WEBVTT - The Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, and the Failure to Teach Values | Ultimate Issues Hour 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:07.040 Life Audio on today's episode of Timeless Wisdom. 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.600 I have great admiration for my parents' generation. Absolutely fought 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:16.040 World War II, the Korean War. That certainly was a 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:23.880 distinguished generation, and distinguished in particular by its patriotism. How 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:29.400 did that generation produce the baby boomer generation characterized by 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:35.040 so much narcissism, so much antipathy to America and its institutions, 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.840 so much anger at the religion of their parents. Pretty 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:45.120 much whatever most of those parents stood for, the kids overthrew. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.559 That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Denis Prager. Welcome 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.880 to Timeless Wisdom with Denis Prager. Here thousands of hours 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.240 of Dennis's lectures, courses in classic radio programs, and to 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.680 purchase Dennisprager's Rational Bibles to Dennisprager dot. 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:09.800 Com or not to be That is the question. Where 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.039 was God? Isn't God supposed to be good? 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:13.479 Needs to levels? 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.760 Does God want us to suffer ten years? 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:17.960 You're not fished yet? 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.360 Why did you go there? 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:24.240 Who are you? 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:26.479 Ruce? 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.760 I'm God Bingo Yazi? 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:32.440 Is that your final answer? 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:34.039 Our services? 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:35.039 God? 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:36.679 Bing ding dinging ding ding ding ding. 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.319 Well, it was nice to meet you God. Thank you 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.199 for the grand canyon and good luck. 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:41.839 With the apocalypse. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.560 Alrighty, you're listening to the Dennis Prager Show. This is 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.120 the Ultimate Issues hour. Each week at this time I 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.760 devote an hour to some great question subject of life 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.880 and something that has puzzled me pretty much my whole life. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.840 Is this we call the generation of World War Two. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:12.600 It has now become fashionable, at least, to call that 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.680 generation the greatest generation. I I don't buy that. I 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.760 have great admiration for my parents' generation absolutely fought World 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.200 War II, the Korean War, and much of the Cold War, 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:30.880 and the sacrifices made at home through the families that 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.320 stayed back and then and the numbers of Americans who 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:41.160 died abroad and and just just went under either a 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.040 draft or a volunteer to go and fight either the 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.120 Japanese fascists or the Nazis. Is it is? It's there 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:53.680 was a lot of greatness in that generation. Absolutely, I don't. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.120 I don't say it's the greatest generation. Is it greater 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.280 than the generation of George Washington and the founders of 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.960 the country. That's an odd statement, but it certainly was 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:11.280 a distinguished generation, and distinguished in particular by its patriotism. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.760 How did that generation produce the baby boomer generation, characterized 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.640 by so much narcissism, so much antipathy to America and 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:28.560 its institutions, so much anger at the religion of their parents. 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.760 Pretty much whatever most of those parents stood for, the 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:39.800 kids overthrew. How did the greatest generation produce a non 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.200 great generation? I won't say the worst generation. That might 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.360 be as hyperbolic as saying that the other one was 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:51.280 the greatest. That's my question here, And of course there 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.720 will be those who will say, oh, what are you kidding? 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.920 This is the greatest generation, the generation of the sixties 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:04.000 and seventies, idealistic, make love not war. This was question authority, 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.560 give peace a chance. This was the greatest generation. Okay, 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.720 if you believe that, then this may not and may 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.880 not be relevant to you. But even well, actually, no, 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.240 even if you do believe that, you have this question. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:24.840 How did Generation X produce Generation Y? Why didn't? Why 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.360 didn't or forget because we have a generation X concept. 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:34.040 Why did generation A not produce Generation A two? How 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:39.120 did it produce Generation not A? How did that happen? 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.960 How did the parents produce children with such different values? 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.800 It isn't true in every case, and for those where 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.359 it's not true, that's that you don't have to answer 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.400 this question for your family, but you have to answer 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:59.720 it for this country to many too many people. To 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:05.480 min my parents, it is almost unrecognizable. The America that 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:11.039 they see today is almost unrecognizable. Now you may say 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:13.960 that it's better, after all, is much less racism, and 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.520 they're always it's better. I fully acknowledge that, but in 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.680 most ways I think it's worse. And with a generation 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.080 amo out of his mind, a baby boomers, which with 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.240 a very self referential view of the world, how did 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:34.560 that happen? How did that happen? This was a generation 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.040 that accepted the draft. Today you mentioned the word draft, 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.960 the idea that you would be conscripted to fight for 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:47.240 your country, and it is it is, I don't know, 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:53.400 it's like showing a cross to Dracula. Just about everything. