This blog kills fascists. Eventually. It's a process I'm working on. Be patient with me.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Dr. Ben Carson Is OK With the War on our Internal Organs?
My reproductive organs are all actually on my inside. I am not really ok with a war on my inside-parts. I don't like where Dr. Carson is going regarding my inside-y parts. He is really unguarded though--am I right? Not a business-as-usual politician?
What bothers me is the idea of someone being "omnicompetent"--just because he was brilliant as a surgeon, doesn't mean he has skills that translate to anything like politics. Certain of things that Carson has said regarding Obamacare being like slavery and some of the amazingly weird things he's said about Obama being a socialist bent on destroying the economy and that the US is like Nazi Germany, all point to an understanding of politics not much different from one's FOX-News-obsessed uncle who posts the oddest conspiracy stuff on Facebook. But he's polling well at moment--to me, that's the scary bit.
It's a weird thing, but something you will become aware of. And it takes longer for us to become aware of it, because we don't have any kids.
I hear a lot of speculation about how the millennials are going to respond about a lot of issues, including the one you post about here.
On the internet I've noticed a lot of older people trying to speak with the voice of a younger generation. Often it is with an echo of 1960s sensibilities. Speaking as one who went entirely through the 60s I can tell you there just ain't no way. In the 60s we didn't even have computers, let alone video games, iphones, blackberries, etc., and today younger generations live in a world influenced and created by all this technology.
Even after one has passed through those years, there is a feeling that one understands the voice of the young. However, eventually one begins to realize that they are in the position of their parents or grandparents, and they are completely out of date.
The G&L Alicia and I never had children, and so a lot of the marking periods that clue one in to how out of sync with the modern world one is never occurred in our lives. However, as the years wear on it begins to dawn on you that you are really no longer capable of understanding the social and psychological dimensions of the younger generations.
I remember my grandparents once, sitting at the kitchen table talking about being completely out of it. My grandmother shrugged, looked heavenward and said, “We've been to the moon.” I privately thought, “So what?” But as I thought about it, I realized these were people who were still riding horses in their youth. They did not have refrigerators. They made ice cream by hand. They didn't need to have a high school diploma to get a good job. Then I understood better what going to the moon meant.
Anyway, this is just a caution that the younger generation will soon be taking over and be dominant in the political/social world. And it is possible that their views may be considerably different from the older generations'. People with children realize this, but it sometimes comes as a slowly dawning shock to those of us who haven't had to confront the weirdness of teenagers.
I do think about it--as blogger, what I write is basically super topical and has a kind of "planned obsolescence", but as the saying goes, "The Internet never forgets." I think I'm reasonably progressive, but I already expect that in ten years (if that!) the whippersnappers will come across my back issues and Auntie Vixen will sound reactionary as heck. There's a part of me that grimaces at the thought that Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber fans are going to be running the show in thirty-forty years.
But how would they look at me? "Go on and reminisce about Lilith Fair with that pet shelter song lady, you old Fail/Abort/Retry? Generation X CD-collecting, boot-cut 80's childhood-remembering,This is 40-something, disaffected, self-referencing cynic."
We should all live long enough for our high school yearbook pictures to serve as indictments.
4 comments:
The cautionary tale here is that it turns out that brilliant pediatric neurosurgeons can simultaneously be utter morons.
I dunno about you, but that frightens me...
What bothers me is the idea of someone being "omnicompetent"--just because he was brilliant as a surgeon, doesn't mean he has skills that translate to anything like politics. Certain of things that Carson has said regarding Obamacare being like slavery and some of the amazingly weird things he's said about Obama being a socialist bent on destroying the economy and that the US is like Nazi Germany, all point to an understanding of politics not much different from one's FOX-News-obsessed uncle who posts the oddest conspiracy stuff on Facebook. But he's polling well at moment--to me, that's the scary bit.
Felicitations, my dear Vixen.
It's a weird thing, but something you will become aware of. And it takes longer for us to become aware of it, because we don't have any kids.
I hear a lot of speculation about how the millennials are going to respond about a lot of issues, including the one you post about here.
On the internet I've noticed a lot of older people trying to speak with the voice of a younger generation. Often it is with an echo of 1960s sensibilities. Speaking as one who went entirely through the 60s I can tell you there just ain't no way. In the 60s we didn't even have computers, let alone video games, iphones, blackberries, etc., and today younger generations live in a world influenced and created by all this technology.
Even after one has passed through those years, there is a feeling that one understands the voice of the young. However, eventually one begins to realize that they are in the position of their parents or grandparents, and they are completely out of date.
The G&L Alicia and I never had children, and so a lot of the marking periods that clue one in to how out of sync with the modern world one is never occurred in our lives. However, as the years wear on it begins to dawn on you that you are really no longer capable of understanding the social and psychological dimensions of the younger generations.
I remember my grandparents once, sitting at the kitchen table talking about being completely out of it. My grandmother shrugged, looked heavenward and said, “We've been to the moon.” I privately thought, “So what?” But as I thought about it, I realized these were people who were still riding horses in their youth. They did not have refrigerators. They made ice cream by hand. They didn't need to have a high school diploma to get a good job. Then I understood better what going to the moon meant.
Anyway, this is just a caution that the younger generation will soon be taking over and be dominant in the political/social world. And it is possible that their views may be considerably different from the older generations'. People with children realize this, but it sometimes comes as a slowly dawning shock to those of us who haven't had to confront the weirdness of teenagers.
I do think about it--as blogger, what I write is basically super topical and has a kind of "planned obsolescence", but as the saying goes, "The Internet never forgets." I think I'm reasonably progressive, but I already expect that in ten years (if that!) the whippersnappers will come across my back issues and Auntie Vixen will sound reactionary as heck. There's a part of me that grimaces at the thought that Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber fans are going to be running the show in thirty-forty years.
But how would they look at me? "Go on and reminisce about Lilith Fair with that pet shelter song lady, you old Fail/Abort/Retry? Generation X CD-collecting, boot-cut 80's childhood-remembering,This is 40-something, disaffected, self-referencing cynic."
We should all live long enough for our high school yearbook pictures to serve as indictments.
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