[Ter]

I'm part of the prolotariat - a worker

Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Your place of work was disclosed in these columns years ago and unless you changed from a white collar to a blue collar job, you are not a member of the proletarian caste.

[Vasili Blokhin]

@Ter White collars were plenty in commie states.

[Besoeker]

Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Your place of work was disclosed in these columns years ago and unless you changed from a white collar to a blue collar job, you are not a member of the proletarian caste.

Can't you be a worker with a white collar?

[Ter]

Can't you be a worker with a white collar?

I am not sure, visitor, but the job that Qatz was doing can not, under any circumstances, be considered as "worker".

[ness31]

erm, I'm with Qatz on this one, although he could have worded it in a less confrontational manner but I suspect it wouldn't have had quite the same response.

Its ok though Qatz, its quality not the quantity of our elders that matters. Even a handful truly powerfuly wise oldies can extend the breadth of the earth. No need to fret

[MistyTiger]

That's because I'm wise enough to let Wikipedia do that for me.

...a possession of knowledge, or the seeking of knowledge to apply to the given circumstance. This involves an understanding of people, objects, events, situations, and the willingness as well as the ability to apply perception, judgement, and action in keeping with the understanding of what is the optimal course of action. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions (the "passions") so that the universal principle of reason prevails to determine one's action. In short, wisdom is a disposition to find the truth coupled with an optimum judgement as to what actions should be taken.

Wise enough to let wiki do it for you? How is that even wise? The authors of wiki articles do not have to be wise to write stuff nor do they have to be qualified.

[Hong Wu]

Elders used to get more respect because there were fewer of them, probably of a higher quality on average. Living for a long time was considered a strong sign of being favored by the divine. Today practically everyone lives a long time in developed countries and some people never have to grow up. So not only are there more "elders" around but the ones that are around have often not obtained a better understanding of tradition than young people, which is to say that age has not always made them wiser.

[Besoeker]

I am not sure, visitor, but the job that Qatz was doing can not, under any circumstances, be considered as "worker".

Well, I don't know what he was doing. Until/unless I know what it was I can't comment.

In my job a collar and tie was the norm. But I certainly never saw myself as anything but a worker.

[jimjam]

So far, no one has taken the time to state that today's seniors deserve as much respect as any other generation of seniors.

because the concept of deserving respect is inherently nonsense.

and what of "wisdom"?

Wisdom has told me that I must find wisdom on my own and not go looking for it amongst others.

good topic for riling folks up though.

[QatzelOk]

... its quality not the quantity of our elders that matters. Even a handful truly powerfuly wise oldies can extend the breadth of the earth. No need to fret

Which is why I wrote "most" of our elders don't deserve respect (reverence), rather then "all." Elders who visit pofo regularly obviously spend more than the average senior on Big Picture thinking.

Elders used to get more respect because there were fewer of them...

Um, that's not the only reason. The "rarity" principal explains why gold is more expensive than iron, but not why elders were far more valuable than non-elders when it came to advice-seeking.

The main reason is lifestyle. Pre-moderns had a lot more spare time than we do. For one thing, women and elders usually worked from the house, and played a vital role in society. Not any more. TV played the role of "socializer" for the last few generations.

Secondly, before modernity and the isolation of suburbia, elders spent most of their old age in social situations, rather than mowing lawns and driving to drug stores like they do now. The social connectedness of the community back then insured a certain amount of general knowledge - just chatting all the time meant you would likely understand the human condition a lot more than people who spent their spare time driving to Dairy Queen after watching Desparate Housewive episodes for four hours.

[Hong Wu]

Which is why I wrote "most" of our elders don't deserve respect (reverence), rather then "all." Elders who visit pofo regularly obviously spend more than the average senior on Big Picture thinking.


Um, that's not the only reason. The "rarity" principal explains why gold is more expensive than iron, but not why elders were far more valuable than non-elders when it came to advice-seeking.

The main reason is lifestyle. Pre-moderns had a lot more spare time than we do. For one thing, women and elders usually worked from the house, and played a vital role in society. Not any more. TV played the role of "socializer" for the last few generations.

Secondly, before modernity and the isolation of suburbia, elders spent most of their old age in social situations, rather than mowing lawns and driving to drug stores like they do now. The social connectedness of the community back then insured a certain amount of general knowledge - just chatting all the time meant you would likely understand the human condition a lot more than people who spent their spare time driving to Dairy Queen after watching Desparate Housewive episodes for four hours.

