Eagle1
08-02-2006, 04:48 PM
a book by shelby steele that is well written and packed with observational gems.
i read a passage in it that i think is one of the most eloquent points on the hippie generation.
One purpose of youthful rebellion is to put one's self at odds with adult authority not so much to defeat it as to be defeated by it. One opposes it to discover its logic and validity for one's self. And by failing to defeat it, one comes to it, and to greater maturity, through experience rather than mere received wisdom. Of course, every new generation alters the adult authority it ultimately joins. But if the young win their rebellion against the old, their rite of passage to maturity is cut short and they are falsely inflated rather than humbled. Uninitiated, they devalue history rather than find direction in it, and feel entitled to break sharply and even recklessly from the past.
This book is a goldmine of such nuggets of wisdom. It is a joy to read and an affirmation of American goodness with a bitchslap to those morons of "counterculture".
I would encourage everyone to go to a library and read it.
i read a passage in it that i think is one of the most eloquent points on the hippie generation.
One purpose of youthful rebellion is to put one's self at odds with adult authority not so much to defeat it as to be defeated by it. One opposes it to discover its logic and validity for one's self. And by failing to defeat it, one comes to it, and to greater maturity, through experience rather than mere received wisdom. Of course, every new generation alters the adult authority it ultimately joins. But if the young win their rebellion against the old, their rite of passage to maturity is cut short and they are falsely inflated rather than humbled. Uninitiated, they devalue history rather than find direction in it, and feel entitled to break sharply and even recklessly from the past.
This book is a goldmine of such nuggets of wisdom. It is a joy to read and an affirmation of American goodness with a bitchslap to those morons of "counterculture".
I would encourage everyone to go to a library and read it.