Maybe that kind of social posturing is all my generation knows how to do.

No one gave a fuck what we thought when we were kids, so we didn't grow up trying to think. So we can't actually participate in a democracy now that we're adults. We don't know how to do that.

What we know how to do is form social cliques and figure out whose in and whose out. We're absolutely spectacular at social cliques.

We don't know a damn thing about respecting people's independent opinions. That is almost the polar opposite of what we are. Independent opinions are like poison in a social clique. We don't bother developing them and we don't value them.

Perhaps whats missing are adults who encourage children to stake out independent opinions and value them even as they correct them. Whats missing are adults that ask children to figure out amongst themselves what the right answers are.

You can't teach democracy without empowering the students.

We're a whole generation thats never been empowered. We're like slaves who don't know what to do with freedom - like cons who've spent their whole lives in prison and then one day they get released.

We can't deal with it. We go back to our old ways. And they use us.

There is no solving this.

RE: The Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford Memo