Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:52 am
I am not sure that your generation has failed in that way. Are you working from impressions? I suppose I do so, and my impression is that young people today are learning faster than ever before. By "learning faster" I mean learning faster how to get on with others, and to view rights and wrongs with more knowledge of past wrongs and past goodness.
Parenting is more difficult in times of rapid change. The two world wars changed parenting with regard to morality, for the better in my own experience. I guess that my own grandparents lacked the insights of my parents who lived through the two world wars.
Great post, thank you. I don’t feel that you and I are all that entirely far off from each other as it might appear on initial comparison.
For example, I agree that youths learn at a much more rapid pace than their elders. In fact, it is my impression that young neurons fire much more rapidly for all purposes than old ones do. I judge this from seeing that the pace of life appears to be faster for each succeeding generation. If you are doubtful, I would urge you to witness the slower pace of speech and the longer reaction times allotted for humor, say, in the 1950’s on television v. anything streamed from anywhere today Of course, this is based on anecdotal experience, however my guess is that research would confirm that the pace of life, and with it the pace of learning, has been quickening over time. All of this, I believe, is consistent, if not in complete agreement, with your comments.
Where we differ, I suppose, is on the matter of learning how to get along with others, and how to distinguish between moral rights and wrongs. While it is true that knowledge of past rights and wrongs is vaster and much more easily accessed than ever before, the kind of learning I was referencing included more than knowledge. I was thinking of the kind of learning that leads to the practical application of cognitive knowledge. Here, and I wonder that you may agree, I am referencing the KSA’s (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of learning. So, on this point, the learning of manners and civility, moral courage and rectitude, it is my impression that social media provides the evidence that there are many for whom these KSA lessons have failed.
I agree that change makes parenting more difficult. That certainly could make parenting under added stress a factor in the mortality of polite society. Beyond that, the complexity of day to day living as well as its accompanying time pressure could be factors as well. As for my assertion that it was a failure of my generation that those lessons were not imparted—that was a flat out, unsubstantiated guess on my part. As such, it may well have been misguided.
All in all, I suspect our differences, Belinda, are outweighed by our concurrences.