(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.
> >>>>
Keith Hudson:
> 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.
I agree, but, as usual, only partly. A generation ago, in the 1960s and
1970s, kids had an easier time fitting-in. There were more jobs, and most
kids could find a place somewhere. Nevertheless, in at least the advanced
world, they sat-in, protested and rioted. During the 60s, one of their
slogans was "Never trust anyone over 30!"
Their concern then was not really one of finding a place in the modern
world. They were reacting out of a deep-seated belief that the modern world
was insane. The Korean and Vietnam Wars, particularly the latter, rampant
consumerism, and what they believed was a manipulation of the democratic
process to serve undemocratic ends drove them at time.
Economically, the world is a more frowning and less permissive place now -
you see very few people wandering about with flowers in their hair -- but in
many important respects it really hasn't changed much. Manipulation of the
democratic process continues. Internationally, the world is no more sane
than it was thirty or forty years ago. Driven by exploding technology,
economic and social change is now occurring so rapidly that governments
appear to have lost any sense of how to deal with it. There is a widespread
feeling abroad that our politicians can no longer protect our interests and
that they may not even be in charge anymore.
Many young people have opted for security, and have found at least the
illusion of it in the high tech sector. With their naïve but remarkable
ingenuity, they have, in fact, reversed the kind of process that Moravec
deals with, and have displaced older workers. There's no protection in
being way down the learning curve if the curve itself is shifting rapidly,
as it has in the high-tech sector. With exceptions, of course, the techie
kids are not the kids who will go to Quebec City. Those who will go are
more likely to be found in other fields - the social sciences and
humanities, perhaps law. Some universities in Canada have rescheduled exams
to permit them to go and protest.
My point is that these kids are far less concerned about fitting into the
system than about the system they are supposed to fit into. Though they may
not be too articulate about their concerns, there is some evidence to
suggest that they have grounds for having them. As one example, despite the
fact that the Kyoto Agreement has been around for some ten years, the world'
s largest producer of greenhouse gases, the US, has not ratified it. Other
countries, including Canada, have done nothing to implement it. Meanwhile,
the volume of pollutants being pumped into the atmosphere is increasing year
by year and global warming, with potentially disastrous consequences, is a
certainty. As another example, speculative capital can now move so rapidly
as to threaten the well being of hundreds of millions of people; witness
Mexico and Southeast Asia in the 1990s. As a third example, the disparity
between rich and poor is increasing both internationally and within most
countries. As a fourth example, the peace dividend that was supposed to
follow from collapse of the USSR has been transformed into a whole bunch of
ugly little wars, some based on ethnicity, some on religion or ideology, and
some on pure greed. And to top that off, the one country in the world that
has almost nothing to fear if it plays its cards right is now back into
building a star-wars anti-missile defense system.
These are not the things that the kids will be protesting in Quebec City,
but they are probably among the things that are causing them to protest.
Because the problems of the world they are trying to fit into are so big
that they cannot be easily grasped or articulated, they are showing up to
protest what they can, even if that is something as relatively trivial and
potentially beneficial as extending NAFTA to the Americas.
Ed Weick
Visit my rebuilt website at:
http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/
