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The arrogance of youth ... I got into a discussion with one of my daughter's friends the other day. He was under the impression that his generation (he's in his late 20's) is responsible for so much good in the world and that they are truly creative and "progressed" technology. He used his iPhone and the apps on it as an example. I was thoroughly unimpressed given I was formerly a software engineer about the app part. I explained to him that a lot of the work on smart devices was developed at places like PARC, MIT Media Lab, and Bell Labs back in the 80's and earlier when I was about his age, and it was people older than me doing the work at the time. He never heard of those places. He never heard of Gordon Moore, Douglas Engelbart, Robert Dennard, Bjarne Stroustrup, Dennis Ritchie or Ken Thompson ... this list goes on. I could probably of come up with a better list of innovators, but those were my idols as a kid. I was in awe of these "older" people. I recognized their greatness and often thought I was too young and I missed out on the greatest advances in technology. It was a long time motivator for me to reach for greater knowledge.

It turns out that this kid is semi-educated without much rigor and pumped full of arrogance because he took a few programming courses in college. Today's education at many institutions of higher learning amounts to nothing more than vocational training. I suppose each successive generation assumes that they are at the pinnacle of achievement. It seems that history is not being learned and is often erased and replaced with an arrogance based on very flimsy achievement and over-hyped marketing. This trickles down from hard-core science and engineering into traditional "liberal arts" and today's fill-in-the-blank "studies". Perhaps it has to do with justifying the completely over-priced and insignificant educations kids get these days. (You gotta be great if you are $100k in debt coming out of college and colleges make sure you feel that way.)

While I used technology as an example, I believe this applies to most areas of learning/knowledge, whether it be business, economics, political science or history. What is truly being missed is the recognition of foundational works of the past and building upon them. Instead, leftist politics are advanced on the basis of hearsay and that requires ignoring their failures - hence the rewriting of history.

Just a disclaimer, I do recognize that there still is some greatness being developed in the younger generation, it just won't show itself until they hit their stride in their 30's and 40's. That's if they are not held back by the overwhelming dumbing down of their contemporaries.

Thanks for hanging in their with this entirely too long of a post. I just need to get my juices flowing this morning.