Steve Smith wrote at 04/28/2013 05:50 PM: > The second argument is that while > generations in the sense of a labeled X, Y, Z or "greatest" is a bit > trite and seems contrived, there is often (maybe more historically than > contemporarily) a natural oscillation between parent and child. The old > adage "some things skip a generation" is apt in my experience... for > example, my own father rebelled against certain aspects of my > grandfather's nature which I in turn rebelled against, roughly returning > full circle to certain aspects of my grandfather's nature (e.g. My > grandfather was an avid journaler and correspondent while my father > probably wrote no more than 3 letters in his life, each one fitting onto > less than a single sheet of paper). It also seems (anecdotally) true > that parents try to give *their* children what *they* didn't have... > again leading to an oscillation in many dimensions with a time constant > of roughly the age of reproduction.
I often wonder how much of this is perceived oscillation versus actual oscillation. My skepticism revolves around 1) evo-devo as well as 2) intention vs. actuality. Re (1), when I was a kid, the distinction between my parents' ideology and behavior seemed _huge_, at both a very young age all the way through the first half of my 20s. However, as I hacked my way through the latter half of my 20s, and through my 30s, I began to notice _jarring_ similarities ... to the point, now, that it's difficult for me to distinguish. My behaviors are more starkly different than my ideology (ideologies, if you allow that the human mind -- or just my mind -- is inconsistent). But, the older I get, the more capable I become of both contrast and comparison with the surrounding "generations". Re (2), my parents (and their parents ... and the parents of my generation as well as Renee's grandchildren's parents) all seem to have fairly stark differences between what they say they teach their children and what they actually teach their children. The issues run the gamut of everything from racism, to diet, to work ethic, and money management. Between any parent-child pair, there can be 4 possible oscillations: P^intent to C^intent, P^intent to C^behavior, P^behavior to C^intent, P^behavior to C^behavior. And this ignores the social pressures that surely must come into play. (E.g. the influence of the parents of my frenemies, both directly and indirectly, or the influence of pop culture, etc.) In short, without some more comprehensive data, the complexity of the possible relationship dynamics seems to be ripe for selective attention, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, etc. > There *is* some batching, first correlated with the staging and > returning-from wars... and the second is simply the second order effect > of THOSE children coming of age and having their own 15-30 years later. > > [...] So, I agree that the broad brush of "generation this or that" is a > convenient shorthand at best and a harmful fiction at worse. The question is how much of the batching is a result of the measure (the model) and how much is ontologically present? What I find most useful are the biochemical measures. E.g. increased life span, increased cancer, increased rate of cancer survival, etc. I think if we can make an argument for generational binning, it should be in the context of those measures rather than (purely) cultural ones. (All these measures have cultural influences, of course.) > Returning to the original context of my suggestion that it is time for a > younger generation than my own to take up the reins, I hold to that. We > "boomers" have proven on average to have a certain kind of narcissism as > well-earned as the "greatest" generation had a simple-minded > selflessness. The _only_ thing that makes me wish the "longevity" people were onto something (or that maintains the tiny shred of fantasy about vampires I have left) is the idea that I could actually _watch_ any type of evolution with some level of objectivity, however minimal. Although I tend toward Taoism, my engineering homunculus rants and raves at not being able to separate myself from the morass around me. And for that reason, I agree with you about younger people taking over. The handful of people I've "mentored", for better or worse, and watched go on to do better than me (at everything) turned me on to the feeling. And that feeling then extended to everyone, including young people anonymous to me. I really enjoy hearing Renee' talk about how this or that doctor is "just a baby", or hearing about some high school kid solving a long-standing math problem, etc. ... makes me want to freeze my head before I die. 8^) -- =><= glen e. p. ropella If there's something left of my spirit ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
