Welcome to the world of the blog. The article below is in no way polished or complete. It is a work-in-progress and thoughts from my head on an idea. I would love your thoughts, comments, and responses (be kind, but feel free to refute what I offer). I’ve been kicking these thoughts around a while and wanted to get them “printed” in order to get some feedback on the idea. Thanks in advance for wondering with me … and bearing with my scattered thoughts. Article …. starts …. now…………………..
We live in a changing world, there is no question about that. I would venture to say that the world has always been changing, dare I say “evolving,” from the time of creation. Many social scientists and interpreters of culture will tell us that the rate of change has increased in the last 500 years and even more in the last century. The advent of technology has allowed information to be conveyed more and more rapidly.
I’ve mentioned before in this blog that I’ve become something of a student of generational change. I am intrigued by how people born of a certain area and geography think in a particular way. I am further intrigued by how that thinking is lived – particularly in the church.
I have read a number of books and articles on this phenomenon and I’ve been formulating an idea in my head about why this seems particularly problematic in this century. I mean, let’s face it, there is nothing new in the idea that one generation doesn’t always agree with the next. Take the example of Elvis Pressley and how the “teens” loved him while their parents thought he was “nothing but trouble” (to put it mildly). Look a bit more classically at Romeo & Juliet – their parents just couldn’t see how their love could transcend family battles. I’m sure for every generation back to creation it wouldn’t be hard to find instances where the generations butted heads.
As we consider the current generation and its relationship to older generations, we are faced with the reality that the speed and accessibility of information conveyance is light-years beyond what it was even fifty years ago. Fifty years ago the speed and accessibility of information conveyance was light years ahead of 100 years before that – so you if you plot it on a graph, you are looking at an exponential curve.
Here’s an example. A 15-year-old student is asked to write a paper on the presidential election that happened just 3 months previous. In 1932 that student would have had only newspapers and magazines to rely on for information – maybe some first-hand accounts. The student would have written the paper by hand with pencil (or pen) on paper. In 1968 that 15-year-old would have had newspaper and magazine articles but also television and radio news reports, possibly even a book that had been written and published, but even in 1968 a 3 month window would have been pretty tight for such publication. This student might have written the first draft of the paper by hand, but likely would have turned in the finally draft having used a typewriter. In 2000 the student not only has all of the resources previously mentioned, but (assuming access to a computer) the internet which logs articles written around the world, opinions by various people, and even video of the events of the election as they happened. This student would have likely started their first draft on the computer and edited it before printing it out for the teacher. Zoom forward to 2012 and students will have even faster access to the internet and these resources so that in literally seconds they can pull together the information for such a paper – and they can probably pull the information together (copying and pasting from various sources) on their phone while they are waiting for their lunch and then send the final result electronically without ever having touched a piece of paper in the process!
Now, understand that information on any topic is now this readily available. Information that used to take months to make available is available instantly. Where it used to take a week to have film from an overseas event, we can watch it as it happens. The Encyclopedia (which used to be the gold-standard for research) had an information lag-time. Essentially by the time it was published, some of the articles may have been outdated. Now, via the internet a student can learn about the most up-to-date research on cancer (or any other topic) with just a few clicks!
All of that is a long introduction to my point … as generations change so does our pecking order in society.
It used to be that in order to learn enough and experience enough of the world to be able to make highly informed decisions one needed time. Time to read and digest the information as it became available. Time to gain experience in an industry or on a job. This is becoming less and less true. (now, I readily admit there is still something to be said for experience)
I was listening to a talk radio show the other day when the host (a male in his 60’s) made a comment about a “young kid” who couldn’t possibly have the knowledge to make the statement he did because of his age. Well, yes, for a person 60 years old, when he was 30 he would not have had access to the information that today’s 30-year-olds have at their fingertips. But in our information-soaked world, even a fifteen-year-old has information that might have taken 20 years to collect in the past.
I think this becomes particularly problematic for a generation that has been told they have to “pay their dues” in order to be in a position of authority only to find that people half their age are able to come in with similar knowledge and speak with the same authority.
It used to be that as one got older their “years” counted for a certain amount of knowledge that simply could not be attained any other way. Now, that is not so much the case. Which leads me to wonder if, in some way, we have begun to displace a generation that has been waiting for their “turn”?
As I think about this, it seems that Boomers have tried their best to live with “a foot in two worlds.” One is the world of their upbringing in which they still needed to read books, newspapers, and learn from those who had done it before. A world in which the longer one did something the more one was seen as an authority in that field. The other is a world where information is readily available and information is only as good as the latest update of your technology. Where a 15-year-old can download and digest the drawings, articles, videos, and commentaries that were previously “out of reach” to the younger generation.
Imagine it as having a foot on two different tread mills – one where you are walking a steady pace and the other has you jogging or maybe running. How challenging to keep a foot in both of those worlds. You ultimately need to jump on one tread mill or the other unless you are really talented with your ability to balance. And depending on which treadmill you choose, you have just joined a different generation – one older than you or one younger than you.
As a pastor, I now bring this back to the church. A church in which the “older generations” are largely the norm. Statistics have shown that mainline churches (of which I count myself a member) are aging. It seems that we have largely decided which of the two treadmills we will place ourselves on. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we are able from our treadmill to reach out to those who are traveling on other treadmills or if we are simply going to continue at our own pace and let the others do their thing?
1 comment:
This made me think of that scene from Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams' character meets Matt Damon's character on the street bench. Damon's character has all the information, but he has never smelled the sistine chapel...the examples go on from there. I think what the church needs to figure out how to do to bridge the generations is elevate the notion of 'character or virtue' that cannot be learned quickly or cut and pasted from the internet. Both generations will need to let go of many assumptions in order to teach and learn from each other.
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