The Greatest Generation

Before Tom Brokaw bestowed the title of The Greatest Generation on them, they were just our parents.  They had grown up in a period of great adversity when depression and unemployment was wide spread, and there was no government safety net for the poor.  It was a time where our agriculture had turned the land into a barren waste that blocked out the sun in Washington DC when the wind blew the dust of Oklahoma through it.  Their heritage stands in sharp contrast to the generation known as the millennials.  For our parents, racism was far more extreme and public with organizations like the Ku Klux Klan reaching national prominence and a power in the politics of the democratic party where its membership grew to almost 4 million.  As they turned 18 they faced a global conflict, which had almost brought the democracies of the world to their knees, and saw (at its height) over 12 million men and women in uniform.  Finally, they saw the dawn of the nuclear age, where the threat of global destruction from nuclear war was an everyday possibility, and communism was the enemy of the day.

Today, we have the luxury to talk about appropriation of culture, the choice of gender, or the equality of the sexes because our parents and grandparents not only survived the dark days of global depression and war, but rebuilt a world from the ruins.

Writing to his wife Abigail, John Adams said, “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have ­liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy.  My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”

Perhaps it is the inevitable way of the life?  The struggle of today, to create a better tomorrow, keeps the desired utopia always just out of reach, but why have we become a generation so different from our parents and grandparents?  Today we don’t have a grand vision of a better world as the survivors of the world war had, and we cannot agree on even a simple definition of progress.  Is it because we are studying the esoteric too much, and the reality of politics and conflict not enough?

John Adams lived in the time of enlightenment where the educated came from colleges and universities founded to educate the ministers of the church.  They studied far more than politics and war, and the idea that government was the problem, not the solution, was far more likely to be the political leaning.

Today our most prestigious institutions remove God from the discussion, and seem to focus so narrowly on social problems and solutions that we don’t allow the young to see beyond a single answer. 

For those who don’t go to college, and like it or not that is the majority, they increasingly see the government not as an enabler of a better life, but as the force that restrains them to their role with little hope beyond survival.  It seems our politicians have taken the lessons of Marie Antoinette to heart. “If there is no bread, let them eat cake.”

Accept Without Question

The polarization of society has created an interesting, and by interesting, I mean narrowly informed and arrogant  group of young people.  They are, in many aspects, similar to the generation that proceeds them, but I suspect they are markedly different than their grandparents.  One of the qualities of youth is the seemingly unshakable belief they know almost everything, and if they didn’t think of it, it’s probably not worth thinking about.  I can assure you my generation felt the same way when we were in our 20s.  But there is a difference.

So many of today’s young have been so sheltered from risk and harm they believe themselves to be indestructible.  Others, many others, have been indoctrinated by educators to think there is only one right answer to life, and they must accept without question the wisdom of this one way of thinking.  I am reminded of an experiment I conducted as a psychology student in college.  The experiment was originally designed and conducted by Social Psychologist Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College as part of his Conformity studies published in the 1950s.   

It was a simple experiment.  Asch had a “vision test” where groups were formed and asked to pick out two similar length lines.  The groups were about 5 or 6 individuals, all but one member of the group were confederates of Asch and privy to the experiment.  The one true subject was being evaluated on his/her responses with the group.  They started off the experiment with the confederates all agreeing on the right answer, but after a few samples they would begin to agree on a wrong one.  A minor difference at first but becoming increasingly obvious over time.  What Asch found was a significant tendency for individuals to conform to the group (~37%).  The majority, about 75% conformed at least once, and only 24% chose to consistently stay with their individual belief.[i]

So, with a consistent message and the right peer confederates on board the young are indoctrinated into the correct way of thinking as they progress through the educational training programs.  Let me stop here for just a moment to share my understanding of the difference between education and training. 

In training the whole purpose is to learn a skill to mastery and be able to perform that skill as necessary when called upon.  Learning a trade, or entry into the military provides the individual with the fundamental skills to perform his or her job.  As time goes on and their proficiency improves they will adapt and develop new capability as their understanding of the profession increases. 

Education, on the other hand is intended expand an individual’s ability to think, reason and articulate in the abstract.  A well educated person will read a variety of material, and be able to apply lessons learned in one field to the problems found in another.  Being well educated does not require a certificate from a university, although for selfish reasons many universities would have you believe so.

As we look at the educators of today, I wonder, why have they abandoned the Socratic ideal of questioning wisdom for the role of indoctrination?  It seems that to me, as so many young people move to emotional attack anytime a progressive idea is questioned, that their mentors and peer confederates must have provided less than just a complex education, but rather a training program on the right way to think.  They are first, and foremost, committed to defending a view that holds only the Democrats can have good ideas, and if anyone questions the validity of that idea they are buffoons and must be mocked.  However, the blind acceptance of progressive ideas comes with considerable risk, and I no longer see the debate of the consequences.

It is important to acknowledge there has always been friction between those who desire change, and those who don’t.  Does that mean those who don’t want change are backwards and those who do want change are visionary?  Hmmm, sometimes, but just as often – no it doesn’t.

