Both Ed Weick and Arthur Cordell have touched upon an important issue which
we oldies scarcely pay attention to. This is that, increasingly, modern
society is not able to welcome young people into their ranks and give them
the status that they so desperately need.
I'll append the relevant paragraphs from their messages below, but let me
just abstract a snatch from each for now:
(EW)
<<<<
What do the kids think they know that the rest of us don't? What do they
think is being taken away from them?
>>>>
(AC quoting Hans Moravec)
<<<<
As societal roles become yet more complex, specialized, and far removed
from our inborn predispositions, they [young people] require increasing
years of rehearsal to master, while providing fewer visceral rewards.
>>>>
Ed asks the question, Hans Moravec supplies the answer. From 14-16 or
thereabouts, young people are fully adult in a physical and hormonal sense.
They feel as adult as we feel. And yet an increasing proportion have no
possibility of being incorporated into "normal" economic society because it
is becoming increasingly arcane and invisible. It is no wonder that,
according to their predispositions and accidents of life, that an
increasing proportion of them fling themselves into activities which are
quite separate from (and, ideally, highly annoying to) adults -- crime,
drug-taking, clubbing, promiscuous homosexuality, terrorism and demonstrating.
The reason is that we (adults) have hedged our jobs about with so much
protectionism and qualificationitis, that young people can generally find
no way into normal life and society for many years. Only a very small
proportion of adult people manage to make it quickly -- say, by 21, which
is plenty old enough for them to be able to take their place as
fully-functioning adults. This number usually comprises those who have been
brought up in a particularly skilful and well-adjusted family, and have had
the good sense (and family support) to avoid the tedium of university and
and strike out into new areas of economic growth where they have a chance
of becoming experts in their own right very quickly.
For the rest, it's a case of "arrested development" -- arrested by the
middle-aged and the oldies. How can we possibly expect them to act as
normal adults when we deny them the opportunity for many years.
Keith Hudson
(EW)
<<<<
. . . Many of the people in the audience were young people, students
mainly, who
will also go to Quebec City. What struck me about these people was their
absolute certainty of the rightness of their cause. All of them opposed the
summit; all of them were against the extension of a NAFTA type arrangement
to all of the Americas (Cuba excepted, of course). When asked to give
reasons for their opposition, they really couldn't come up with many that
made sense. Increasingly, the young woman on the panel sounded as though
she was preaching a sermon to the converted -- a sermon to true believers.
I found it rather frightening. It made me wonder why the kids are so
opposed, so angry.
Wnen in Quebec City, these kids won't commit acts of violence, but some
people will, giving the police an excuse to erect their fences and other
barriers, perhaps to use pepper spray and even tear gas. But I keep
wondering why all of this is necessary. What do the kids think they know
that the rest of us don't? What do they think is being taken away from
them?
>>>>
(AC)
<<<<
WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE WAY WE ARE CHANGING
Hans Moravec, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University,
thinks that the world is getting ahead of its inhabitants:
. . . Today, as our machines approach human competence across the board,
our stone-age biology and our information-age lives grow ever more
mismatched. Work in the developed countries has become increasingly
specialized and esoteric, and it now often takes a graduate degree,
representing half a working lifetime of sustained learning, to master the
necessary unnatural skills. As societal roles become yet more complex,
specialized, and far removed from our inborn predispositions, they require
increasing years of rehearsal to master, while providing fewer visceral
rewards. The essential functions of a technical society elude the
understanding of an increasing fraction of the population.
>>>>
___________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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