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%BRIDGING GENERATION GAP 770222
Each new generation as youth, call into question the
traditional values of the elders---as they must in order
to internalize the values with integrity, if the values
are appropriate to the new time. Such questioning can be
securely done only in the context of a supportive sub-
culture. Thus each new generation of youth creates a
youth sub-culture which examines the values and value
system of the previous generation. For the examination to
be meaningful it must be done in freedom; not under the
control or direction of the originators of that which is
under question.
When the adults of a culture feel insecure and are
threatened by the profound questioning of their youth,
they tend to try to control the thoughts and feelings of
their youth. In legitimate self-defense, the youth develop
languages which exclude adults from ready understanding.
The attempt to control promotes isolation which is
commonly known as the generation gap. Young people
instinctively know they must maintain the generation gap
so long as they are confronted by adults who seek to
maintain their traditional culture ---no matter what the
costs in terms of estrangement, alienation,
excommunication; i.e., sin. Thus youth are in a poor
position to bridge the generation gap.
Adults who seek to bridge the generation gap can do
so only if they have appropriate motives. If they seek to
bridge the gap in order to understand youth as a means to
control them --- their efforts will fail. Only as they
learn to unconditionally value dialogue with youth --- can
adults lay the foundation for the bridge across the
generation gap. It is the dialogue which must be valued---
not whatever dialogue may lead to. It is reconciliation
which is important --- not the behavior which may, or may
not, flow from it. It is the transcendence of sin, not the
prevention of sins which should be the ultimate concern.
Bridging the generation gap is likely to be a painful
process because it will bring judgement upon the
inadequacies of the adult sub-culture and the youth sub-
culture. Youth in their innocence penetrate the collusions
of adults and expose their lack of integrity. For this
reason few adults seek to bridge the generation gap.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
(On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)
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