Youthful Ignorance
4th May 2011
The Other McCain has a fine rant today.
One of the most pernicious ideas of recent decades – originating in the 1960s “Generation Gap,” but getting worse all the time — is the belief that youth per se has some distinct political value, a belief which in turn involves a willingness to accept pop-culture hipness as actual knowledge.
What accounts for this attitude? I would argue that it is actually rooted in Baby Boom nostalgia. The ’60s generation remembers when the pronouncements of “youth leaders” like Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman and Mark Rudd were taken very seriously and so, now ensconced in executive positions, they keep looking for the next generation of “youth leaders.”
You want to slap them and say, “Hey, wake up: The Sixties sucked!”
May 4th, 2011 at 11:08
But the music was good.