[FRIAM] Unrecognized Thinkers

[Steve Smith]

Nick -

I share your appreciation for Glen's summary of our weekend's 
fecundity...  thoughtful yet analytically sharp as always.   It helped 
me to see those entertwined riffs en-synopsis.  I'd pay for a 
subscription to such a service... If Glen were closer, perhaps a  beer 
every week or two.

I definitely appreciate the broad parallax offered by the (relative) 
diversity of the constituency of this list.  Age, educational 
background, personal style, etc.   We *do* significantly lack the female 
perspective here, though several if not many are overtly  aware and 
*sympathetic* with gender biases and perspectives.   Merle sticks in 
here with us despite our limited range of response to her 
participation.  As some may know, she is in Glasgow right now carrying 
forward her good fight for the role of a complex systems perspective on 
big things like diplomacy and in this case climate change.  Jenny may 
yet read the occasional post here, but I know we have lost several other 
significant female voices over the years.  Our younger members (to my 
knowledge) are already or soon to be 40+.

I appreciate your elderest of the eldery status and perhaps even your 
self-appointed Dean role, though not being an academic myself I don't 
know that I appreciate the nuances of that term.

I also appreciate Jon's "youthist" (as you put it) throwdown.  I can't 
align my political-representational preferences *strictly* with age, but 
have numerous reasons for believing that our current 
socioeconomic/political system yields an undue amount of influence, or 
more to the point *control* of the economy and of national policy to an 
increasingly older and in many cases, mis-tuned populace.   Age 
generally brings experience (both breadth and depth) which sometimes 
brings wisdom and perspective, and should therefore be recognized, 
solicited and respected *for what it is worth*.  This does not mean that 
we, as relics of various eras such as Depression, WWII, postWar Boom, 
Vietnam, Sex/Love/RockNRoll, Cold War are best suited to make good 
decisions about current and near-future circumstances more influenced by 
the Information Age, War on Drugs, 9/11, Pandemic, Climate Change and 
Post/Trumpism, much less what is just rolling up on us over the fore 
horizon that we can't hardly guess at.

I'm not seeking the *respect* of my youngers, but rather their help in 
understanding how I might wield what influence I've accrued, whether 
that be financial, political or spiritual?   It *is* frustrating when I 
deal with my youngers (my own daughters in their early 40s with their 
own young children) and I feel that they simply haven't lived long 
enough yet to have the perspective I have, but then I run my personal 
newsreel back to when I was in their phase of life (rising career, 
growing family, etc.) and realize that I knew things my parents 
generation couldn't have and *I* had to sift through their opinions and 
advice at the time, taking into account *their* depression childhoods 
and WWII coming-of-age and the economic and tech booms that defined 
their adult-career period.  They were not looking to me for advice and 
in fact tumbled down the hill from being fairly socially progressive to 
becoming Trumpsters (my father was merely proto, having died about the 
time Trump started his birtherism nonsense).

  I try to defer to my youngers on matters that will matter to them in 
their lifetimes (and their children's).   I was a big fan of Buttigieg 
in the Democratic primaries and listened to Tulsi Gabbard in spite of 
some of her extrema.   I did like Bernie but was highly suspicious of 
Joe for ageist reasons...  I don't know how much Kamala 
balances/counsels him, but he *does* seem to have a reasonably younger 
cohort of advisors which he seems to be listening to.

- Steve (born under the rising sign of Sputnik)

On 11/1/21 10:55 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:

> Ahem.  Speaking as the “Dean” (oldest surviving member) of this 
> distinguished mostly geriatric community, I think respect goes both 
> ways, or it goes nowhere.  So, those of us who seek to command respect 
> must be prepared to give it, particularly to such memes as OK Boomer, 
> which I think expresses quite aptly an impatience with anybody who 
> asserts old knowledge just because it is old.  I, of course, am 
> Pre-boomer, a Silent.  If a meme were started, “Be silent, Silent!” I 
> would resist it (obviously) but I sure as hell would respect it, and 
> try to mine it for its implicit content.
>
> I quite like my status as Dean, by the way.  When FRIAM is given a 
> collective Nobel, I expect to lead you all into the celebratory 
> dinner, bearing our staff in my crooked hand, shuffling along in my 
> bedroom slippers, my shirt untucked from my honorific belt,  muttering 
> over and over again, “Metaphor all the way down, you fuckers!”
>
> By the way, Jon, it’s funny to see you take so stridently a “youthist” 
> position, you, who have perhaps more than any other, sought to support 
> and harvest value from the fading /eminences grises/ amongst us. 
>  Still.  Point taken.
>
> Oh, and, Glen: thanks for collecting the products of the firehose into 
> puddles.  Otherwise I would surely have drowned.
>
> Nick
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Jon Zingale
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 31, 2021 2:23 PM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unrecognized Thinkers
>
> "Memes can spread as if they are amplified, for instance the stupid 
> 'Let's Go, Brandon' meme or the dull 'OK Boomer' reply."
>
> Well, it certainly is your thread to bend. My feeling is that 
> corrosion and destruction can often arise as part of a creative 
> process. Age demographics in politics in the United States, to my 
> view, are pretty off balance. My personal plan is to help cultivate a 
> different one. Nothing against old people, of course, but in the next 
> elections I plan to rank choice not by party but simply by age.
>
>
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