It is true that the modern generation seems to be changing all this.
Family cohesion and authority no longer mean what they did even twenty
years ago. The youth of to-day are willful, selfish, heartless, in
their rebellion. They are changing the system blindly and blunderingly.
They feel the pressure, and without stopping to ask questions or
analyze the situation, they burst the doors and flee away. Their
seeming initiative is more animal spirits than anything else. They
have exploded the myth that their elders have any superhuman wisdom
of experience to share with them, or any incontrovertible philosophy
of life with which to guide their wandering footsteps. But it must be
admitted that most have failed so far to find a wisdom and a philosophy
to take its place. They have too often thrown away the benefits of
family influence on account of mere trivialities of misunderstanding.
They have not waited for the real warpings of initiative, the real
pressure of prejudice, but have kicked up their heels at the first
breath of authority. They have not so much dodged the pressure as
fled it altogether. Instead of being intent on brushing away the
annoying obstacles that interfered with the free growth of their
own worthier selves, they have mistaken the means for the end, and
have merely brushed off the interferences, without first having any
consciousness of that worthier self. Now of course this is no solution.
It is only as they substitute for the authority that they throw off
a definite authority of their own, crystallized out of their own
ideals and purposes, that they will gain or help others to gain. For
lack of a vision the people perish. For lack of a vision of their own
personalities, and the fresh, free, aggressive, forward, fearless,
radical life that we all ought to lead, and could lead if we only had
the imagination for it, the youth of to-day will cast off the narrowing
confining fetters of authority only to wander without any light at
all. This is not to say that this aimless wandering is not better than
the prison-house, but it is to say that the emancipation of the spirit
is insufficient without a new means of spiritual livelihood to take
its place. The youth of to-day cannot rest on their liberation; they
must see their freedom as simply the setting free of forces within
themselves for a cleaner, sincerer life, and for radical work in
society. The road is cut out before them by pioneers; they have but to
let themselves grow out in that direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account