Let’s look at some great progressive ideas brought to us in the twentieth century, and see how they have played out over the course of time.  Keep in mind, the idea of a “social scientist” is a relatively new phenomenon, and the theories they have about how society should be are often tainted by a deep personal bias.  The people who’ve bought into these ideas, and were able to persuade the rest of the nation, or the world, of their wisdom, most often view themselves as part of the intelligentsia elite and clearly more insightful than the common man.

“Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.”  Early in the twentieth century the movement to prohibit the production and sale of alcohol had spread as a national movement.  The progressives of the day felt we would be a much better society if we could just eliminate the drunkenness of so many men.  The movement gained support of the progressive politicians and the religious groups and we passed the 18^th Amendment to the constitution, prohibiting the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol.  In the process, we ushered in the “Roaring 20’s with bootleggers, speakeasies, and organized crime.  This progressive decision was so popular it was repealed within 14 years, and remains the only amendment to be so honored.

“We can build him better than before.”  A great number of progressives found the idea of eugenics attractive, and I suspect they still do.  We can, through selective breeding, eliminate all the ills that plague society.  As an outgrowth of Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution, the proponents figured we could eliminate those pesky genetic traits that seem to weigh us down and hinder our progress towards a perfect world.  Proponents of eugenics included Theodore Roosevelt, Helen Keller, H G Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Sanger and a number of significant intellectuals.  It was all the rage; until Hitler started to implement it with his Aryan planning.  Autobahns and eugenics -- who said the Nazi’s weren’t progressive?  Some say it was the basis for the concept of family planning as implemented by Planned Parenthood.

“Total Equality for All, A Workers Paradise.”  In 1848 Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels published the Communist Manifesto, detailing their social theories on class warfare and the problems with capitalism.  They believed capitalism would, over the course of time, give way to socialism.  In 1917, when Lenin led the Bolsheviks in the October revolution overthrowing the Czar he set up the government along the lines of Marx’s theories and recommendations.  All policy was supposed to comply with the Marxist-Leninist principles.  The Soviet Union lasted from 1917 to 1991, and during that time the government slaughtered between 56 and 62-million citizens, primarily under Joseph Stalin.  All I can say is it may have looked good on paper, but I don’t think communism worked out as well as the progressives who supported it initially thought it would.

Now we come to issues dealing with the relative value of life, and how a  wise and caring government bureaucracy will strive to improve the quality of life by assisting perceived terminally ill patients with suicide.  What a great idea, nothing could possibly go wrong with this, it is after all, just about helping the infirm die with dignity. So here we have the progressive movement denying life to the unborn and helping end life of the ill, why not just move to pure Darwinian theory and implement survival of the fittest?  
     I love the way those who accept without question the value of these programs view those who question the potential abuses as childish morons.  Claiming that any talk of a “slippery slope” is foolish, progressive ideas are always perfect. 

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[i] Solomon Asch Experiment, The Power of Peer Pressure.  

Desensitizing America

It is naïve thinking, but there are times I wish back to the pre-information age.  A time when, if you lived near enough to the big city, there were only a handful of channels on the TV.  A time when radio and television were geared toward entertainment, when things like the news came in measured douses, and you had time to digest the events.  If you were interested you would read multiple newspapers to gain a wider understanding of the events you saw snippets of on the television.  

This all started to change in the 1960’s with the war coverage from Vietnam and the domestic coverage of the antiwar and civil rights movements.  We were shown the graphic images of firefights, protests, riots.  The competition to bring the most graphic images to the viewer took off.  Now I know there is some age bias in these observations, and it was probably an evolutionary process, but as we’ve seen the acceleration of change is on a logarithmic scale and it continues to accelerate.

In 1991 we took the war to the home screens with the images of the bombs going through the windows, into the bunkers and spans of the bridges with only a few hours delay. 

Now -- I routinely see imagery on the Internet and television of Hellfire, small diameter bombs, and other missiles terminating their targets in what seems a sanitary manner.  

Knowing what I do, it is only a matter of time until we see these scenes in high definition.  Don’t mistake my concern.  I believe those being killed would do us harm if they are allowed to live.  I don’t have a problem with us ending a threat, but I wonder what damage we do to ourselves as we share these executions with the general population and the rest of the world?   

Does It Really Matter?

I find I am increasingly at odds with the society that surrounds me.  Every day I see the humor in the human experience, but probably based on my age I find fewer who see the same thing.  Take as a case in point.

A young mother comments on her son who likes to dress as a princess.  I can think of no reason this should be criticized, but there are a hundred humorous trails this storyline would lead, but in our super-sensitive, super-public forums, any comment at all could lead to misunderstanding, hurt feelings, and rebuke, based on generational differences and perceptions.

Perhaps it is just me, finally maturing to the point I now consider the implications of my words.

Things I Wonder About

On the drive home from North Carolina we listened to a book on CD; Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster) written by Eben Alexander, MD.  It is the recounting of a physician, a Neurosurgeon, who contacted bacterial meningitis and was in a near death coma for seven days.  If you have any interest at all in the subject, it was an excellent story, read by the author.  I recommend it, although I realize skeptics will find much to discount or challenge, but I found it interesting to see someone with such a background transform from this experience.

