There's something I've been wanting to address for a while now: The idea that the best new ideas come from the young; that it's the youth that have the more advanced vision, the most profound insights.
Both Obama and Gore have said as much....that kids "know things" their parents don't know - and have encouraged those children to school their ignorant parents.
Now, on the face of it, the statement is true. Kids know stuff their parents and other adults don't know. But somehow, nobody seems to ask what that knowledge consists of.
It's meant of course, by those who seek to manipulate our children, to imply that they are smarter, more knowledgeable than their parents - about pretty much everything.
And from a kid's limited point of view, it certainly seems to be confirmed.
After all, a lot of parents and adults don't know how to Tweet, or Text. They don't know who the cool bands are and which ones are so yesterday. They can't tell the difference between last year's teen fashions and this year's hot item. They don't know where the hottest club is, or the best tattoo artist. They don't know what the latest designer drug is or where to get it. They can't tell which girls are sluts and which are nice girls...because they all dress like streetwalkers. And they never understood why boys wore pants below their butt-crack.
Yes. Teens and twenties know A LOT their parents don't know.
The question is: What is the value of that knowledge? Why does nobody ask THAT question?
Stupid children...and their adult wannabes confuse being
cool with being
wise.
Our pop-culture mistakes being conformingly trendy with being smart.
This has been, of course, a symptom of brainless elitists for as long as there have been cultural classes. The shallow fools among the aristocracy were perfectly and smugly content to look down on a genius of humble birth because he didn't know which of 7 forks to use at a formal table.
The trendy conformism was all they knew...and the standard by which they judged everyone's worth.
But at least in those days, the small knowledge that the conformist DID have was elegant and graceful. Today we've turned everything upside down. Our children and their groupies find elegance and grace, even when paired with wisdom boring, tedious, uncool, pretentious, uptight.
Sure, children know stuff their parents don't know. They always have. And it's always been nothing more than the petty, mindless conformity of the immature herd, of whatever generation.
Children who believe they "know more" than their parents are, by definition, locked into a small, rigid social group whose mores and behavior are strictly defined and controlled by group-mind. Individual variation is not permitted, and individual excellence is defined only by the perfection with which the child adopts the rules of the herd. Ergo, anyone - a parent, or grownup - who does not adhere to, or worse, is not even aware of the "rules", is, by definition, ignorant, lame, clueless.
And it's these green, limited, immature, inexperienced, insecure, ignorant, frightened, baby conformists that our pathetic pop-culture is holding up as models for actual grownups to emulate, listen to, and learn from.
When people point out that the Tea Party movement is populated mostly by older people, this is supposed to be a slam at it. The idea is that the young, the hip, the movers and shakers among us are not buying into it, so it's just a bunch of old fogies without the sharp, cool, young hipsters that would make the movement real, viable, serious, or revolutionary.
Because the 60's has been branded as the template for "change" and political action in too many stagnant minds, the notion that without the children no movement has fire, has power, has energy, has momentum, or represents the future.
But it's quite the opposite. The young perpetrated the 60's indeed. And look exactly where that got us. And I'm as responsible as the next guy for it. I was right there approving every move. You see, I knew so much more than my folks...who were so lame, and patriotic, and believed in America, and decency and goodness, and fairness, and excellence, and hard work, and merit.
It is ONLY the grownups who know enough, are smart enough, experienced enough, have seen enough, gone though enough, watched successes and failures, learned what works and what doesn't, who can spot a liar, a grifter, a thief, a bully from a mile away, who have heard it all, been fooled, broken, betrayed, hurt, and have survived, learned and grown...
... that have what it takes to save a nation.
Don't ever let anyone make you believe we need the young - or that the Patriot Movement is somehow the less because, as yet, the young have not seen the need for it. We are the grownups. The young need us, even if they don't know it, the little bastards—just as they always have. It's not their job...it's OUR job to make sure the currently annoying clueless kids get a chance to live free when they finally get old enough to appreciate what that really means - in spite of their pop-culture icon enablers.
This is our destiny. It's a game for grownups. And the next time you hear a CNN reported note that a Tea Party is made up of "older" people, don't just get mad, get busy.
The Gunslinger
Grownup
Energetic Firebrand
Enemy of the Imperial State
