Pondering: message to the youth (4)

How is it that the World War II generation became the last real generation? And why is it that I am explaining to you that none of the generations since then have been real generations, but instead fractured parallel partial artificial "generations?" Here is why.

In the 1960's people deviated from generational aspirations in order to "specialize." People felt individual callings that were based on what they felt were high priority issues or behaviors that they wished to pursue. Instead of maintaining a baseline, a foundation of aspirations and priorities, and from there taking on one or more of the new issues, they "branched out" to specialize in that issue (or "Lifestyle Choice"). In other words, suppose each generation is a single giant tree. Instead of taking close looks at branches that need attention, while still understanding that the branch is part of the tree, and relies on the tree for its long term survival, people started to believe that they are on a branch and that branch is independent from the tree. Let's look again at the World War II generation. They had a huge branch, the war, that they had to focus on and attend to. But they never lost their identity as a generation with that entire tree. I don't mean patriotism, I mean their aspirations for peace, home and prosperity. So they could focus on the fighting of the war, but they all still felt the over arching identity of what they hoped to achieve in life. Like I said in my previous post just before this one, even if the aspirations were blocked due to poverty or discrimination, people all still shared the hope and aspirations to achieve those good things. The fighting of World War II did not totally distract that generation from their overall life view.

But as people addressed both the vital and serious (discrimination and civil rights, subsequent conflicts, the global economy, socialism and communism, education, crime, the environment) and the temptations (addictions, free sex, abortions, "anything goes" and alternative lifestyles, consumerism, artistic impulses, the entertainment industry, self empowerment, the occult) they broke apart from their generation and regrouped around specific issues. I'll use some short hand here, and I mean no offense, I'm just trying to explain the dynamics. Instead of "baby boomer generation" you had generation socialist/communist, generation struggle for civil rights, generation make a lot of money, generation hedonism, generation "free spirit," generation entrepreneur, generation against the war, generation earth day, etc etc etc. Individuals broke out of the trunk of the tree of their generation and gathered together in clusters of people who focused only one one or two issues or lifestyle choices.

For example, many who fought for Civil Rights set their target to be, "whatever white people have, we should have too." That's fine if you are talking about wanting to be in a color blind and totally equal society that is not discriminating on racial lines. But the social cohesion of what white society had was dissolving, and while collecting the correct rights such as voting, equal pay, abhorrence of race baiting and violence, education, promotions, housing, equal access of services. those who focused on the Civil Rights struggle inadvertently "followed" branches of the white generational splintering into terrible loses of prior strengths. The black family, which had held together even during the horrors of slavery itself, followed the cadre of the white anti-family generation. The blacks who were once victims of police violence and bullwhips followed the white cadre that formed the "generation drugs and guns." So "baby boomers" of the Civil Rights struggle inadvertently followed the trail of "rights" that led down individual branches of generations that were forged by splinter white groups. Blacks won the right to vote, but they inadvertently demanded, and got, the right to destroy families, have abortions, beat on each other, just like the whites do.

Generation environmental went off into la-la land where animals are "better," "more spiritual," and "more soulful" than human babies. While fighting the good fight for the environment, and I tried to be a leader (but was shut out) in that, I noticed from my position on the tree trunk that many environmentalists had climbed out on a branch and declared that free food and birth control/abortions were the ecological way to end poverty! Many environmentalists lost their love for their neighbor and for the human race. They left the generational tree trunk.

The War in Vietnam and governmental corruption sucked the life of a generation right out of them, for those who could not separate dealing with those issues from still maintaining a balanced world and life view. Instead of being wiser discerners about who to trust, they decided not to trust anyone "in power," and many of them went on to be the untrustworthy power brokers themselves.

I don't need to say anything about generation shake your money maker.

So you see, since World War II there was no generation. People specialized themselves right out of their own generation. They lost common agreement on what it even means to be alive.

No tragedy is a good excuse for abandoning generational human aspirations. Even HIV/AIDS, with all that trauma and loss, was not a good excuse for abandoning a collective humanitarian view based on the goodness of family and community. During World War I there was the terrible Influenza Epidemic that killed something like 17-18 million people (have to check the numbers). Villages were wiped out in the USA and millions dropped and died. Yet people did not stop being members of their generation, of their goodness and cohesiveness in time of need, even as they experienced an inexplicable tsunami of disease. (And remember, antibiotics had not been invented; there was literally nothing that could be medically done for those who came down with this strain of Influenza). Yet after that plague, did any of them run around and say that the Influenza was invented by the Kaiser of Germany, or by Woodrow Wilson, in order to "insert whatever conspiracy theory they might want to believe here." Of course not. Doctors and nurses, police, government workers died in their tracks by the thousands trying to help people with a disease that had no cure or even palliative remedy at all, but the disease did not divide the human family. Who can say this about this "generation?" Don't even get me started about one sub-generation demanding a pill to cure everything, while their neighboring splinter sub-generation wants to sue over every pill and vaccine? No one is pulling together for a quality and reasonable approach to health care, and I don't mean the insurance, I mean the humanitarian aspirations that motivated and inspired all the generations before these sub-generations

So, dear youth, you've really been ripped off. All of you have grown up in a country and time where your parents handed you branches and told you those were the true trees. And for those of you who did grow up in well centered and aspirational generational identities, the consumer and secular society views you as just dummies, but dummies with charge cards and Paypal. You have to constantly resist in order to maintain an aspirational generation cohesiveness at all. A true generation works for individual good within the framework of the greater good - ALL of it, not within fake "specialities" such as "climate change" and "pro choice." You don't recommend cutting off branches under others and even yourselves as the way to "make a better world." A wise generation "follows the money" in order to discern its value and its applications, not to be led by the nose.

I see some positive signals and I pray for more. I hope that this youthful age group cadre can regain a generational identity that is aspirational toward the culture of life. Perhaps this age group cadre can pull together back into a cohesive unit that does not have to agree with each other about specifics, but is constantly working on restoring a positive love of children and of the goodness of life, instead of either "living large and fat on the hog" OR "let's force people into a tiny 'carbon footprint.'"