09-07-2019, 06:53 PM
I thought that the most proximate cause of the generational cycle was the extinction of childhood memories -- arguably the most powerful memories in society around 70 years after they are fully formed, but typically dying off about ten years later due to deaths and senile dementia. What others might have the proclivity to do at times is stopped by the old people able to convince younger adults that it is a bad idea (I think of the GI Generation) to have a corrupt and irresponsible speculative boom. The fuddy-duddies of an earlier time get in the way of having destructive ways of having fun until those people are off the scene. Then people seem to indulge with impunity and feel the bad consequences -- very hard.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.