In a round about way you proved my point. You have the intelligence and foresight to see that education is important. Massive budget cutbacks shows that majority of population does not think it is important.

It is partially society’s value system that causes people to want to advance true. But the milkman example. Lets say hypothetically 100 years ago there was milkman who had potential to become a brilliant mathematician, but he was poor. It would be next to impossible for him to get a higher education. He would have the same ideas as his father who was a milkman :).

The potential milkman protege will be able to get a scholarship for university. While in university he will meet other smart people. His entire outlook on things will change. Also mathematics because of encryption etc, is an important field. So he will be able to get a job which occupies his mind etc (at the same time paying much more then milkman, and him doing far less work). After being in university and starting his new job, he will find out that the people he grew up with, no longer have anything in common with him. He has grown while they are still the same.

The gov’t does not dumb down people, most people dumb themselves down. There is more free information out there then ever before. I can go online, and for free (and legally), download university books, course material etc, all for free. And almost any info i want can be found on the net for free in minutes.

Tools change the game for sure. But I think we all agree here that there have been honorable and dishonorable people making their mark in all of our generations regardless of the tools their culture had/have available to them.

The effects of near instant communications will play out as one of the more important aspects of the upcoming leaders.

One of our biggest problems (way back then) was realizing that the mores and institutions of our fathers were flawed. I know that it took me many years to understand that times had changed so much.

Times have changed. We hope for better.

The greatest difference, in my opinion, is the framework from which each of these groups did and are making their contributions. In my day, admittedly an overly ambitious and realistically challenged group, the major motivation was to break the bonds of the deadly culture that had come before and had run its course. Such a goal demanded dramatic and sweeping actions. However, such actions, to be culturally institutionalized required an organized and systematic followup that really wasn’t in place during the “age of Aquarius.” The great risk was in daring to do different things and to be different in how we saw the world, our forefathers, and what was the greatest area of need that we perceived. I know that I was so full of anger and frustration at the world of the 50s and its smug self satisfaction, hypocracy, self-rightousness and rabid nationalism that all I could do was to react in anger and immediate action against the system.

The young people I see today have another process and thus another way of making the change. I don’t feel the anger from my children that I saw in my youth. My kids don’t see me as corrupt or hypocritical, but they do realize that much of what I did could only be sustained for a short period. As honorably motivated as it might be, there was not rational underpinning for it to survive. The kids today, and I can realistically call both Boomers and Gen Xers kids, have both a technological and political/sociological awareness that we didn’t. Thus, they can and are making changes that are both positive and negative, but are solid and active, but not as spectacular in their format as in my day.

One need only look at Carl Rove to see the innovative and active change that he has provided for the country. In my view it has been sick and demented, but no one can discount his skill and innovation. On the other hand, looking to Bill Gates, we see someone who is making real contributions toward the benefit of the larger culture. Beyond that, one can see countless examples of young people who are challenging the current paradigms of energy, economics, politics, sociology, and many other areas by taking an active and strong part in the system, championing it, rather than dropping out.

I am very impressed with the dynamic level of discourse that takes place in this blog, for example. In my day, we did not have the tools for this kind of ongoing and, imagine, international discussion. We didn’t even have cell phones. Life was much more direct, but much less supported by technologies that would move the agenda forward in an ever deepening manner.

I’ll end with a short story that I told one of my sons today. In the late 60s, I can’t remember the year right now and am too lazy to look it up, there was an anti-war revolt in San Francisco, starting at the state university and spreading through much of the city. The police were traveling in groups attempting to quell the activities, but had a difficult time making it happen. They couldn’t figure out why the hippies always seemed to know where the police were going and would simply get out of their way, moving on to another place to erupt in anger again.

The police never noticed that on almost every street corner there was a folk singer or a poet in recitation. They were ignored because they seemed to be of little importance. They never got it that these street artists were giving musical and poetical signals about what the “pigs” were up to, giving the main body of rioters notice. It was ingenius, but very low tech. Today, in only one day, a blogger for Ron Paul organized a $4,000,000 campaign. People are truly tuned in today, even if it is for someone I really disagree with like Paul, at a very sophisticated and effective level. They didn’t just make that happen. they live in a time where they are masters of technological tools that we never had.

Almost all of us elder hippies are now bald(ing), nearly toothless, partially deaf, almost blind, and fondly remember the words to “Hey Jude”.

Rock my world with this new generation of smarter than I movers and shakers.

