Probably There to Join in the Fun

Until they expire, we will have to carry the legacy and the trail of social destruction left behind by the 68ers. In retrospect, it seems largely to have been driven by a gigantic hang-up so many of them accused others of: their weird relationship with remorse that drove so much of the violation of what gentler and thinking people know to be universal in nature:

Even a cursory review of the material revealed that the educational work at the Rote Freiheit ("Red Freedom") after-school center was unorthodox. The goal of the center was to shape the students into "socialist personalities," and its educational mission went well beyond supervised play. The center's agenda included "agitprop" on the situation in Vietnam and "street fighting," in which the children were divided into "students" and "cops."

They channeled their own internal nonsense to “solve problems” that these children didn’t have. There’s nothing new there, but that’s not the worst of the abuse.

The educators' notes indicate that they placed a very strong emphasis on sex education. Almost every day, the students played games that involved taking off their clothes, reading porno magazines together and pantomiming intercourse.

According to the records, a "sex exercise" was conducted on Dec. 11 and a "fucking hour" on Jan. 14. An entry made on Nov. 26 reads: "In general, by lying there we repeatedly provoked, openly or in a hidden way, sexual innuendoes, which were then expressed in pantomimes, which Kurt and Rita performed together on the low table (as a stage) in front of us."

The children were between the ages 8 and 14.

The left has its own history of abuse, and it is more complicated than it would seem at first glance. When leaders of the student movement of the late 1960s are asked about it, they offer hesitant or evasive answers. "At the core of the movement of 1968, there was in fact a lack of respect for the necessary boundaries between children and adults. The extent to which this endangerment led to abuse cases is unclear," Wolfgang Kraushaar, a political scientist and chronicler of the movement, writes in retrospect.

Unclear to whom? Everyone other than the ones that drank the revolutionary kool-aid instead of looking inside to their own humanity and, yes, capacity to feel remorse when dealing with the well being of children.
Useful stuff, that pain. To quote James T. Kirk: “It makes me who I am”. More to the point, regretting the things one’s done wrong, and learned from is what really does.

So let’s say you’re a caring, communal prole/hippy, at war with the world, rationalizing your indispensability to the fate of humanity, wondering why people have never done this before, and drunk on your own wonderfulness, see it as a power over others. The innocent other happen to be children, and you are then convincing yourself of the goodness and fitness of being little more than a child molester.

For instance, "Revolution der Erziehung" ("The Revolution in Education"), a work published by Rowohlt in 1971, which quickly became a bestseller, addresses sexuality as follows: "The de-eroticization of family life, from the prohibition of sexual activity among children to the taboo of incest, serves as preparation for total assimilation -- as preparation for the hostile treatment of sexual pleasure in school and voluntary subjugation to a dehumanizing labor system."

In short, none of us are supposed to have any remorse in order to make them feel less bad for the hurt that their own self-indulgence causes others, a point made beautifully made in Mary Eberstadt’s recent book, Loser Letters.

As St. Augustine should have said, “Make them good, God, not me!” But You have to admit, there’s a lot to be said for having the rest of the Species play by the rules.

Thus one sanctions ones’ own violations. Rationalizations couched as social though is the tool to convince oneself that there should be no regrets – if you can make yourself live with it.

There should be no surprise at all that another generation would react so badly to it all. The have reason. To use Eberstadt’s monologue character discussing abortion as an example, we can decrypt the present day behavior of those onetime “young radicals” fairly well.

I mean, face it! If You’re over fifty, there’s not much chance that anyone would have aborted You. But nowadays it’s different. It’s like anyone who’s even born now, in the Age of Choice, either requires explanation or feels like there’s a reason for it.

It’s changed the existential experience of the very question, Why am I here? I’m not saying this bizarre state of affairs is altogether bad for our godlessness. Some kids, today as ever, do turn effortlessly toward Atheism’s chief transmitter belts among the young, i.e., nihilism and melancholy. In fact, some do it easier than ever. The fact that their generation is the first truly disposable one—even disposed-of one—puts extra pressure on all of today’s kids to find a meaning in life. Some just can’t. That’s what Goth is for. And a lot of their music. And Norplant. And, of course, drugs.

For that you can thank those “revolutionaries”.