Of course the activistsnot those whose thinking had become rigid, but those whose approach to revolution was imaginatively anarchichad long ago grasped the reality which still eluded the press: we were seeing something important. We were seeing the desperate attempt of a handful of pathetically unequipped children to create a community in a social vacuum. Once we had seen these children, Ave could no longer overlook the vacuum, no longer pretend that the societys atomization could be reversed. This was not a traditional generational rebellion. At some point between 1945 and 1967 we had somehow neglected to tell these children the rules of the game we happened to be playing. Maybe we had stopped believing in the rules ourselves, maybe we were having a failure of nerve about the game. Maybe there were just too few people around to do the telling. These were children who grew up cut loose from the web of cousins and great-aunts and family doctors and lifelong neighbors who had traditionally suggested and enforced the societys values. They are children who have moved around a lot, San Jose, Chula Vista, here. They are less in rebellion against the society than ignorant of it, able only to feed back certain of its most publicized self-doubts, Vietnam, Saran-Wrap, diet pills, the Bomb.They feed back exactly what is given them. Because they do not believe in wordswords are for typeheads, Chester Anderson tells them, and a thought which needs words is just one more of those ego tripstheir only proficient vocabulary is in the societys platitudes. As it happens I am still committed to the idea that the ability to think for ones self depends upon ones mastery of the language, and I am not optimistic about children who will settle for saying, to indicate that their mother and father do not live together, that they come from a broken home. They are sixteen, fifteen, fourteen years old, younger all the time, an army of children waiting to be given the words.
About This Quote
About Joan Didion
Joan Didion was a 20th-century American writer. Joan Didion was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Family — The ties of kinship, parenting, and unconditional love