These Kids Give Me Hope for the Future

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

These Kids Give Me Hope for the Future

As the step-father of a special needs kid (who is not such a kid anymore--and btw, is way cool), the following video hits home on my biggest concern with his life, and my own long-pondered conclusion that bullying, not altruism, collectivism, etc., is the fundamental core of human-against-human evil.

I dearly hope these kids were not set up by goody-goody parents, but did this on their own. But even if they were, they seem to bask in what they did and that is a good thing for what they should become as adults.

(Call me a sap, but there it is. )

Michael

[william.scherk]

You are a sap, Michael.

Me too.

[Cathy]

Awww...those parents must be very proud of their children!

[BaalChatzaf]

There it is. The Impulse to Rectitude. Maybe our kind of primate will amount to something some day.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

The "Little Rascals" and "Our Gang" comedies were all moralities plays. All fiction is one way or another, but these were consciously so. Taking on the bullies occurs more than once. In my favorite, the bullies are picking on a Chinese kid. The gang chases the bullies away and the boy invites them all over for dinner. They shuffle their feet and look around, but Spanky speaks up for the social obligation and they all go. They wait nervously at the table as Mom comes with a large, covered serving platter: ham and eggs! oh boy!.

By the 1950s, that changed. For one thing, the authorities (schools) were against gangs of any kind. While we were encouraged to be social - graded on "Works and Plays Well with Others" - any hint of gang activity was met by the schools and the police. That was not just local to me. When our daughter was a child, we read "Trixie Belden" stories. Mysteries somewhat younger and milder than Nancy Drew, these were published in the late 1950s to early 1960s. The kids live outside of town and have only each other and some distant neighbors to socialize with. Mom makes them all jackets "Bobwhites of the Glen." The principal declare the club - albeit at their own homes - to be against school rules and forbids the jackets.

Something happened in the 50s. I do not know how to identify it. But it was clear to us by the 60s that we were at war with our parents. It was a bismarkian kulturkampf and even today, I have to go the extra mile not to hate anyone 20 years older than I am.

Anyway, protecting the innocent against bullies is very much the proper response. Perhaps it is not so much a new future as a reclaimed past.

(BTW: I point to two popular songs, "That Old Gang of Mine" and "Heart of My Hearts." They were nostalgic for a lost past. FWIW: Al Capone was the last of the kids from Five Points, the toughest neighborhood in New York... and the place where Irish and Negro gangs fought for dominance and invented Tap Dance by combining the African brush with the Irish hop.)