L14:Does the Younger Generation Know Best?

The Younger Generation Knows Best

Old people are always saying that the young are not what they were. The same comment is made from generation to generation and it is always true. It has never been truer than it is today. The young are better educated. They have a lot more money to spend and enjoy more freedom. They grow up more quickly and are not so dependent on their parents. They think more for themselves and do not blindly accept the ideals of their elders. Events which the older generation remembers vividly are nothing more than past history. This is as it should be. Every new generation is different from the one that preceded it. Today the difference is very marked indeed.

The old always assume that they know best far the simple reason that they have lieen around a bit longer. They don't like to feel that their values are being questioned or threatened. And this is precisely what the young are doing. They are questioning the assumptions of their elders and disturbing their complacency. They take leave to doubt that the older generation has created the best of all possible worlds. What they reject more than anything is conformity.

Office hours, for instance, are nothing more than enforced slavery. Wouldn't people work best if they were given complete freedom and responsibility? And what about clothing? Who said that all the men in the world should wear drab grey suits and convict haircuts? If we turn our minds to more serious matters, who said that human differences can best be solved through conventional polities or by violent means? Why have the older generation so often used violence to solve their problems? Why are they so unhappy and guilt-ridden in their pexsonal lives, so obsessed with mean ambitions and the desire to amass more and more material possessions? Can anything be right with the ratrace? Haven't the old lost touch with all that is important in life?

These are not questions the older generation can shrug off lightly. Their record over the past forty years or so hasn' t been exactly spotless. Traditionally, the young have turned to their elders for guidance. Today, the situation might be reversed. The old - if they are prepared to admit it-coutd learn a thing or two from their children. One of the biggest lessons they could learn is that enjoyment is not "sinful".

Enjoyment is a principle one could apply to all aspects of life. It is surely not wrong to enjoy your work and enjoy your leisure; to shed restricting inhibitions. It is surely not wrong to live in the present rather than in the past or future. This emphasis orr the present is only to be expected because the young have grown up under the shadow of the bomb: the constant threat of complete annihilation. This is their glorious heritage. Can we be surprised that they should so often question the sanity of t.he generaiion that bequeathed it?

II. Read
Read the following passages. Underline the important viewpoints while reading.

1. Problems of the Young

More than 20 Chinese and American experts discovered that young people of both countries are facing the same probiems of economic and social pressures and lack of confidence.
Wayne Meisel, director of the Campus Outreach Opportunity League of Minnesota University, said that under economic pressure American young people have to work hard and most students have to take part-time work in order to support themselves.

"Young people today, ?he said, "are stereotyped as apathetic, selfcentred, and concerned only with making money and getting ahead."
In these circumstances, he said, young people lack confidence,whicb was not the case in the 1960s when young Americans thought themselves capable of doing anything.
In spite of the different conditions in China, Li Xuequan, director