Free Republic

In Shakespeare's Richard III, the doomed young Prince, about to be sent to the Tower by Richard, his guardian, says that "Methinks the truth should live from age to age / As 'twere retailed to all posterity / Even to the general all-ending day." To which Richard, already planning his next move, mutters "So wise so young, they say, do never live long." No one denies the value of truth, not even Shakespeare's villainous Richard, and even as we struggle to find it in a world flooded with information and opinion. I can't tell you where you'll find the truth...

On June 13th, 1945, a month after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the New York Times published an article titled "Teen-Agers are an American Invention." With peace in sight, the generation that was too young to fight in the war was being defined by the newspaper of record as being "not ready for the serious matters of adulthood." Still, this newly-minted demographic (whose emergence had been nearly a century in the making) was being invited to express itself with its own culture – "and the leisure and the unprecedented affluence of teenagers predispose them to accept the invitation." Birthdays –...