taylorism and Fordism.
Shop foremen and top sergeants didn't hand out maxims of wisdom, humility and fair play the way scoutmasters and ministers did. Their authority no longer pretended to any higher principle - it justified itself - good and hard.

Upshot of upshot: the ideal of self-control began, gradually and quietly, to incorporate the ideal of outward control. One showed one's self-control less often by adherence to ideals or creeds, but by obedience to institutions and hierarchies.

 

[Foofoogal]

History repeats itself is what we learned and if it walks like a duck....

The main difference now is the globalization of us all IMHO.
Growing pains or catastrophe I think it is ridiculous thought to think people just flat don't think differently. Even from state to state from subtle differences to major ones.
Once upon a time people sort of knew the rules at least here in the USA and all I can speak of or from, Now they are so all over the board no one knows how to act. Running the gamut from those really trying hard to get with (the) program to those being fearful to those saying up ( you know what.)

So reminds me of when I raised chickens and the Roosters fought for dominance. I do understand completely what Undertow is saying as I had Depression era parents with a Dad lost in the jungles and then found during WW11 and I am a baby boomer.
Definitely a seriousness came into being just like a seriousness came out of Vietnam.

It all falls back to me from the Authority of the Bible. Judeo Christian values and morals influenced greatly and still does IMHO.
I also think even the ones that like to sin ( by their own definition) as if there is no tomorrow still want it all. Gives them comfort knowing it is still there. Tomorrow brings a whole new tomorrow.

 

[Undertow]

Religion was an aspect I was politely trying to avoid, but now that Foofoogal brings it up, it begs the question how important religious dogma/philosophy/morals play in American society and in this discussion.

Perhaps religion is the deciding variable, above and beyond society's "requirements"? It certainly would play into Fletch's "obedience to institutions and hierarchies".

 

[Fletch]

shhhhhhhh I'll fall back on the musicians' code: never discuss religion, politics, or intonation.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, I'm not interested in discussing sectarian religion, because I don't participate in it -- but of course religion has played a part in shaping how our culture views work and such. It goes without saying, once you consider the role of the Puritans and their descendants have had in shaping the history of the country.

I think, too, the *rejection* of those traditional views on work and order has a lot to do with religion. There are many people today who are so put off by anything "religious", for whatever reasons of their own they may have, that they reject any belief or value system that has any religious derivation or association at all. "The Protestant Work Ethic? Phooey on that, I'm an agnostic!" But in doing so they become as much a slave to their own dogma as the religious follower is to his.

I was raised by hard boiled Methodists -- but the concept of "work or you'll go to hell" was never a part of what I was taught. I don't know any religion that teaches that. Instead, work and self control and orderliness were presented as positive virtues, but never in the sense of "you better do what God says or else." Rather, it was presented as a matter of "do this because it makes sense. Nobody wants to place an unfair burden on their fellow man. Nobody respects anyone who places an unfair burden on their fellow man. If your neighbor is having trouble carrying his share of the load, you have an obligation to help him -- c. f. the Good Samaritan -- but be sure you're also carrying YOUR own share so your neighbor won't have to carry you." I still hold to those views today, even though I stopped going to Sunday School when I got in trouble for drinking the communion grape juice out of turn.

 

[Mark D]

I'd like to share an observation here. I'm someone who knows many homeschooling families.

Most of the ills that we see among today's generation; i.e. selfishness, rudeness, lack of responsibility,etc...are, in general, significantly diminished among the homeschooling community. These kids are polite, helpful, industrious and well mannered. It's really amazing to behold.

I leads me to suspect that the root of the problem is having taken the raising of children out of the home.

 

[Pompidou]

One problem is that society is afraid to blame parents for anything. If a child misbehaves, first we blame internet, TV, movies, music and video games, and then we say, "ADD" and parent them with Ritalyn tranquilizers. Hold parents accountable for bad parenting. Stop scapegoating every sort of media. Then we'll have better behaved kids. To the defense of the parents, though, rare is the household that can live on a single income. In a world of two working parents, how can you really expect kids to be raised anywhere but outside the home - by media, teachers, peers, etc? There's no single bad guy here. The biggest problem is remaining intentionally myopic and shoveling all the blame onto the latest hit video game. Sure, it gives congressmen a nice soundbite, provides an "answer" to the problem, and doesn't offend the voters, but it's all empty rhetoric. If there's a problem, it needs real solutions - largely, a stay at home parent, and higher incomes for the working parent. I don't particularly like that idea, because I fear it'll bring back all the sexism inherent in the days where that was a norm, but there are no easy answers.

 

[StetsonHomburg]

That depends on where you live. You didn't find 12 year old drug addicts in the 1950s either.:eusa_doh:

Drugs everywhere I turn in school these days, I dont even know most of those things, acid, cocaine?
For god sake the society today is one of the reasons I like the 20's and 30's!