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.000 They were more religious the parents as a general rule. 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.839 They were more patriotic the parents as a general rule, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.000 and and just you know, value after value seems to 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.279 be different. And so that's the question. The answer, whatever 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.520 side you're on, the answer applies to you. You may 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.200 have the the the children's values, and what I'm about 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.360 to say, you will want to hear, because then you 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.880 will be able to answer, how do you pass on 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:30.359 your values? And here is my fundamental answer, which which 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:36.040 is was lost on most of that generation, and that 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:42.720 is you must conscientiously deliberately pass on values or they 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.880 are not passed on. Values are not passed on just 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:57.160 because parents live them. There there arose a an income 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.920 poop idea. Like so much of the age of stupidity, 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.320 as I call it, that my generation ushered in the 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.200 sixties and seventies, this knenk and poop idea was parents 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.640 don't have to don't have to articulate values, let alone 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.400 impose them on their children. They just have to embody 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.640 them in their own lives. You be models to your children, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:25.360 and they will pick up on your modeling, and that's 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.720 the value system that they will live by. Wrong rung. 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:40.440 You have to articulate values, not just live them. And 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.040 they and they weren't. They weren't articulated, and parents didn't 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.240 know how to answer their kids when they'd come back 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.520 from college, to which the parents often didn't go to college. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.640 Was the big subverter of the value system because already 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.920 in place were those new values with a lot of professors. 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.520 You know, nationalism stinks. Patriotism is a code word for fascism. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:14.600 Religion is for morons and produces produces uh evil like 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:20.520 like uh the Inquisition, And that's that's what is taught. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.440 That was That's what the kids came home to the 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.680 parents and said, what what do you mean? War is good? 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:29.640 What are you talking about? War is good? War? War 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.480 is the there is a tool of the industrial class, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.959 the military industrial complex. Dad. We're telling me war is good. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.280 Killing killing is good? Dad? What's wrong with you? I 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:48.240 just took sociology four point six Dad, Dad, I'm getting 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:49.760 a ba. What the hell do you know? 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:52.319 Oh? 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:54.680 Maybe maybe you know how you fought the Nazis. That's 0:08:54.720 --> 0:09:00.040 that's history, man, that's history. But war, Come on and 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.680 make love, not wart that, Dad, What do you mean marriage? 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:09.000 Come on, dad, that's old fashioned. Men and women are different. Ma. Ma, 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:13.120 you were brainwashed by dad. You were brainwashed by a 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:20.880 patriarchal system. Maw, you really believe that stuff. And that's 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.400 I saw that. I heard these Nothing I have said 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.280 was made up nothing. I heard those very arguments in 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.120 my own home when friends would visit, and my own 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.920 home from kids too, to their parents who would be visiting, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.400 And when I would visit other kids' homes, I heard 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.040 this all the time. You live, these ridiculous values. You 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:49.240 this last generation, and the parents didn't know how to answer. See, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.600 there is the belief among people with good values, and 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:57.199 by and large the past generation had good values, that 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.600 it's so obvious, it's so obvious that this is a 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.640 good thing. It's so obvious America has been a largely 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.480 good enterprise that we we're gonna have a bunch of 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.800 kids grow up thinking America stinks, or in their language, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:20.360 America sucks. Going we're gonna have a generation that believes 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:24.640 that we're gonna have a generation study textbooks written by 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.679 people who think that the world would be better if 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.439 there were no America, like Howard's in the most widely 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:35.240 read historian of the of my generation, the baby Boomer generation. 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.680 You think parents of the quote unquote greatest generation could 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:46.199 ever have imagined that no, nothing, nothing that has happened, 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.480 by and large is imaginable to them. So once again, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.640 here is the answer. You have to know what you 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.360 stand for, and then you must articulate it to your children, 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:05.320 to the next generation. What happened was American good values. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:14.239 Good American values were habit. They were not intellectually grounded. 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.559 People didn't know what they stood for. They just knew 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.800 it was good stuff, but they really didn't know how 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.320 to articulate it. Their kids went to college. They couldn't 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:29.200 answer them. And we have the America that we have today. 