On Generational Politics

“Now, it is a question whether the world is so topsy-turvy that it always needs turning around.  The world itself has always had a two-fold answer to this question.  From the beginning of the world most people, in their youth, have been in favour of turning the world around.  They have always felt it was ridiculous the way their elders clung to convention and thought with the heart – a lump of flesh – instead of with the brain.  To the young, the moral stupidity of their elders has always looked like the same inability to make new connections that constitutes ordinary stupidity, and their own natural morality has always been one of achievement, heroism and change.  But they have no sooner reached their years of accomplishment than they no longer remember this, and even less do they want to be reminded of it.” (pp. 37-8)