Good analysis I think, although what I believe what I wrote is somewhat similar. Tradition is also about helping people understand the human condition.

[Drlee]

And those amazingly tolerant boomers killed 3 million people in Vietnam, did acid for 20 years, and then sent their kids to kill millions of Arabs.

You need to get a calendar. I served in the army near the end of the Vietnam war. It started when I was 12.

Pre-moderns had a lot more spare time than we do. For one thing, women and elders usually worked from the house, and played a vital role in society.

Not any more.

No vital role? 3/4 of your parliament are boomers. Almost the entire US government are boomers. We control most of the money and governments in the world. Your life and livelihood is in our hands. Think again.

[Stormsmith]

That's because I'm wise enough to let Wikipedia do that for me.

I'm surprised this was necessary, what with all the intense thinking you do. And your source might have been a tad more credible, esp. e. g, dictionary.cambridge.org

The whole thread is mostly ad hom against me, which only feeds into the persecution complex of the QatzelOk brand. You can't make ideas go away with name-calling, no matter how sophisticated. Mass media has taught us all how to insult one another really, really well. But debating ideas.... there's simply no room for that in movies or TV when there are so many products to sell.

Good grief. This is your first thread you've qualified with "Some". You usually write in the universal, how stupid everyone is, and only you "Get it" even when you're writing about subjects that have engaged a movement.

So far, no one has taken the time to state that today's seniors deserve as much respect as any other generation of seniors. (I'm not talking about the normal, everyday respect you give any stranger in need. I'm talking about the high level of respect that all traditional cultures reserve for their oldest surviving members.) So, when was the last time you reverently asked an 80-year-old propped up in front of the TV for some advice?

I thought you were claiming these seniors were the thinkers. It's the Boomers and Gen Xers that your griping over.

This where I should ask you for evidence, but you have none.

Look at this thread. Godstud retired at 49. He has all the time in the world to think things through, and if I recall correctly, he had a profession. Dr Lee, also retired, is also a thinker with degrees. Jimjam, also retired, jogs daily. Plenty of time to think. And God knows I have plenty of time to think. The others I don't know so well, but I see no evidence of early onset dementia. I see no correlation between thinking and location what so ever.

[QatzelOk]

Person A retired at 49. He has all the time in the world to think things through, and if I recall correctly, he had a profession. Person B, also retired, is also a thinker with degrees. Person C, also retired, jogs daily. Plenty of time to think. And God knows I (Person D) have plenty of time to think. .

Having time to think is absolutely essential, but so is having a disposition to think in terms of collective well-being and Big Picture.

If you spend your youth watching a lot of media and buying a lot of status objects, you are not being trained to think this way. You end up retiring and consuming "old people" products and services the way that young TV-watching children are trained to consume young person products and services. Rather than "wise," you become a prodigious consumer of pre-packaged travel and pain killers.

Plus, if you grow up in socially-dead societies like most of North America, your "thinking" is retarded by a lack of opportunity to discuss Big Picture with a wide variety of human being types all your life. Lack of wisdom starts very young, and is caused by lack of wisdom-developing habits and social expectations.

Suburbia cuts off the variety of experiences, as do income inequality and mass media consumption. You need to get away from these things if you want to be wise, but if you do, you will be socially rejected - which most people find hellish.

With no disposition to think in general terms, old people just become snickering old fools - clever enough to get away with cheating on their diets and excercise routines, but not wise enough to help anyone with accrued knowledge or interesting perspectives.

The original inhabitants of North America were extremely reverent of their seniors. And also, of nature. There's a link.

***Note: Citing a few posters on pofo as proof of a general theory... is very weak methodology. My use of "most" already accounts for outliers (if they are outliers, which you haven't proven).

[Godstud]

What part of flying kites, playing sports with kids in the park, running around the neighborhood, having neighborhood BBQs, knowing most of my neighbors by name, riding bikes to school, went camping in the summer, went to the cabin by the lake, etc., cut me off when I lived in suburbia?

We weren't even allowed to watch TV(1-2 hours at the most) until after supper, when it was too dark to play outside. Usually hockey games trumped what we wanted to watch, anyways, so we read books or played.

We learned to respect adults, and we knew discipline.

So what was it I was missing out on, in Suburbia? Pray tell!

With no disposition to think in general terms, old people just become snickering old fools - clever enough to get away with cheating on their diets and excercise routines, but not wise enough to help anyone with accrued knowledge or interesting perspectives.

