The New Nurture Is Already Developing

[JasonBlack]

(05-01-2022, 10:57 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The timing is of course about right for kids to start being raised to be Idealists or Prophets. What will be different is the presence of plenty of Prophets who will know what went wrong with their elites . Obviously Donald Trump exemplifies Idealist vice without Idealist virtues, and the remaining Boomers (we are now old, but not too old to make a difference) may be some mitigation. Donald Trump will almost surely be the loudest expression of the Boom generation and, to the shame of many fellow Boomers, the one most remembered, if for all the wrong reasons.

The worst sort of Idealist is the one who exploits others severely yet insists upon being recognized as a benefactor. So it was with the loudest proponents of slavery among the Transcendental generation -- they thought that they were the best thing to ever happen to Africans and that the abolitionists would burden freed slaves with responsibilities for which ex-slaves were completely unready. 

Our assembly-line workers, our miners, our farm laborers, our domestic servants, and our salesclerks were humbled. They saw the system as repressive, inequitable, and hierarchical -- and beyond challenge. Boomer executives schooled with their MBA degrees relished getting well paid to treat others badly. I doubt that we can maintain that while having more than a veneer of democracy. Maybe one has the vote, but one must get one's vote approved by one's employer, which means that one's vote is as useful as a piece of used toilet paper. Boomer executives may have been the most rapacious exploiters since the time of slavery. They acted without mercy, and they pushed the sorts of politicians who believe as they do that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as such results in their power, indulgence, and gain... well, maybe they will support wars for profit, but not the sorts likely to result in the overthrow of the gravy train for America's shareholders and executives.

This is similar to what I was thinking. There is also this growing tendency toward "parenting without authority" which I believe is going to be incredibly problematic and could lead to a cohort of know-it-all children who don't understand when they need to defer to those with more experience. I say this not as someone who is interested in super-authoritarian parenting, but as someone who believes people need to learn when they don't know what the fuck they're talking about and need to listen more than preach (there are plenty of people from my generation who do this too).

While my overall emotional landscape and bluntness are more aligned with my 13er next elders, my attitude of "most people need to shut up and read a book" is actually more typically civic than I originally realized. Unfortunately, I'm not confident that most millennials will be assertive enough in rearing children with these values in mind. I will say this for boomers: like most idealists, they were very assertive in raising children with clear moral imperatives (probably because, on some level, they realized how much they fucked shit up in the 70s lol), but I can't see millennials following suit, and when they come of age, their children are likely to resent them for it. Principles are just as important for providing society with structure as the institutions on which they are built, but, as is common, the intangibles are easier to miss. Millennials just...aren't confident in this area. Even the ones protesting loudly in the streets tend to do so at the behest of some authority figure or mentor and exhibit an underlying sheepishness completely foreign to their boomer elders.