I remember when I went to Africa, and how terribly important relationships were there. Nothing is more important than other people in that culture. Now, you and I would sometimes feel very out of place and take many things as odd, or downright bad - punctuality is not something to be recognized, nor is it something people strive for. If you’re having a conversation with someone, you don’t cut it short because you need to be somewhere. Wherever you need to be can wait. Also, people have no problem asking for something if they need it. It seems rude to us, but that’s just the way it is. People help each other if they can, and if you’re perceived to have something that I could use and you don’t need, I’ll ask if I can have it.

I also look at the rest of Western civilization: most of Europe is far less work-centric than we. The French have a higher productivity rate per capita, yet they work far less. Well, in truth I can see this amongst my coworkers. There are hard workers with whom I work, but they are the exception. Generally 20% of the employees do 80% of the work. I know many of my coworkers don’t spend every hour at work actually working, and I cannot say that I myself am not guilty of it. But I can’t help but wonder how much more we’d get accomplished if only we just had a little more time away? When you think in terms of how valuable a human life is, it’s hard to reconcile spending so many hours of your life doing something that you don’t love. When do we have time to not work, but just be? Granted with my commute, I’m probably a little jaded.

Made my night.
/p

My generation was stifled by the weight of a culture that preached freedom, honesty, religiosity, hard work, following the rules, gender status in relationships, and of course, recognizing that gay/black/brown/yellow/red/female was a condition that was either a legitimate brunt of jokes, a reason to become violent (if he/she/it became uppity), or simply to be ignored (after all, they really only want to be like us . . . but can’t). All this was covered over like too much mayonaise, with a deep sense of dishonesty that threatened real violence if you strayed from the defined path. You had better conform or you would really pay.

My generation broke out of a world that was overwhelmingly cluttered with racism, sexism, homophobia, religious classism, and general ignorance of the realitys of politics, sex, and relationship. We lived in a time that was quite like a blemish that had come to a head and needed to be purged. The reaction was large, flamboyant, angry and out of control. Most importantly, it also carried many of the ills of our fathers with it as it moved forward.

I agree that much of the sentiment was “love is all you need,” but we must not forget the white male dominant sentiments of the 60s that included “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” The sixties were a great time for all of us males who wanted to get laid . . . and we did. There were many great changes that took place, but at a cost.

I say this, not to put the 60s down, but to realize that whenever we get the notion of change in our minds, we must begin to realize that we bring the norms of the culture we grew up in with us. That being the case, we present the canvass for those who follow to study and pick answers to move forward with. My father was a nose to the grindstone type, who died far too young and never really got the picture of how to relate to my mother, the political world, the sexual world, or any of the other movements in the world. He was stuck in a value system that was no longer viable. I, and others in the generation, objected to that and found our ways to react. However, we carried much of what we learned along with us.

People of color needed freedom, but down deep inside, we thought that what they really wanted was to be white. Women were magnificent, but it was really hard not to sexually objectify them, gays are ok, but make sure you keep your back to the wall and don’t bend over to pick up any dropped change. We had our monsters inside us.

Our instincts were good. Our methods were often, flawed. But without our stumbling around in the middle of the 20th century, the many wonderful things that our children have accomplished would perhaps, never have happened.

I am so proud of what my children represent, with both their flaws and magnificent talents. As a man in the twilight of my life, I have more optimism than I did back then. It is tempered with a realization of the challenge of real change, but I know that there is good being promoted and accomplished in the world. Yes, there is apathy, corporatist thinking, brutality and insensitivity. But there was in my time as well. We had wars in which millions of people died, and women, people of color, and gays “knew their places,” and life was not “good.”

So I say to you boomers, Gen Xers and slackers, onward. You will find the answers that you need to progress. You will have those who will stand out as agents of progress and you will have those who cause you embarrassment. Lord knows I do. And you will have moments when you look at yourselves and wonder if you are forwarding or holding back the agenda. I have had my high points and also the times when I fell in the bait tank at Art’s Landing, or my kids discovered the “brownies” I had in my freezer and got loaded just because they were hungry. . . . ahh me.

Onward. I love you.

I am 100% in agreement with everything you say, with the notable exception of the Ron Paul jazz (I, as well, am completely frustrated by the spineless and wobbly Dumbocrats) - the challenge I have is the views of the Libertarians right below the surface of pop-politics. Their notion of an utterly unrestrained capitalist society, combined with a weakened, or even non-existent, federal government is as dangerous as the corporatocracy that we enjoy now. If you took the jealously-guarded Constitutional views of the Libertarians with an appropriate, focused and controlled federal government I think we’d really have something… but I’m not sure that I see Ron Paul as an example of this.

Neither, however, do I for the Dems, where the popularly defined range of views and blatant pandering by most of the current candidates is frustrating. I’m curious why you don’t reference either Kocinich or Chris Dodd… they are outside the mainstream and more aligned with how I’d take your views… am I mistaken?