Perhaps because it supports so many of my concepts that I find much I agree with in his story.

First, I find it impossible to believe the known universe springs from some random event that occurred without purpose.  I don’t discount the “Big Bang” I just don’t accept it as a random, spontaneous occurrence.  To make this choice requires a conscious decision to accept, on faith, some higher authority.  Skeptics may call this foolishness, or perhaps a lack of critical thinking.   But without the ability to know, with 100% certainty, isn’t any position on the origin of our universe, one that is made based on some form of faith, or is it just a rejection of spiritual faith?

I accept the working of our brain as a big electrical computational device, but again I choose to believe that its design comes with some higher purpose than to just be the top of the food chain here on earth.  The questions of who we are, what purpose we serve, and why we exist are questions that no simple science can truly answer, for they demand more than the calculation of our chemical makeup, or the physical properties of the known universe.  At some level we are, and must be much more than a random collection of DNA molecules.  I wonder how we became more than the just the sum of our parts?

Finally, I have long questioned the relationship between God and the organized churches we have established.  I admit I’ve gone through a number of stages in my life when I was active and searching for answers and was a member of a number of fundamental churches.  I considered the roll of the church in the history of conflict, the expectations of the church hierarchy, the human aspects of the members, and the need for each church to establish itself as the “one legitimate” church to provide the path to salvation.  As I struggled with my beliefs, I came to reject the idea that a divine and all-powerful God would be so petty as to provide only one church with the keys to heaven.  What I see in most organized religions are the human needs to somehow be separate and superior to others.  I wonder how we can believe God would be that narrow?  I don't discount the value of organized religion, but I am unable to accept that one church, or religion is more valid than another.  I do condemn the human's who take advantage of the belief structure to further their political goals.

“Nothing is withheld from us, which we have conceived to do” – Russell Kirsch

A friend, whom I’ve never met, shared a link on Facebook today.  It was a blog that has gone viral, about a chance meeting in a coffee house in Portland with a writer and an elderly man named Russell Kirsch.  In this blog, and the one that followed, there are words and ideas that truly capture what I think is the essence of success in life.  Although through my own doubts I become self-limiting, Mr. Kirsch shows that if you think it, it can be.

I commend to all of you this blog post "An Unexpected Ass Kicking", and the one at the end “7 Lessons I’ve Learned From my Encounter with Russell Kirsch”

Departing Controlled Flight

The French equivalent of our National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the crash of Air France flight 447, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris France the night of 31 May to 1 June, 2009.  In that report the Bureau  d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile, found the pilots, although qualified, did not follow the correct procedures and in their mishandling of a simple problem, caused by a design fault, stalled the aircraft, departed controlled flight, and fell from 37,000 feet into the ocean, killing all on board.

There are days I feel like what those pilots must have experienced.  The panic of knowing things are wrong, just not knowing what to do about it, or how to deal with the swirling vortex that is life.  In those times I remember the words of an instructor, “don’t panic - the airplane wants to fly, so controls to neutral, assess the problem and make gentle inputs to return the aircraft to straight and level.”  Isn’t that good advice for life too?  

In Pursuit of the Truth

I hear so many people say we need to see the truth, we need to know the truth, or we need to get to the truth, and so on and so forth.  The longer I am around the more I realize people don’t really want the truth, they want the story to support their already held beliefs.

If, for example, you believe that people who hold strong religious beliefs are nuts, you will believe any story that supports that supposition.  On the other hand if there is some tangential connection between something you believe and those with opposing views, then clearly they are moving to your side, and see the wisdom of your position, not the other way around.

I sit in meeting after meeting where someone will say we have to put the interest of the “warfighter” first.  A pet cliché in the military, but very few do. Since the “warfighter” is a nameless group it usually falls to the generals to discern what is in their interest.  Only rarely does anyone ever really ask someone fresh from combat what he or she needs, and then if it isn’t in line with what the General wants they clearly don’t understand the big picture.

Take for example three separate stories in the news this week.  First we have the on-going public debate over the Travon Martin – George Zimmerman case.  Here we have each side offering fresh and contradictory details on the shooting.  The question is why?  The obvious answer is to keep the case alive in the court of public opinion so that it can be used to support other agendas, or color a potential jury pool so they carry in the preconceived facts of the case.

Next we have the John Edwards trial where his defenders argue that the misuse of campaign funds is okay if he was only trying to cover his infidelities from his dying wife.  Really?

And last, but certainly not least we have the interesting tale of a liberal law professor who claims to be 1/32 Cherokee Indian because one of her family told her she was, she has high cheek bones, and she sent a couple of possibly plagiarized recipes into the “POW WOW CHOW” cook book her cousin was publishing.  As a lifelong victim she appears unable to actually say perhaps she was wrong and move on.  Obviously these attacks on her play into a belief scheme where she is fighting against the oppression of the white man, as she has done all her life.

I guess we all have our own truths?  Except we really don’t!  We may fool others, we may even fool ourselves, but truth and the facts that support the truth don’t change, no matter how hard we try to spin them.