Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!rutgers!husc6!panda!genrad!decvax!decwrl!magic!thain From: thain@magic.UUCP Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.singles Subject: Re: Treat 'em like dirt boys...[you do an' you'l be singin soprano!] Message-ID: <1350@magic.DEC.COM> Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 15:47:24 EDT Article-I.D.: magic.1350 Posted: Fri Oct 10 15:47:24 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 12-Oct-86 05:02:05 EDT References: <54@ritcv.UUCP> <305@joevax.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: DEC Systems Research Center, Palo Alto Lines: 111 Keywords: Longish, but well worth ev'ry burnt eye socket. Xref: watmath soc.women:306 soc.singles:461 In article <305@joevax.UUCP>, dnelson@joevax.UUCP (Dorothy Nelson) writes: > THE KEY QUESTION HERE *IS*: What's happening to *all* of us? Retrograde evolution my dear, retrograde evolution. ;-) This is an interesting question. I'll take a moment to get serious and open the discussion. I'd like to think that there are three key elements which need to be understood before we can come to grips with Dorothy's question. The first is the environmental conditions in which we live, the second is the educational experiences we receive, the third is the media propaganda to which we are exposed. All three help influence and shape the world we live in, they reflect in our manner of speech, our clothing, our personalities. Ultimately they set the patterns by which we live, how we react, how we interact. They are the tripod on which we build castles of stone or air. The first, the environment, is not only the physical environment outside our eyes but also the emotional environment we live in. Supportive emotional environments like hazard free physical environments enrich and help stimulate individuals by promoting growth and expansion. Likewise, hazard filled environments teach us to be wary, trust nothing, look out for yourself. Hopefully these are intermixed, the result is a reasonably well adjusted person able to deal with the trials and tribulations of the world. There are however times when these become unbalanced, such as divorce, loss of a parent through death, extreme hardships such as unemployment, drug addiction, etc. Then the environment will change and not always for the better. As pressure to maintain a stable environment increases, it changes the individuals outlook on certain issues and changes they're reactions in a like manner. The second is education, which is also variable due to many factors. This too includes education in a formal sense, a racial sense, and an intuitave sense. Education is perhaps the single most important because education allows us to synthesize information about our environment and the media influence. It is important to be as well educated as one possibly can. When an issue is presented in which we know very little, education is necessary to alievate any negative connotations. Education is also necessary so rational decisions can be made about issues which effect us and the environment. Ignorance in enough quanity breeds suspicion, false information, biased opinions. Ignorance reduces a person's perception and ability to deal with the unknown and unexpected. The third is media propaganda. This includes peer pressure, television, upbringing at home, conditioning at school, etc. Each of us gets a healthy/ unhealthy dose of the above in our daily life. Media propaganda gives us the values and lifestyles of others around us, gives us oral and visual stimulation to match the educational/environmental inputs of other people against our own. Media also influences lifestyles and trends by portraying behaviors and attitudes which startle and confuse. It offers many illusions about how life really is. It becomes necessary to reconize that people do what they have to do to survive. Survival is open ended in it's interpertation. But if you threaten someone with what they believe to be essential to they're survival they will perform drastic measures to insure that it is protected. Given that these factors are the represenative qualities which shape a person and his opinions, we can now take a look at the social dynamics of the world today and the driving forces which are present. We live in a complex technological world which has placed increasing demands on us. Not only are we expected to cope with the everchanging physical environment in which we live, we are also expected to cope with the ever- changing emotional one. Many of the values we were taught as children are being challenged, many of the social myths have been shattered, open to new questions and interpertations. We are striving to regain the balance of what we were taught as children without compromising ourselves into corners which would be difficult for us to resolve. To answer your question Dorothy, what is happening to us, we must also ask the question, what has happened to us? We have become adults and the naivety of youth has been stripped away in our excitment and anticipation of becoming adults. Most of our superstitions have been replaced by cold logic, the values we grew up with are fading away, being replaced by our children's, and our children's childrens values. Our parents professed not to understand our generation's values, likewise we are mistyfied by our children's values. No doubt out chlidren will be confused by their children. Why? Because the envrionmental/educational/media propaganda differs between generations. We would be neglecting our educational duties to ourselves if we didn't observe this. Like our parents, we're trying to live in three different worlds, theirs, ours, and our childrens. Because certain values within our environment have changed and the media is conflicted about whether these changes are healthy or not, our educational experiences become open to further inward questions. No longer are we complacently accepting things as they come, but striving to resolve the internal conflicts between the three factors. Many times we find them at odds because our educational experiences conflict against the media propoganda, the environment, or both, which changes our perception of the world at large. What is happening to us? In a sense, the flip answer I offered has the haunting ring of truth. We are in the midst of a severe social revolution, one which is causing us to analyze ourselves in relationship to those around us. We are desperately trying to maintain our identies and individuality in a world which demands conformority and an acceptence of the status quo. We are attempting to understand our children in light of what we were taught, finding in them the same rebellious streak which we defied our parents with, hang on to our cultural idenity, and continue to rebel against our parents. We are running into a New World, in some ways hauntingly familiar to the one we knew, yet frightingly different from the one of our youth. We are changing in ways only the advancement of age and collective wisdom can bring about. We are doing what we have to do to survive. Happy Trails to you all, Glenn thain@src.dec.com