Post by kaima on Jun 20, 2008 16:53:23 GMT -7
Have you wondered how the Passive Americans compare with the Vietnam Generation that took to the streets to protest the War? Have you wondered at the acceptance of torture, acceptance of domestic spying and at the 'love it or leave it' attitude? Read on for a scientific study:
"PASSIVE NATION— “Poll after poll among our youngsters has given statistical confirmation of the phenomenon of American life which David Riesman, in his book The Lonely Crowd, named ‘other-direction’—extreme sensitivity to the opinions of others, with a concomitant conformity. As a nation we seem to have a syndrome characterized by atrophy of the will, hypertrophy of the ego and dystrophy of the intellectual musculature. This rather unpleasant portrait is an inescapable conclusion from the mass of data on the attitudes of the younger generation. More than half believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local police should be allowed to use wiretapping at will, that the police should be permitted to use the ‘third degree,’ that people who refuse to testify against themselves should be forced to do so.”"
That is a quotation from Scientific American 50 years ago, June 1958, back in "the good old days!"
"PASSIVE NATION— “Poll after poll among our youngsters has given statistical confirmation of the phenomenon of American life which David Riesman, in his book The Lonely Crowd, named ‘other-direction’—extreme sensitivity to the opinions of others, with a concomitant conformity. As a nation we seem to have a syndrome characterized by atrophy of the will, hypertrophy of the ego and dystrophy of the intellectual musculature. This rather unpleasant portrait is an inescapable conclusion from the mass of data on the attitudes of the younger generation. More than half believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local police should be allowed to use wiretapping at will, that the police should be permitted to use the ‘third degree,’ that people who refuse to testify against themselves should be forced to do so.”"
That is a quotation from Scientific American 50 years ago, June 1958, back in "the good old days!"