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.839 You must articulate values and know what you believe. We 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.480 return and I'll take your calls on the Ultimate Issues 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:38.960 Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.320 This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.600 Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom. 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.720 It's a little different this Ultimate Issues Hour than many 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.240 other Ultimate Issues hours. For as it says, how was 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.160 this Ultimate Issues Hour different from all the whole other 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:08.440 Ultimate Issues hours? At? In one way, it is, I'm asking. 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.200 I think it is an Ultimate Issue it's just different. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.600 How did the past generation called the Greatest Generation produce 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.920 a generation that has such different values than it? I'm 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.560 putting that that's a neutral way. I think worse values. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.560 But even if you think they're better values, it's they're 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:34.320 certainly different for that generation. The patriotism, fighting fighting for 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.400 your country, fighting for freedom. I mean, so many things 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.720 were so were so taken for granted. And that's my point. 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:46.520 You can't take anything good for granted. You can't. You 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:52.240 have to pass it on consciously and conscientiously. Let's take 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:58.959 your theories on this. We have quite a few interesting ones. Alta, Loma, California, 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.240 and Key Hi, Keith Dennis Praeger. 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:02.600 How are you doing today? 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:03.720 Okay? Thanks? 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:04.080 Good. 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:10.840 My theory was that the Greatest Generation is so called, 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.559 suffered so much with World War Two and the Depression 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.640 that I think a natural knee jerk reaction was to say, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.240 my kids aren't going to suffer that type of hardship 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.560 or pain. Very intelligent, very the result to indulge those 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.040 that generation unknowingly and unwittingly and didn't pass along the 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.600 very things that made them grain. It's kind of hard 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.720 to pass along hardship, but that does make for a 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.120 better person. But the knee jerk reaction would be to 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.120 go against that Grain. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.920 Caught all them. That's that's great, but let's let's I 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.280 want to keep a listing. That's a good one. I'll 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.600 read the list off later. Of the ones I agree 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.880 with anyway, that one I do, I agree with I 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.040 hadn't thought of that. We've suffered so much. You the 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:59.240 baby boomers, you won't suffer. And that's right, that's right. 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.480 And people who don't and suffered don't know evil. And 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.079 that is, of course the great problem with so many 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:09.360 of the of my general They don't understand evil. You know, 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:16.440 evil is is uh? Evil is not recycling, not not 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.960 not the torture and and and and and mass murder, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.280 which they don't they don't, they don't know of. Alrighty, 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.440 let's go to some more theories that you might have. 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.360 Jim in Dallas, Jim Dennis Prager. 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:30.560 High, how are you today? 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:31.080 Okay? 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.200 Uh, I don't know whether this is calls or effect, 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.600 you know, one of those deals? Yes, and I have 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.840 three of them, three causes. What would be doctor Spock 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:45.480 on He's raising of children? Yeah, Playboy magazine, Yeah, and 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.320 doctor Timothy Leary. 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.920 All right, that's a very it's another interesting theory. And 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.200 but he's right, which is which comes first, the chicken 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.960 or the egg? But though those are pretty early, doctor 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.600 Spock did have a real impact. That's true. We ought 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.440 to do. We're going to have somebody who's written on 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:07.160 that about the child rearing advice which was quite permissive. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.640 And that goes to another subject we will have as 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.600 another ultimate issues hour, and that is the breakdown of authority. 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.680 Authority has broken down, and that is the single biggest 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.520 problem probably or the single biggest cause of our problems. 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.200 The authority. I have talked about this, the authority of God, 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.720 the authority of police, the authority of parents, the authority 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.840 of teachers. They're the only authority is the self. I 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.880 look to me on my own authority that came. That 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.600 is my generation's belief that that, of course there are exceptions. 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.760 There are millions of exceptions. But that has been been 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.680 an innovation into American thought of my of my generation. 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.800 Doctor Spock in that regard the permissive upbringing would be 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.760 an example. Who did else? Did he? Playboy? Playboy, which 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.960 started I think in nineteen I know in the fifties 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:15.280 early fifties. What Playboy did was to dedertify pornography. It 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.560 said it said that because the whole point was it's 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:24.280 the it's the girl next door, and so gradually it 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:29.760 made it. It made it because it wasn't a brown 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:35.160 bag raunchy. It made it acceptable. I think that that's 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.760 what would be argued, was the effect of Playboy that 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.160 it's look, it's it's wholesome. It's like, it's wholesome nudity 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:48.080 as opposed to dirty nudity. And I think that that 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.400 and he would say that, Hugh Hefner, he would say, look, 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.000 we differed from all the other stuff. There were magazines 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:59.840 like that, you know, with undressed women in the past, moressive, yes, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.760 all right, and sexual permissiveness. Yeah, I think even more 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.920 than exactly more than the looking at pictures that had 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.960 always been since photography, from before photography. But it was 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.280 the playboy philosophy. That's right, that's right, which he would 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.760 say too, that was what really did it, not the pictures. