Out with the Old

16. When we're young we want to change the world. When we're old we want to change the young. -Anonymous

Generations come and generations go, but one thing that has always remained constant is the conflict. In the 20s Jazz was corrupting children, the 50s brought the evils of rock and roll, the 70s sexual liberation plagued the young, the 90s rap was turning young men and women into criminals, and now today video games are training kids to murder. With every passage of time, the old look back on the young, and wish it were like the days of old.

With the passage of time our culture grows, it changes and alters itself. It evolves, slowly, but moving forward. Every now and again a hiccup comes along, and we take a step back, but eventually we come to move forward once more. With every passing of the torch from one generation to the next, we lose some of our hatred, we lose some of our ignorance and prejudice. As the young grow old, we as a society become more and more open minded. But only just a little more.

Traditionally our leaders and politicians, those who govern us are of the previous generation. They're men and women in their mid to late years, they remember back to their own childhood, they believe truly that it was the right way to live. They look upon the young, so radical, so different, they fear them. It's not that hard to understand, it is human nature to fear change, to fear the unknown. They see in the young such untempered and untested ideals, they see what the young stand for, but they also see the lack of aged experience. They hold back what they believe is too wild and broad to be stable.

The young look at the old, and shake their head. How could someone be so closed minded, how could they be so wrong about how the world works. Why can't they see that we all have the answers? It would all be so easy, making the world right. With blind optimism, and no knowledge of the complexities of how to make any of our wonderful new ways work. We see the old as tired, we see the old as clinging to the obsolete. We're just as ignorant as them in our inability to understand.

The old against the new, the traditionalist against the modernist, the rigid masters against the radical free thinkers. It's a constant loop, a routine, a dance of the world. As the old slowly pass, as the young slowly age the reigns are given up. The young are now the old, now experienced, their ideals now secured by wisdom. The old now have the ability to make their desired world happen, and watch as the young cry out for new and wild ways.

It's going to happen again and again. It's simply the progression of civilization. It's bitter sweet, really, by the time we young minds gain the ability to control the world, our ways are going to be inefficient to the eyes of the new generation. But we can know, that each time the cycle repeats, the world is becoming slowly better. Always forward, always on a forward path.

I wonder what will be evil to me in thirty years...