There is Continuity in This World
The Continuity of Life
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/11/archives/the-continuity-of-life.html
The Continuity of Life
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September 11, 1972
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CALIFON, N. J.—The liberatibn of the young from the "oppression" of their elders makes no sense. A question can initially be raised whether is compatible with the nature of man and his development. Human creatures have a long childhood and adolescence when the young need their elders to survive and to acquire the knowledge needed to maintain the continuity of life. The two ages are segments of one existence and cannot be separated into contradictory parts.
In nature, there are examples where the young do not need the old. This fact illuminates the special character of man. Most fish, for instance, are cast adrift by their parents before they are born. The young fish fend for themselves, depending exclusively upon their inborn instincts to survive and exist. Their parents may even become natural enemies of their young by including them in their diet.
By contrast an unattended child, if it could stay alive, would revert to Neanderthal in one generation. It has to learn to speak and think and has to acquire a good deal' of knowledge iust to fit into the contemporary scene. Throughout the two decades before maturity, the young depend on their parents and organized community for their existence and training for their future.
This is a peculiarity of human creatures which plays a part in their distinctive role on earth. The years of growing through overlapping generations permit transmission of the accumulated mass of knowledge from the old to the young. Humans start with a handicap which they overcome by consciously drawing upon experience, inventiveness and the wisdom of their predecessors in an endless chain. The process is made possible by man's unique communication system, all of which is acquired and would be lost without continuity.
The "liberation" move of the young is interfering with the process. Those fledgling young who question the leadership of their elders believe that they can create a better world with less equipment than their elders. They do not know what they want. They see the shortcomings and failures of the system and their expressed aim is to destroy it. They may enforce a change but will it lead to improvement? Progress was never continuous.
These thoughts simplify a complicated process. A distinctive feature of men is their wide diversity. They inherit instincts not in an orderly complete set of living instructions like insects, but in a personal blend of impulses and emotions which precedes rationality and interferes with its development, Our reactions are a mixture of many things of which reason is not inherited, It is the crucial factor in the development of man. In general, the greater the knowledge the more rational the man. When there is no background of knowledge and understanding, the emotions and prejudices prevail and are triangulated into positions devoid of reality. Intelligence and logic based on inadequate premises produce nothing.
To add to the complexity, the existing process of acquiring learning is haphazard despite the compulsory lower education. There are those who would not exert any effort to learn, those who stop too soon and those whOse environment is not conducive to learning. The parents, schools and teachers contribute another variable. Only a very few unusual characters manage to learn cumulatively throughout their active lives. The result is that an infinite variety of individuals is being created.
In this country there was discernible a deterioration of the educational process. The main reasons are the decline in the authority of parents and teachers, increased permissiveness that followed, and lower discipline in schools, all leading to a self‐perpetuating downward spiral. The activist young reared up and demanded a voice in the selection of curricula and methods of teaching. Naturally the demands lead to less work and more play. The results were inevitable. Rare indeed is the child who wants to learn multiplication tables and the adolescent who is enchanted by Latin or trigonometry.
The quantitative educational explosion reduced the age and quality of teachers drastically. The young and immature became the mentors of the younger. Television was also a subtle disturber of the serenity of the scene.
The young do have differences from the old beside inevitable but curable ignorance. There is the physical vitality and lively response of empty and eager minds seeking to know, as yet not hampered by experience which teaches the intricacy of life. They see life in clear and idealistic terms and their attitudes are polarized into good and bad, leading to an unavoidable conflict with the compromising elders. The young are natural activists and they initiate movement away from the old ways some of which do become irrelevant and stultifying. This is a healthy function which generally is not unrecognized. Note that this trait is not an exclusive of the young. Old people can be as creative as the young, more so if they have wisdom, which is rare the young.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/11/archives/the-continuity-of-life.html
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