By all means, feel free to speak for yourself.

[QatzelOk]

So what was it I was missing out on, in Suburbia? Pray tell!

() The connectedness to other people that the inner city can provide.

() Proximity to people of different ages, classes, and backgrounds, from whom to learn.

() An understanding of your role as a primary part of your own society.

() A wide range of activities that aren't "barbecues and watching hockey on TV."

It's true that you never know what you've been denied all your life. But I spent 20 years in a suburb, and then the rest in an inner city. The suburb is okay until you're about 8 years old. And most of the activities you've listed are fun until about that age.

Of course, our parents didn't know our maturity would be stunted by the isolation of suburbia. They were just buying into something they saw on TV. Experimenting on their own kids with a type of lifestyle that was promoted on TV by oil companies and car salesmen.

Suburbia is a world of product placement and automobile addiction. Not of acquired wisdom. And that's where most of our seniors spent their adult lives.

[Godstud]

The connectedness to other people that the inner city can provide.

You're not reading. I knew all my neighbors. All the kids in the neighborhood played together.

Proximity to people of different ages, classes, and backgrounds, from whom to learn.

Our school had people from all backgrounds and social classes. Our neighborhood had much the same.

An understanding of your role as a primary part of your own society.

We all learn that. What the fuck makes you so fucking special that you think people don't learn this?

A wide range of activities that aren't "barbecues and watching hockey on TV."

Outdoor sports, flying kites, riding bikes, playing with the kids/pets, reading, making tree forts, fishing, worked in the garage with dad, mowed the lawn, made an ice rink in the from yard in winter, skated and played hockey with other kids, shovelled snow, made snow forts, played in the snow, played in the nearby parks and ravines... the list goes on. Read what people post. You come across as a pompous twit when you ignore what people post and then cherry pick.

BBQs, incidentally, were of the kind where the whole neighborhood came together and socialized(as a community). Isn't that what you real beef is all about... this not happening?

Qatzelok, you claim so much knowledge about suburbia, but you really have no fucking clue. Suburbia is like any environment(including the "inner city") in that if you want isolation, it doesn't matter where you are, you can find it, or create it. Your hatred of media, and ego, blinds you to the fact that not everyone spends 6 hours a day in front of a TV being assaulted by it, and most people recognize it for what it is, and don't fall victim to it.

I'm really sorry that your experiences, wherever the fuck you grew up, were not as good as those who lived in suburbia. I can understand your hatred of not having something that was very desirable for most people, because most of suburbia IS made up of close-knit communities, that you dream about.

If things are changing, it's not because of suburbia(environment), but the people living there.

[MistyTiger]

The whole thread is mostly ad hom against me, which only feeds into the persecution complex of the QatzelOk brand. You can't make ideas go away with name-calling, no matter how sophisticated. Mass media has taught us all how to insult one another really, really well. But debating ideas.... there's simply no room for that in movies or TV when there are so many products to sell.

The QatzelOk brand? I cannot take anyone seriously who refers to themselves as a brand. That is like you think you are a Rap artist and you are promoting yourself to anybody around. Or referring to oneself in the third person. "Qatz wants to eat. So Qatz is gonna grab some grub from the corner store. Yo, yo, yo, dude. You feel me?"

Little kids in school learn how to tease other kids, we do not need mass media to teach us that. Or we learn insulting chants from older kids or parents.

There are some movies that debate ideas or theories. There are movies that make us think. Have you never watched Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, The Life of David Gale, and the list goes on?

If you do not want to be picked on, then I don't know....don't create a thread where people can dispute your ideas and they can call you out for things you write? Perhaps?

[Drlee]

I have an idea Qatz. Why don't you post your resume. Then we can see what a bright and enlightened fellow you are and quietly withdraw from the field of battle. For example. Where did you get your PHD? What senior positions in business or government have you held? Membership in Intertel or Mensa for example? No doubt you belong to them. No. You turned them down because they go to movies. Where do you volunteer?

Maybe self-actualization is riding one's bike into the countryside, sitting under a tree and contemplating the age-old question, "what would the first peoples do?" But that, my friend, is not wisdom. It is indulgence in a fantasy.

[Hong Wu]

Here comes Drlee to talk about results, as if he hasn't obviously been consistently wrong about politics for decades. What's next, the guilt trip or reminding us how rich you are?