From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V5 #166 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Thursday, September 6 2001 Volume 05 : Number 166 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Re: generation gap ["Ron Rosen" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 23:10:07 -0700 From: "Ron Rosen" Subject: Re: generation gap > After hearing all this stuff about generations and the > gaps I had to respond! I don't think that our > struggles as generation Y or X or baby boomers or > anything else are all that different. The style of > clothing and how long our hair is may change but the > day to day struggles of who and what we are are > essentially the same. The style of > clothing and how long our hair is may change but the > day to day struggles of who and what we are are > essentially the same. I lilked your post, Simona, and I think the generations have a lot in common, and as I've said repeatedly, I'm not trying to make a case that one generation is better than another. But I think that you can't leave historical perspective out of the mix in order to argue that every generation's experience is equivalent. I think it's a sad fact of this "politically correct" age, that people will go to extremes to avoid value judgments, where they are clearly appropriate. That's a negative legacy of the 60s. I cannot imagine what it was like for my parents to live through the Depression, but I know it affected the way they looked at money and I think that in turn affected a lot of the messages they gave me about deservability, many of which were negative. But the point is, I am in awe of them for having lived through that, and I would never say about the Depression, "every generation has it's struggles" because I know it was a whole other level of experience that I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine what it was like for my parents to have lived through World War II when literally, the fate of the free world was at stake, and virtually every male was prepared to die for the cause and every female to work hard to win it. I cannot imagine it because I didn't live it. But I know it was the most important event of the 20th Century. I would never say to them "every generation has its struggles." The fact that my parent lived it makes them different from me and makes me respect them because I know they lived through a major event that I cannot imagine. I was in Israel and have many relatives there who survived the Holocaust. I had a friend there whose father lived through years of Hitler's labor camps and arrived in Israel in 1948 only to be conscripted into a war against the Arabs. When I met these people, I was in awe of them. They had been through an experience that I cannot possibly imagine. That stayed with them every day of there remaining lives. That affected everything they did. That permanently warped their view of life and humanity in ways that none of us can ever imagine. I would never say to them "every generation has its struggles." My point is that what we experienced in the 60s, although not comparable to the three events I just mentioned, is something that you cannot imagine. Not because I disrespect you, but because you didn't live it, just as I didn't live the Depression, WWII, or the Holocaust. The issue of long hair, and drugs, and other trappings of the 60s, maybe not for the mass of followers who picked up on it later when it was semi-legitimate, but in particular for those of us who picked up on it early, in San Francisco and in the other more culturally pivotal places, was not simply a question of "style." It was an in-your-face statement about the world we inherited and what we thought of it. And we paid for it. We paid for it from our parents, from our peers who only picked up on it later, and from our government. Having to wake up every morning knowing that your country was committing attrocities in the false name of values you were raise to love is something that you didn't live. Having to deal with the fact that your country was willing to waste your life in the service of those attrocities committed in the name of a lie is something you didn't live. Having to decide whether you were going to let them turn you into hamburger, got to jail, or to leave the country perhaps forever is something you didn't live. It was not bulimia. It was not a feeling a aimlessness. It was a hell that you didn't live. In the world of our internal psyches all of us go through similar struggles and deal with similar issues, but there are external events that are different and make those struggles different. In the interest of generational harmony, you cannot ignore historical facts. Nor is it fair to assume that those of us who point out those facts are trying to assert some moral superiority over you. We are trying to explain events for those who come after us. It used to be that younger generations respected the experience of those that came before. It is sad that when we "boomers" tell our story, younger generations assume that we are on some huge ego trip and are trying to make you feel inferior. I don't know if that's because of how the message has been delivered in the media or what, but it's sad that the learning that can be gained from hearing about it is apparently being distorted either by the presentation or the fact that no one wants to hear about it. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V5 #166 ******************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message