You hear the refrain — too often, it seems — from those who lament what they perceive is the demise of civilization, particularly when it regards the “next generation.”
Those who complain about such things have a clear lack of understanding of this significant fact. Which is that people have been gloom-and-dooming our good Earth’s future since the beginning of time.
I like to cite the Greek philosopher Plato’s refrain about how young people five centuries before Jesus’s birth were unkempt, how they didn’t snow respect for their elders and how the world would be handed over to a generation of misfits.
He was a smart man. Plato also was wrong.
I hear much the same thing today from those who continue to insist that “today’s generation” doesn’t show proper respect, or that they are shiftless, lazy, too interested in self-importance.
I am certain every older generation that preceded the current crop of old fogies — such as yours truly — said the same thing about the younger generations coming along.
Did my grandparents once lament how their kids — my parents and their siblings — wouldn’t amount to a pile of kindling? Oh, probably. Then what happened? World War II exploded across our planet and gave birth to humanity’s Greatest Generation!
You never know how fate determines these the future … correct?
I want to say something positive about today’s younger generation. I spoke just recently about Maxwell Frost, a Generation X citizen seeking to be elected to Congress from Florida. The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School spurred Frost to “do something” to end gun violence. So, he decided as he turns 25 to run for Congress.
He’s just one of many young people who want to make a difference.
Frost and others fill me with hope — and an expectation — that our world will be just fine as we old timers depart.