In my view, the irrationality of the Boomer rioters/protestors/hippies in the ‘Sixties, and their rebellion against just about everything was the result of their parents rejecting needed discipline. (Full disclosure: I’m a Boomer, b. 1954 – the last year of the Draft, but was focused on getting into USAFA (success) rather than protesting the war in Vietnam and every nook and cranny of society, as were many of my peers). Did these protests have, as their cause (or one of their causes) the below?
Our parents had survived the Great Depression and WW2. My dad ran a shovel and built roads in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles for a dollar a day during the Depression to keep his parents afloat and was in the Navy in the Pacific during the war. Our fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers had experienced the worst the world had on offer for two decades, most or all of their youth and young adulthood, following a period of extreme wealth and license that was the Roaring Twenties in which they (unfairly in their view?) didn’t get to participate… Our dads came back from a war against cultures far more accepting of discipline than an America based on government leaving us alone. A war that resulted in the AXIS countries and soldiers doing things that, to us, were appalling. A war that killed over 50 million people. A war that a could be seen – was seen? – as having had at its root cultures of extreme discipline.
What were the Nuremberg trials, but a victor’s statement that doing what one was told wasn’t good enough, a repudiation of discipline?
… so they came home and didn’t discipline their kids; they’d seen the result of extreme discipline and weren’t going to do that to their children. And the ‘Sixties were the result.
Why am I raising this now?
Well, we had a period of solid wealth creation and extravagance following the 2008 crash, with dot coms creating unheard-of wealth, too many MBAs financializing the world and too little Liberal Arts education to understand the difference between “can” and “should.” Too many weren’t taught to understand why and how we got where we were in the long flow of civilization – yet making serious, idolizing wealth. Too many others lost much or all in the 2008 debacle, and watched as some of those most responsible walked away from responsibility with tens or hundreds of millions in their pockets. This still is going on.
This was then followed by the fiscal mess of DementiaJoe and his double-digit inflation, reduced earnings, lost jobs, lost wars, and increased taxes – all driving many into poverty.
And now? A crackdown of law & order. Now we have street protests against the discipline of the Rule of Law and getting illegals out – enforcing the law, sometimes in a harsh manner, or what the media is convincing three generations of kids with a piss-poor education is “harsh;” see: Alligator Alley. This is fine with me – are we really a country under law if our laws are not enforced? The longer the laws aren’t enforced, the stronger the resistance to doing so when that enforcement comes. It’s been a long time…
… Are we going to see… is this a rhyme?… another generation born and raised with the idea that discipline… sucks? Aren’t the kids in the street protesting the discipline of enforcing the law? Aren’t the looters in every major metro rejecting the discipline of personal property? Aren’t the congressdopes making millions and millions via insider trading rejecting the discipline of their moral responsibility?
Aren’t these all examples of rejecting the discipline required to live under the rule of law rather than the authoritarian rule of man?
Are these protestors and looters going to raise a bunch of hippie losers protesting against anything and everything, if they ever figure out what gender they are and what those genders are for?
These protests are against the discipline of a free country and the rule of law. They are a refusal to accept that – sometimes you win, sometimes you lose… and, yet, must deal with it.
Well put on all counts. I can't say that discipline was lacking in my childhood home, however we did have a lot more freedom as a result of both parents working to afford the middle class lifestyle. As a result, many of our generation did drift about with nothing to aim for and without the tools to get there.
We had a "better" education than children today receive from public schools, and as we grew into being the "seniors" it's sort of served us well. It didn't do a damned bit of good when we were young and full of vinegar though.
I believe every generation since WWII has protested vigorously and publically, while those that came before still fought against their parent's truth, they just did it quietly.
The difference between "the summer of love" generation and the current generation is that we didn't believe that communism or socialism was an acceptable alternative to our capitalist society, whereas today there are many who embrace Stalin and Mao out of sheer ignorance of what these monsters actually did.
In the end, you're correct - "sometimes you win, sometimes you lose". Shouldn't the rest of that be "you still have to continue to play the game"?
I really hate it when you make me think...