Many ask: “Why do younger generations seem not value our unique freedoms as Americans?”
They do value freedom, it is just that what they mean by freedom is quite different from the classical sense and what most of us talk about. When many of younger generations speak about freedom they tend to be talking about freedoms of expression or libertinism. There is almost no thought about political freedom among them.
Why? It has never been an emotional imperative for them to seriously contemplate what political freedom for a people is about. (And yet political freedom is at the root of all our institutions, constitutions, and all we older folk tend to talk about when speaking of freedom.)
Because of the good and self-sacrificing work of those who’ve come before them, most younger people in Western Culture have not lived in a environment in which the actual political freedom of entire countries or people is at stake – especially their own. Their view of freedom is largely expressive in nature, and completely ignores the system of ideas and institutions which provides the fundamental foundations for the surface level freedoms for which they care so much.
People of generations who have not faced the possibility of outright foreign or ideological subjugation have had little reason to contemplate such. That leads to odd ideas like what we can wear, tattoo, pierce or smoke; who we can have sexual relations with; what sex, if any, we can identify ourselves with; or, who has hurt feelings as being the central issues of freedom.
In this expressive and libertine focus, they miss the basic point that surface freedoms can only be protected with a commitment to healthy concepts and institutions – you know, those things old folk and particularly conservatives spend so much time worrying about.
Younger folk value freedom but it’s not what you mean.
They do value freedom, it is just that what they mean by freedom is quite different from the classical sense and what most of us talk about. When many of younger generations speak about freedom they tend to be talking about freedoms of expression or libertinism. There is almost no thought about political freedom among them.
Why? It has never been an emotional imperative for them to seriously contemplate what political freedom for a people is about. (And yet political freedom is at the root of all our institutions, constitutions, and all we older folk tend to talk about when speaking of freedom.)
Because of the good and self-sacrificing work of those who’ve come before them, most younger people in Western Culture have not lived in a environment in which the actual political freedom of entire countries or people is at stake – especially their own. Their view of freedom is largely expressive in nature, and completely ignores the system of ideas and institutions which provides the fundamental foundations for the surface level freedoms for which they care so much.
People of generations who have not faced the possibility of outright foreign or ideological subjugation have had little reason to contemplate such. That leads to odd ideas like what we can wear, tattoo, pierce or smoke; who we can have sexual relations with; what sex, if any, we can identify ourselves with; or, who has hurt feelings as being the central issues of freedom.
In this expressive and libertine focus, they miss the basic point that surface freedoms can only be protected with a commitment to healthy concepts and institutions – you know, those things old folk and particularly conservatives spend so much time worrying about.