As we discussed earlier in class, one reason Puritanism began to fall apart was that the younger generation came along and began to question some of the key tenets of its faith. Actually, it seems as though many ideologies and belief systems in history have failed when youngsters came along and ask "why?".
Is it a rule that each new generation becomes more and more open-minded and tolerant? As time progresses and youngsters continually question assumptions of the past, does society always become more progressive? After all, we look back at institutions of the past (ex: slavery, imperialism...) today and wonder how those ideas could ever have been seen as appropriate. Will that continue onwards today? Will our kids and grandkids look back a century from now and wonder how we still have sexism, racism, and prejudice? Perhaps we are slowly advancing toward utopia.
But if each new generation breaks new ground, what exactly happens when they turn older? Why do they lose the open-mindedness that they once held? It's curious how each new generation eventually becomes "old", and then new youngsters come along and try to stir things up again.
On the other hand, some ideas have persisted through the ages and through several generations. America's constitution has survived a couple of centuries by now, and although we've made amendments, we still follow it and rarely question the document's legitimacy. As Dr. B said, if in other countries they debate to constantly create and destroy constitutions, in our country we debate to interpret the one we already have (and have kept for hundreds of years). So if some ideals persist through the ages, does it make them "better"?
Thoughts?
(Eric Wei)
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5 comments:
I wouldn't say that members of older generations necessarily "lose open-mindedness". Rather, we must take into consideration that the principles to whick they abide may have been considered radical in their time. But like Mr. Lazarow said from one of the first few days of class, we, as humans, detest change, and when we take root in a certain ambience, we become stubborn and resistant to change.
How can we characterize some ideals as better than others when they merely apply to different groups of people? I think that we interpret, rather than completely change our constitution (for we have added amendments) because of the pride/nationalism we hold when remembering our Founding Fathers. Actually, this "patriotism" (What else can I call it?) was demonstrated by members in our class during our discussion of the "Star Spangled Banner".
Maybe the truth of the matter is that we just get bored. Next. Next. Next. Never satisfied, are we? Has their ever been a movement stirred by older members of a previous generation? I'm curious.
(Sam Maliha)
To answer the first question: I think that as time progresses, society does NOT always "become more progressive," although again, it is difficult to argue this because of the ambiguity of the word "progressive" and because of differences in definitions (what a surprise, right?). For the moment, I consider "progress" simply in terms of social tolerance, with the assumption that higher tolerance indicates "progress."
Yes, for the most part, it does appear that each new generation becomes more tolerant. However, the questioning of certain past assumptions or practices does not necessarily have to ALWAYS result in higher tolerance, and thus, progress. Such "questioning" could possibly result in a negative effect - lower tolerance. The point here is that WE CANNOT DETERMINE how future generations will react when they evaluate things from the past. It is impossible to know whether our grandchildren will live in a society in which racism and sexism are much more prominent than they are in today's era. Thus, we cannot determine if society will become more "progressive" in terms of social tolerance or open-mindedness.
Now, here's my problem: I have limited my definition of "progressive" to being socially open-minded or tolerant, since this is the example that Eric provided, and I'm not sure how to expand my definition. Does anyone have a different perspective on Eric's first question? I feel like I haven't given much of an answer... I apologize for the confusion this comment has caused any of you.
(Janet Lee)
We live in a society that values progress. Our people are always looking to move ahead, get ahead, or be ahead of the rest of the world and generally speaking as individuals progress so does society. As Adam Smith said private vices yield public benefit. But thats a bit off the point of the progression of toleration. I would disagree that humans detest change, they may often individually be hesitant about new things, but on a societal level I believe it varies on country to country basis. We live in a culture that today places a high value on toleration. This drives individuals here towards toleration and seeing as we also place a high value on progress, our society is constantly expanding our definition of tolerance.
To say that every generation becomes more open minded is huge and largely false generalization. It is a trend that holds true for the majority of American history, but throughout history and across the world the trend does not hold true. In many countries and regions, especially those not influenced by the Western media, generations remain the same. They accept the teachings of their parents and their society without much questioning. Also, looking back outside of American history, I think it is as easy to identify steps backward as those forward in terms of toleration. Look at the French Revolution, the Dark Ages, even look at the genocides occurring to this day. I don't think this generalization has much backing. It holds some truth concerning America's history, but cannot be said to apply to the majority of the world.
(Connor Tweardy)
I think it's interesting how "tolerance" is being used as one definition of progress. May I ask, "tolerance of what?" I believe that, yes, we have certainly become, as a nation, more tolerant over that past few hundreds years of the US's existence, but I believe we have become tolerant in more than one area.
The stated area of tolerance is in the area of sexism, racism, etc. We have become more tolerant of people, in this sense. I agree. I think another area where we have become more tolerant is a bit more personal, though. We are increasingly, as a culture, becoming more tolerant of things such as violence, foul language, and things of that sort. I'm sure that we could all make a list of the movies and/or video games that we have played recently that are either violent or include foul language (or both).
With increasing tolerance, I sort of get the impression that there is increasing intolerance, as well (when it comes to people). It seems paradoxical. Look at how religion is treated. We are "tolerant" of all religions, as long as the members aren't pushy or try to get others to believe what they believe. Then we become intolerant of them. So, is tolerance actually increasing, or is the definition of tolerance merely changing???
I am very curious to see what you all have to say about this...
Emily T.
I think that over the past generations toleration has increased condsiderbly. This increase in toleration I think stems largely from the enlightenment. John Locke's ideologies concerning progress and blank slates drastically altered our view toward both tolerance and moving forward generationally. Before this movement, as everyone who takes Euro has recently learned, progress wasn't positive. Change had an almost entirely negative connotation and the majority of people did not want to move forward.
This is a era of 99 year lease where most people desired nothing more than to farm the same land as their family had always farmed, the land they hoped to pass down to their children. It is of course, possible that I'm weighting the importance of Locke's ideas to heavily because we've been focusing on its impact in euro, but I don't it can be looked over. If we look at the period since the enlightenment I think we'll find that tolerance has increased from generation to generation. Progress is expected, it's taken for granted. Of course it's impossible to be certain of anything but I think we can hypothesize fairly safely that this trend will continue.
(Molly Dunbar)
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