解放军文职招聘考试The Generation Gap

 The Generation Gap

For many young people, the late 1960s was a pe­riod of revolt against the moral values that had been the strength and pride of the past generations. They did not want to be hard-working and thrifty as their ancestors had been. They rejected the idea that duty must come before pleasure, and that individuals must make sacri­fices when it is necessary for the good of their children or of their community. They condemned patriotism as the cause of wars, and rejected all forms of authority— whether in government, organized religion, school, or family. All these narrow ideas, they declared, were things of the past and had always been wrong anyway.

It was a distressing time for their elders. Previous­ly happy parents found themselves scorned by their young rebels, who accused them of being too con­cerned with money and too anxious to impress the neighbors. "True success," the young people ex­plained, "is not a matter of money or position. It's a matter of self-fulfillment. And self-fulfillment consists of reaching one's goals and achieving happiness in one's own way without paying attention to rules, du­ties, or the opinions of others. We do have a duty to ourselves that is more important than duty to others, even to our own children.

Most parents found it hard to accept their children's attitude. They themselves had been brought up to respect traditional values; they had also learned to respect money because it was scarce during their teenage years. They had married in the late 1930s or early 1940s, at a time when it was explained again and again that an unhappy childhood produces emotionally disturbed adults. A married couple's first duty, there­fore, was to think of their children's happiness. On the other hand, while Mom and Dad were making sacri­fices, they expected their children to obey the rules of "nice" behavior, and to grow up into adults that par­ents can be proud of. These were precisely the ideas that the young rebels of the 1960s rejected.