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.199 There was the playboy philosophy, and that was embodied in 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.720 my generation statement, make love not war. Making war is 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.520 not noble. Making love that's noble. And then the third one, 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.480 he said, Timothy Leary with the drugs, Well, yeah, this 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.479 is all. What it all came down to was we 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.439 don't need authority in any of these things. What was 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.000 right and wrong in the past. The idea that mom 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.400 and dad waited to have sex for marriage, I mean 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.160 they did other things before marriage. Believe me, Mom and dad, 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.639 and they were people who had pre barttle sex in 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.200 the nineteen thirties also, but by and large people waited 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.600 for marriage and if they got pregnant at a shotgun wedding. 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.119 And there was the belief that if you're going to 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.960 have children, forget sex, if you're going to have children, 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.400 you're going to be married first. That was the belief. 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.720 But everything was overthrown because that wasn't taught as a value. 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.000 Nothing was taught as a value. Just we love you 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.639 and we're going to give you the best, the best house, 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.880 the best everything. And then the kid watches TV. TV 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:29.639 starts at that time, and everything is overthrown, virtually, virtually 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:34.280 everything from the past. One eighth Praguer seven seven six. 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:40.119 We go to a preschool teacher, Lauren in Los Angeles. Hello, Lauren, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:41.800 Dennis Prager, Hi, thank you. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:42.960 Very much for taking my call. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:43.480 Thank you. 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.120 I'm a preschool teacher and so often there's a bulletin 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.280 board or a poster that says children learn what they live. 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:51.960 Have you seen that? 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:52.920 No? 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.880 Okay, well it's a poster that they make me put 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.919 up in my classroom. That irks me because it's not 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.440 good enough for us to you know, show them what 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.560 a good person is supposed to do. You have to 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.840 tell them, oh, we don't do this, or we do 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.520 do this. And when parents on that to school night, 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.080 when I say, you know, hitting is not necessarily a 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.159 bad thing, they go berserk because they think I'm teaching 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.879 their children to be some sort of warrior. But what 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.080 I'm teaching is if someone touches you the wrong way, 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.280 or if someone you know threatens you physically with silence, 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:28.960 you might have to hit somebody and run to the teacher. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:30.400 And you don't just have to stand there. 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.480 I'm amazed you still have your job. It's all my 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:41.800 that's sad. So is she That's that's sad. Oh the 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:48.439 the There is a term that Trotsky the Bolshevik used, 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:53.800 permanent revolution, and I've applied that to goodness. Goodness and 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:58.160 good values need to be permanently taught as if it's 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.320 the first generation learning it. I'll explain when we come back. 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.639 This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.760 Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom. 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.439 All right, and everybody, Dennis Prager here. This is the 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.800 Ultimate Issues hour, and I'm talking about how the what's 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.119 called the greatest generation. I don't believe that that's the 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.600 right term. There are many great generations in American history, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.600 but in many ways, it was a great generation raised 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.959 a generation with such different values than it. And I'm 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.280 putting that as neutrally as possible, because I think that 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:42.920 the values are overwhelmingly worse values, not in every instance, 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:47.640 but by and large. And how did that happen? And here, 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.919 you know, we were talking about this, and I was 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:57.520 saying to you that every generation has to see the 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:02.520 next generation as the first in history. You can take 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:08.680 nothing for granted, nothing in the raising of the next generation. 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.760 I'm not just talking to parents, because I do believe 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.359 with Hillary Clinton, it takes a village to raise a child. 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.800 Conservatives absolutely must agree with that. The idea that just 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.879 parents raise a child has never been true in history. Never. 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:29.359 It's absurd unless you take your children to a desert island. 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.920 Of course, society raises your child along with you. That's 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.280 why you want good peers, and you want good neighbors, 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.399 and you want good uncles, and you want good aunts. 