'OH, YEAH?"
We are still at it!
Why is it, I wonder that older folks – those of us who think of ourselves as being “more mature” - often seem to take great delight in vilifying and demeaning the youth of our day? Not all of us – of course, but a remarkably obvious number do such a thing. They take special jaundiced joy in seeking out and displaying ways in which young people today different and joyously set about proving it all to be wrong.
They can’t be all that bad! They are our children, chips off the much-revered “old block” and we have had, or should have had a major role in their upbringing.
Few people today remember when a world famed novelist that time – in l931 it must have been – by the name of Edna Ferber upset a cart load of caustic criticism the youth of that day – of her day. She, of all people,could do so and get away with it. She was internationally popular as the author of the novel “So Big”in 1924 and then, of everything to do with “Show Boat” out of Bath, North Carolina. Shed was known for a caustic wit and outspoken manner and she could hold her own among the wits at the Hotel Algonquin meetings where she was a member in rude standing.
Ferber, after a trip to Paris, did an interview with “The Literary Digest” in which she American youths as being "our beautiful young idiots".. she was no not impressed by the rash of :"youth movements then sweeping Europe, and said American youth could make it if they started using their "beans" ;never mind the gin-drinking admitting she rather liked that herself.." All they talk about if football and "Oh,Yeah?" terms ruin their speech. If they wish to do so, they can end Prohibition; bring an end to war. Absolutely everything depends on them. The old men, or even the middle aged men lack the courage and vitality to stand against the racketeers and cheap politicians."
She went on-ad-on. That's just an at random sample and I, as high school student at the time,listened to her and read what she wrote about us. It was only later that I realized she made her judgments on American youth she met on Atlantic ocean liner crossings and those who were part of Parisian society in those post-war years. That would be a very limited sample of American youth.
We repeat Edna Ferber's mistake today when we do studies, surveys, polls and other such "convincers".
We use some very inadequate samples.
A.L.M. February 4 2005 [c445wds]
