A sense of community

[Dill]

(05-01-2019, 01:08 PM)Benton Wrote: Good topic, and you may be onto something.

A couple years ago I got to listen. To a speech by state justice bill Cunningham (father of "air horn " rep. Joe cunningham). He was soeaking to a veterans group. The nutshell was, he was talking a out how his generation had been raised by the guys who came back from WWii (he was a Vietnam veteran). Those guys gave the kids some direction, either for the kids whose dad's didn't make it home or just in the way you should be a part of your community. Bill said we dont have that any more, for a number of reasons, and I tend to agree. And I think we're a lot worse off as kids are growing g up without direction or a sense of community.

(05-02-2019, 05:38 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I've had this conversation with friends many times.  I was born in '74 (stated for time frame purposes).  Based on television alone I had a huge connection with people who grew up before me or at the same time.  We all watched Love Boat, Magnum PI or Fantasy Island.  I grew up watching Happy Days and Gilligan's Island.  I saw the Patty Duke Show, Mr. Ed and the Andy Griffith Show.  I knew who Ed Sullivan was, why Orson Welles became famous etc.  I could go on in the same way about music but you get the point.  I have way more in common with a person born in the 40's-60's than I do with a person born in the mid to late nineties.

My sister has a senior position at a major clothing retailer and they obviously employ a lot of younger people.  They legitimately don't know a damn thing about anything that happened before the year 2000.  I suppose the myriad options for entertainment have something to do with it, but there's certainly a complete disconnect from what came before for the vast majority of them and it extends outside the realm of entertainment.

Two comments on these posts:

First, Benton's brought back some memories.  When I was a kid in 50s and 60s, most of the older men I know, my uncles and my father's friends, church members, teachers, etc. were veterans of WWII and Korea.  I remember spending a weekend at an irrigation shack on the Yellowstone with a friend of my fathers, who gave me a .50 cal. cartridge, which I put on my dresser as a conversation piece. Not that I needed direction, but my father thought it would be good for me to spend time with the guy.  He put me to work on local ranches as well. When I was 14 I spent a summer in Texas working on an uncle's farm, so I would understand more about farming etc. Teaching youth was the responsibility of parents, but everyone in the community could pitch in. There was a difference between adults and children.

Second, SSF raises an interesting point.  I was a freshman in HS in 1965, 20 years AFTER the end of WWII. Everyone I knew back then knew why WWII had been fought and who our adversaries were (though some sometimes mixed Germans with Soviets). Teachers and other elders, of course, but also everyone my age. After 1985, I started meeting young people who could not tell me whom the US had been fighting in Vietnam, or why.  Now I meet young people who are not sure why the US is in AFghanistan (though they have all heard of 9/11) or why there was a war in Iraq. Many have not heard of the Korean War. They know Vietnam was fought in the Jungle, and very little about WWII.  They recognize Hitler, but don't always know the U.S. fought Japan.  They think its ok to know those things--if you are interested.  Just as some people like fishing or collecting old records.  No reason to push that info on everyone, though.  

SSF remembers Ed Sullivan, Gilligan's Island, and Andy Griffith, all off the air before he was born. Now many young people not only don't remember shows from the 90s, but the tv/cable offerings are so diverse, they don't even share current programs the way people did back in the 60s and 70s.  I used to think the exceptions should be enormously popular movies like the Star Trek series and Star Wars, but now I meet some who have heard of these movies but have not seen them, though they may recognize Spock and Darth as pop cultural icons. No more stories in common.