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Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:44:34 -0700

submitted by Pilebsa
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Lucent on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T01:22:15.044625-07:00-0700

"In other cultures, elders are highly respected!" In those other cultures, you also died if you were a moron. It used to be an accomplishment to survive into old age. Raids, childbirth, wild animal attacks, betrayl, lack of allies, even lapses in attention. Just being alive 50 years really said something about you. Now any idiot in the first world can make it well into old age with no respect, character, vitality, skill, or even friends. Now, it does not, so no respect should be bestowed upon elders by default.

Pilebsa on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T22:01:40.338615-07:00-0700

I don't think respect for elders was a result of them living long. It was the result of them having more *life experience* and therefore having wisdom to share with others. But apparently today's youth know everything already so they have no use for a bunch of old people.

just_a_regular_guy on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-25T03:55:22.521104-07:00-0700

>But apparently today's youth know everything already so they have no use for a bunch of old people Grandma is great and all, but she doesn't know how to google...

rm-rf_linux on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-27T12:45:03.573317-07:00-0700

Exactly.. and today it is funny to see several generations (Gen x and above) and they're simply (as a whole) not really doing better than previous generations. Tweens, 30 year old adults who are too immature to hold a job, living at home with mom and dad is quite common. My sister's boyfriend, almost 29 years old and still walks around sagging his pants like he's a teenager. Extreme body modifications with HUGE plugs or covering entire body parts in tattoo's b/c as a grown ass man or woman, somehow "self expression" and "fashion statements" are still the upmost importance to people.. who somehow manage to afford $400 tattoo jobs but have problems saving one red cent or paying their bills on time. There's a guy i work with, smart guy, married, two kids. Does well for himself. No doubt but it struck me odd how infantile as adults we all are compared to our parent's generation. We're still SUPER concerned with music and film, and comic books and consumer electronics (ipods, big screen tv's, video game systems, nicer shinier computers, etc..) We've become the eternal children, and the perfect consumers. It's typical for middle class girls (and lower class) ranging from teenager all the way up to mid 30s to walk around with $200+ purses, shoes, top of the line make up products. It's common for people to walk around with almost a grand worth of electronics on their belt between their touch screen phones and mp3 players. Yet in areas booming with young professionals (like Atlanta) the housing market crashed the hardest. Because these literal adults but mental children just spend spend spend.. $500 a month on $500,000 home? no Problem! We got adults soo concerned with getting their damned twitter updated every 15 minutes on their $100 a month phone/data plan, but still haven't started a 401k or other investment strategy. It's absurd how priorities have shifted.

Pilebsa on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-27T17:28:53.790199-07:00-0700

You know what gets me? When I was ten years old, I had a job. I had a paper route. I used to get up at 3:30am in the mornings and fold newspapers in the freezing cold and get on my bike and deliver them.. when I was 10. I know people 25+ years old now who still haven't worked their first job.

quag7 on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-29T14:39:42.018729-07:00-0700

I used to hate that on Sunday mornings. I had the bike basket on back, one on each side behind the rear tire, and I could hold maybe 6 of the Sunday paper total at once. I had something like 60 houses on my route, all on a steep hill. Had to get that out by 6, so had to assemble them as you say, and then I'd come home all tired and my parents would insist on dragging me to fucking CHURCH. Fucking Asbury Park Press. Fucking CHURCH.

effigies on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T00:07:30.688797-07:00-0700

Most of human history has been essentially a holding pattern, with social, political, and technological change advancing slowly. Though one century might not resemble the next, within the lifetime of an individual, not much would change. This would naturally give rise to high estimation of experience, which would only increase with age. With the technological changes brought about by the Scientific, Industrial, and Digital Revolutions, it has turned into a young man's world. New technology for which there is no historical precedent removes the advantage of those who have lived history, and puts it in the hands of those who can learn and adapt most quickly, which is a feature of youth. I wouldn't say I disagree with Craig Ferguson, though. But I would say the cultural empowerment of youth, as well as the disregard for age, stems from a technological empowerment of youth. Also, note that experience is still highly valued. But it's experience with the latest technologies.

fridgetarian on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-23T20:55:40.598706-07:00-0700

This is also an American invention. I usually describe high school football culture whenever I try to analogize this phenomenon. And, I love his imagery of an inverted world, because that is what it is—the old revering the young. This is the reversal of the whole (recent) history of human behavior. (I know that in many animal societies strength is revered, and that *youth* can correlate with *strength*, but this gets into the whole alpha male/pecking order thing. And besides, these heights of power are are mid-life or later.) I just see it as a manipulation of the nostalgia of parents and it leads to a pathological desire to live vicariously through children or to physiologically resist the aging process. In short: I officially love Craig Ferguson.

eric22vhs on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-23T17:41:05.421032-07:00-0700

This is actually something I've been trying to explain to people for a while now. Youth marketing, as far as I know, really took off more towards the late 70's and 80's when the Boomers were suddenly the ones trying to circulate all of their money by selling to each other's children. This was the beginning of the real consumer era, and as easy as it is too blow off all the cliches over consumerism as bullshit, it really is about the largest sociological phenomenon since imperialism.

da_bradler on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T03:37:26.279658-07:00-0700

I disagree, Humans achieve their mental and emotional peak at around 25 years, You will never think or feel as strongly and as clearly as you do during that time. You gain knowledge and experience but the machinery that is the human body is at its optimum operating capacity at around 25 years. That's why we idolize youth that's why ageing people wish they still had their youth. Also the younger you are the more everything you know is based in the now instead of the past. Youth are much more capable of seeing future trends because they exist in a time closer to the future their judgment is less obscured by decades of no longer relevant information

reedbecker on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T13:36:03.824503-07:00-0700

Yah, it is never the old people in control deciding how the world works.

leighahall on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T13:17:59.135633-07:00-0700

the laughter track/whooping audience detracts from what he's trying to say

Fu_Man_Chu on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T12:37:38.575750-07:00-0700

It goes back a LOT longer than that. Around the time Christianity was on the rise there was a cultural shift from a religion of the father (Judaism) to a religion of the Son (Christianity). He touches on the latest manifestation of our youth obsession with gusto though.

draxus99 on Does it seem like our society has gone awry, from history's tendency to revere age and wisdom, to now celebrating youth and ignorance? Craig Ferguson has figured out why...

2010-01-24T05:29:01.702225-07:00-0700

Uhhhh... more like going from a history of reverence to age and *ignorance*, to now celebrating youth and *wisdom*