Shake-your-head-sideways-in-disbelief observation: There seems to be a Conservation of Foibles that runs throughout the generations. Try as we might, we can’t get all the members of an ensuing generation to learn from the mistakes of a preceding generation. The same foibles keep recurring. It’s as though we’re in a loop of behavior altered only by a change in names.
Take inimical drug addiction. Is there no lesson that crosses generational boundaries? The foibles make it through, easily traveling from generation to generation, the young of the next generation picking up addictive habits that destroyed lives in the previous generation.
But not just drug addiction that leads to death by overdose and ruined careers, families, and segments of society: Other foibles—and you can name them—keep recurring.
Are foibles a closed system? An open one? The only influx of sustaining energy they need seems to come from a change in generation. Do foibles, of all the components of the universe, defy the Second Law?
Let’s ask Neville. Mr. Chamberlain, what do you think?
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour…I believe it is peace for our time.”*
*Address, on return from Munich conference, September, 1938. A year later Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war.
Take inimical drug addiction. Is there no lesson that crosses generational boundaries? The foibles make it through, easily traveling from generation to generation, the young of the next generation picking up addictive habits that destroyed lives in the previous generation.
But not just drug addiction that leads to death by overdose and ruined careers, families, and segments of society: Other foibles—and you can name them—keep recurring.
Are foibles a closed system? An open one? The only influx of sustaining energy they need seems to come from a change in generation. Do foibles, of all the components of the universe, defy the Second Law?
Let’s ask Neville. Mr. Chamberlain, what do you think?
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour…I believe it is peace for our time.”*
*Address, on return from Munich conference, September, 1938. A year later Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war.
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