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.280 Drives me nuts, you know, there shouldn't be in Just 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.320 because Hillary Clinton said something doesn't mean it's wrong. I 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.880 don't have her values, but I have her theory. She's right, 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.600 it does take a village to raise a child. We 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:57.159 were all raised by villages. My parents' friends played a 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:00.120 role in my life. My grandparents played a role in 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:06.320 my life. My peers played an immense role in my life. 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:11.199 God forbid, it's just parents. To be perfectly honest, you know, 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:16.120 the parents are flawed human beings. We need a whole 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:21.840 larger canvas from which to make ourselves, to paint ourselves. 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:28.360 To use some artistic metaphor here, So society and parents 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.000 have to look at the next generation as brand new, 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.480 like it's the first in history. They are not born 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.960 with any of our values none, and they don't come 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:43.080 through osmosis. That's my point. If they came through osmosis, 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:47.080 then my generation would have similar values to the quote 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:53.000 unquote greatest generation. But it doesn't. It doesn't come through osmosis. Now, 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.720 there are a lot of specific reasons for why this 0:22:55.840 --> 0:23:00.119 generation didn't adopt the values of its parents, but that's 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:06.960 another one. Alrighty, Let's go to Philadelphia and Bill, Hello, Bill, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:08.480 Dennis Praeger, Thank you for calling. 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.560 Hi, Dennis. It's an honor to talk to you, my 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:15.359 I agree in part with what you're saying. 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:15.960 Now. 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:19.159 I grew up in Levittown, which is like Levitown, Pennsylvania's 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:22.439 like was every man's place to grow up in, and 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:26.440 I thought the values were articulated perfectly. They were very simple. 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.440 We all came, our parents were most of them were 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:33.760 in the service, and they were all let's say, blue 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:38.320 collar workers for the most part, steel workers, auto workers, 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.520 things like that, and the message was simple, don't steal, 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:44.840 don't cheat. And these were reinforced on a daily basis. 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:46.600 And there were millions of kids in my neighborhood and 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:48.639 we all heard the same thing every day. So I 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:51.880 always ask myself what happened. I agree in part that 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.200 they could have been articulated better, But I also think 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:59.800 any other gentlemen's examples, the Playboy and so on, I 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.960 think there was a failure in the institutions. For example, 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:06.119 the message of Playboy couldn't have been spread if the 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:10.040 courts didn't say it was great to propagate pornography, or 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:11.880 it were not great that it was that was perfectly 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:14.120 legal for thousands of years or for one hundred. 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:18.000 Ironically, they didn't they there really are obscenity laws. It's 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:22.560 just that they were they were denied as being factors. 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:26.159 I'll tell you though, I think that Alan corrected me 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:29.440 and correct and I agree with him. It wasn't the pictures. 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:37.880 It was the philosophy. Yes, absolutely, the philosophy was he basically, yeah, yeah, the. 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:40.760 Church has abandoned us. And then academia. You know, in 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:45.080 my grandmother's generation, she wasn't very articulated or very articulate 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:48.040 with her values. The church would pick up or the 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:51.880 local school would take up. Yes, that started to change dramatically. 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:54.640 Well, that's very good. That's part of my village. They did. 0:24:55.560 --> 0:24:59.520 A lot of the churches and synagogues saw themselves as 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:05.359 social workers. The purpose of religion became to comfort, not 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:12.720 to provide moral authority. That's that's worthy of its own 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:16.879 that the change in religion, that's a great subject. And 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:22.960 the schools, the schools became became daycare centers, essentially, not 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:27.119 propagators of society's values. We return on the ultimate issues 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:28.240 our Dennis Prager show. 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:35.600 Hi Dennis, this is stand some ten apply New Jersey. 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:41.240 I'm so sorry to hear about your accident. Please focus 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:47.200 on your music, Please get some some cigar smoke around 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:52.480 you to cheer you up, and have someone read Bilo 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:57.800 to you, especially page five nine four. 0:25:59.160 --> 0:26:01.640 Sorry again, but ar up. 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:05.080 Remember happiness is one hundred percent. 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:11.720 Are you enjoying timeless wisdom? We'd love to hear from you. 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:15.040 Call eight seven seven two four three seventy seven seventy 0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:18.320 six and Labor Review. Share your thoughts or just even 0:26:18.400 --> 0:26:21.720 an encouraging word for Dennis. Your voicemail might just make 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:24.520 it on the show. That's eight seven seven two four 0:26:24.600 --> 0:26:28.640 three seventy seven seventy six. That's eight seven seven two 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:33.320 four three triple seven six. Thanks for listening and for 0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:34.080 your support. 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:38.560 All right, my friends, welcome back the Ultimate Issues Hour 0:26:38.640 --> 0:26:41.800 and the Ultimate Issue that's one hour each week devoted 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:44.440 to some great issue of life. How did a generation 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:46.280 and I don't think there's a precedent for this in 0:26:46.320 --> 0:26:50.360 American history of a generation having such different values from 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:54.359 its parents as the Baby Boomers from its parents. Whether 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:57.400 you like the baby Boomer values or you like the parents' values, 0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:01.520