tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post872712737612641723..comments2024-03-19T11:28:58.168-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: Witnessing historyDavid Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-41814071329401166992019-06-11T20:22:33.235-04:002019-06-11T20:22:33.235-04:00Dear Dr. Kaiser,
I think I just saw you in the st...Dear Dr. Kaiser,<br /><br />I think I just saw you in the stands at Fenway as I watched on TV--Red polo shirt, Tuesday 6/11 Texas, tied 3-3 after 3.<br /><br />JudeJude Hammerlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00765872893740924266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-78104297566558757572019-06-10T22:15:43.663-04:002019-06-10T22:15:43.663-04:00"Meanwhile, the problem of defining one's... "Meanwhile, the problem of defining one's self as a sexual being, and deciding what that definition will still mean for one's life, remains. A small but growing number of today's students are taking a more radical approach to it by rejecting traditional gender roles and definitions."<br /><br />Gen Z was born from 1996-the present. These are not Millennials. Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of research regarding the psyches of modern youth, and he says that many of the campus trends of the mid-late 2010's were driven by Gen Z. He says that Millennials (those born from about 1981-1995) have less anxiety, and more strength/confidence. Gen Z was raised to a large degree by Gen X parents. Over-protective parenting intensified in the 2000's, and has prevented Gen Z from hitting a lot of important milestones in their emotional development (they have weak coping skills due to a lack of experience with early difficulties). <br /><br />Speaking as a 34 year old from a middle class Midwestern background, I feel that many earlier Millennials don't have much invested in the current ideological trends on campuses. For X-ers and most Millennials, their just wasn't that much in the way of "intense" activism when we went to college in the 1980's, 90's, and 2000's (and some of us didn't go college at a young age in the first place). Haidt says that the "burst" of campus activism we saw in the mid-2010's can be traced to when the first cohort of Gen Z attended college.<br /><br />I also think that Boomers were regarded as an "activist" generation, and this turned X-ers and Millennials away from activism to some degree; Gen Z, however, don't have much familiarity with Boomers, and as such, they don't feel any inclination to reject what some consider to be the "negative" aspects of Boomer culture (like arrogant activism).<br /><br />Those from an elite background (and those aspiring to elite status) have heavily disassociated themselves from working class people. Peter Turchin has a lot of data indicating that since about 1975, elites have knowingly been widening the economic and cultural gap between the top 20% or so of earners/wealth holders, leaving less and less for the remaining 80% (as such, the middle class has disappeared over the last 20 years). Long gone are the days when even one party (much less both parties) chiefly concerned themselves with the well being of the working and lower middle class American worker. Turching says that the year 2000 was the beginning of a new Gilded Age.<br /><br />I think that any helpful reform of the system must include measures of economic populism designed to rein in arrogant and overly consumptive elites. Mania regarding "identity" is a futile distraction which hinders the necessary reforms from being implemented (for example, the corporate elite is much more in favor of Left wing ID politics than actual economic Leftism designed to strengthen the position of all mid-lower class people; that ought to tell you something).Ferylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01336057631877941839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-30318183649813189262019-06-10T18:35:54.565-04:002019-06-10T18:35:54.565-04:00Prorfessor
Let me post another remark, briefly.
Yo...Prorfessor<br />Let me post another remark, briefly.<br />You have always placed disproportionate stock in Vietnam's singularly disastrous consequences. <br />The current post is no exception to this seeming iron rule of American history:<br />"Now my contemporaries' rebellion took off, of course, because of our parents' generation's catastrophic mistake, the Vietnam War..."<br />My own view is that our contemporaries' rebellion you discuss would very likely have happened anyway to a great extent for many other reasons and causes besides Vietnam, albeit somewhat less violently, even in the absence of Johnson's decision to go into Vietnam.<br />All the best Bozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-65879465710865787362019-06-10T11:44:14.818-04:002019-06-10T11:44:14.818-04:00Professor
Energyflow, great rant.
Has Energyflow ...Professor<br />Energyflow, great rant. <br />Has Energyflow been smoking what Ed Boyle's stuff?<br />Just a question.<br />All the best<br />Skip publishing this, maybe.Bozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-82023127158173773542019-06-10T06:27:40.897-04:002019-06-10T06:27:40.897-04:00Bureaucracy as ahistorical is interesting. Kafkaes...Bureaucracy as ahistorical is interesting. Kafkaesque. Then doing protest as almost theater and insisted something really happened but the bureaucracy forms a committee. It seems Savio is saying something happens when one feels. Logic is GI generation way of control, ahistorical. Boomers feel, so they exist. <br /><br />I think therefore I am - gi generation<br />I feel therefore I am - boomer generation<br /><br />I have thought of generational theory as a sine wave like the yin yang symbol in korean flag. Yin is boomer, yang is gi. Silent is falling yang increasing yin and X is increasing yang, falling yin. We see how the female principle, heart centred/sexual dominates here in boomer actions and how their parents were as rational as possible, male dominated from war economy, 50s male dominated society. We see how boomer dominance, as in all pre generational crises, are irrational, emotional times. A crisis pulls one through all of the emotions and ideological prejudices connected to those, showing oneself how emotions are just objects, like any idea , rock, etc. Special value should not be placed on such feelings. These are easily manipulated in a movie, novel, advertising, by a demagogue. After a crisis the new hero generation, who survived the horrors of their parents' emotional obsessions, lived through themselves as objects, know better perhaps. Or take it for objective reality. The post war German society was denazified, the Americans basked in new found empire. It seems millenials are doubling down on boomer emotionalism, identifying with parental example. When this extremism certainly brings societal collapse they will eschew parental extremism and find rationalism. IOW certain values of identity politics, human rights, American exceptionalism and that basically all coming from a basic concept of inherent privilege without effort, proceeding from the victory in 1945, will be shown to be ephemeral. History will reboot and consumerism from debt, life seeking meaning in one's self, sexuality, hobbies will mean little. We see how cities and states are overburdened with debt from pensions, how homelessness spreads but military expansion of empire increases although real jobs(manufacture) have gone abroad. USD as reserve currency is exorbitant privilege. Whatever comes next can only be painful healing. De-Americanization perhaps. Separation of personal, national identity from manifest destiny and similar fantasies of settling the cosmos and wishing upon a star. Lots of Americans on opioids., homeless are already there. Millins in heavy debt just need an economic downturn to get there. If deep state is not mindless bureaucracy but evil group as in x files, ruling behind scenes for military, corporate tycoons(as in banana republic days and smedly butler) then the world would do well to be rid of Crassius as Dracula on body public. They have bled world dry and impoverished America. Young are brainwashed to believe we have rights but no responsibilities. Pure rationalism has a man observing nature, its flows and taking care of his own self through own effort. Back to Walden Pond or postapocalype films I suppose but postwar Japan, Germany were similar. <br />Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.com