For as long as civilizations have existed, the past always sought out to mock the present, and vice versa. We will always have those that said, "Your generation is doing such and such wrong" in every field of life; music, ethics, politics, social responsibility, etc... But have things really sunk, or is the lizard complaining because she lost her ability to adapt?
Perhaps this relates to mainly my family culturally, but 'ere goes... As you all know, I live in a mixed Euro-Arab background. For a few years, my family lived in Lebanon, which is the "France of the Middle-East" due to the Arabic-French cultural mesh that happened some time ago.
In Lebanon; well, back when we lived there in the very early '90's, people were very well dressed for each occassion. In fact, so much that anyone who was deemed "underdressed" would be very looked down upon. I hear it is still very much the same today.
My parents feel that, in North America, people are underdressed, but that's definitely as compared to the Lebanese residing in Lebanon. Okay, that may not relate to the situation in terms of generational gaps; more-so in cultural gaps, but here's another way of thinking...
Imagine the situation of the Lebanese as America in the 1940's or such (even though we all know they're way passed that), and think of America "in-the-now" as... well, America in-the-now! You see, when an American comes to Lebanon, they most likely will clash culturally with the Lebanese because they're 60 years behind (in this instance). Thing is, as new generations arise, new opinions start to form, but the older generations still share the same old opinions they began with, and that's why, even if what the elders say is true, it's mostly because of the generational gap.
How do you feel about the gap? Is it really our fault, or is the lizard being bitter?
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8 comments:
I think the generation gap is quite apparent in lots of situations, but I feel that without it we would not have the same strive to do better and go farther to accomplish what the past has not done.
-Rhiannon
Our generation (1980-1995) is called the "millenial" generation. They had a special on it last night on 60 minutes, and it said that this generation only takes "yes" for an answer, and that our first priority is ourselves. They granted that we are "hard-working, clever, and tech savvy", but managers these days need to be "half shrink and ahlf diplomats", because we need "baby-sitting". Way to shine us in a good light. But yes what you say is so true, but I don't know, I am not too happy with the way our generation conducts things either, so I would be agreeing with many things that, lets say, the baby-boomer generation thinks about us, but I am not as traditional or conservative. I think this generation is going backwards in many ways, and sometimes, I don't think we are striving to do better than prior generations.
That was very well written!
Generation gaps interest me, when I did my essay last year on the Vietnam War I researched about generation gaps, because there was the older generation, the ones who fought in world war 2 who couldn't understand why the younger generation were protesting so much, because they jumped at the chance to go and fight an enemy, and the younger generation had a whole different outlook on the war because they were seeing raw images of the destruction....
wow, anyways..I definetly am bookmarking this blog! It's good to have a non-fashion blog to read =)
Thanks guys! I enjoyed reading your comments very much.
Although the generation gap is really big, I'm not sure that right now we can really predict if our generation will be able to handle the future or not. Maybe we do need to be "baby-sat" and perhaps in the "right now" it may be harmful to our education and culture, but wouldn't that make it something to learn from? We'd learn that we actually have to try and work hard, and we can't just depend on everyone else. But whether we'd get the message before it's too late, I don't know. I don't know if we'll realize what is happening before it's too late to fix or before the next generation learns to follow our patterns. I don't know if there is anything really "happening" to us or not. Right now, it is unknown whether what we as a generation are experiancing is "normal" or not. How do we know that the generation before the start of the Egyptian and Greek dynasties were in the same place fundamentally as we are? Granted, our technology is "higher" but so was theirs, just in a different way. Perhaps the wheel is an advance that is comparable to the newest computer. Perhaps because of the newest computer, we'll be able to live a life as nurishing as theirs was and start a new dynasty. Perhaps all we really need is a little time: time to figure out what is really going on, what our fate is, and what the best options are.
maybe you can consider that to be my "essay" to be a writer for the site....just a thought. haha.
But I really did like this post, Flora. It really made me think. I didn't think any of those thoughts until just now. I'm glad I thought them now.
Hi Norma,
I really don't understand the relevance of your analogy to "Greek and Egyptian dynasties". Could you clarify please?
sorry that this has nothing to do with the blog, but i'm really glad that u started up a forum! i was wondering though, do we really need to put our email in? i know that if we do i can't join =[
well, they were to established and successful, they were dynasties. the generations that were before the successful ones (the ones that started and upheld the dynasties) probably thought the next generation was going to fail because everything was so new. but infact, the newness and the adaption to everything helped them succeed.
i think that's what i was trying to say.
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