Girls and boys today all over the world are now serving their community, company or country with greater equality than ever before in global history. Side by side they live and die, get drunk, go crazy, fool around, snap pictures, and must now adjust to the reality that photos of their bad behavior can "turn up" at any time for the rest of their lives. Just knowing this fact will bend civilization.
The boys and girls — excuse me — people of this fine generation are capable and bright. They are well educated, but poorly trained, raised not to clutch the stick but to be the stick, as in "An Army of One." This is bad thinking. And bad thinking leads to bad action. Things get worse from there. Take Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison. Lynndie England, the girl with the cool poses, is the first woman to achieve the full status of jerk. Others have likely done worse, but Lynndie's enthusiasm was as real as amateur porn.
In America today we are shocked by the blatant disrespect for human dignity that was displayed by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison, but if you look closely, you'll realize you recognize it everywhere. Blatant, frankly proud disrespect for others. It's been seen on highways, but also in supermarkets, high schools, streets, kitchens, bedrooms. Casual yet brutal disrespect campuses and in churches, on athletic teams, choirs, in fact any club involving men or women operating in secret to some degree, will dance the edge of the profane, whether it's Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, Skull and Bones or the U.S. military, they will purposely do what is wrong and find their bond thereby.
What's new was the camera that recorded it. Like the pill, this device is bound to change us. Perhaps after a few more tries, we'll start getting things right, now that we know who's watching.
Article comments
1 - Shark
Yet another awesome piece, CW. The rest of us "writers" might as well just hang up our keyboards and try to get a real job.
2 - Smenkharon
Great piece! If "The Lottery" is relevant to your generation I would suggest you pick up Koushun Takami's "Battle Royale" for a similar novel reflecting today's younger generation. A movie adaptation is out there as well but I have yet to see it so I cannot recommend it, try the book though. Again, great post!
3 - Hal Pawluk
Too good, CW.
4 - HW Saxton Jr.
CW,You should be raking in mad loot for
writing like this.Damn this is good!
5 - JR
More great stuff. I love it.
I've wondered about this myself:
I always wondered why boy's bikes had the bar and girl's bikes didn't, especially since the boys had so much more to lose, and the girls had literally nothing to lose.
I think those bicycles were designed back when girls wore long skirts. It wouldn't have been proper to hike up their skirts, and it's difficult to ride a bicycle side-saddle, so they took out that bar. Being a girl's bike, it wouldn't need the structural strength of that extra support.