They knew that even the world's most advanced aircraft were simply tools for doing a job. Technology does not replace common sense, and it does little to reduce the need for hard work. The farm kids had been raised right, unspoiled and unassuming, just like the thousands of generations of farm kids before them.
Parenting is just easier in farm families. Besides, the farmers were the last to get television and were the farthest from the movie theaters and other sources of moral and ethical confusion. Farm families always had both parents working, but it was mostly in and around the home. They passed on the values that included morality, respect for others, and sense of duty, and even patriotism.
The kids of the non-farmers from the cities and their suburbs were more likely to look for ways to avoid going to Vietnam, and many ended up in Canada or in extended college programs. They were accustomed to doing as they pleased, which seldom included their school homework and always included lots of television and every good movie that came along. Their parents were increasingly both working outside the home, leaving much to the discretion (or lack of discretion) of the children.
Over these thirty years, the family situation has continued to deteriorate. This parenting challenge is just one of the many results of rapid changes in technology. What we learn or do not learn from our parents forms the foundation from which we deal with all of life's problems. Although the age of technology started more than a hundred years ago, it is only in the past few decades that its progress has exceeded our ability to deal with it at the fundamental level of the family.
How does this difference between farm families and urban families relate to Technidigm-2000? Technology makes things easier, so the demanding farm life environment is becoming less common as a source of hardworking citizens. Moreover, with satellite communications, urban culture is is more readily available to everyone, on the farm or not.
If television shows portray increasingly immoral or violent family and cultural situations, then they become more acceptable as the norm. The financially driven, competitive television networks only recently and reluctantly started rating their shows, within an atmosphere of increasing dismay regarding their irresponsible programing.
Technology increases competition. A modest Internet web site created on a shoe string is almost as likely to be meaningful and effective as a site produced with essentially unlimited resources. A religious organization can be effective in countering the worst television network, at least on the Internet. Congressmen and Congresswomen are less able to avoid public scrutiny, now that their official proceedings are covered in detail on television, at least to the extent that the viewing audience watches such programing.
Thus, some of the things that are made easier by technology are good and some are less than good. Without a framework within which to actively understand and manage change toward the good, the change is more likely to result in adverse consequences. After the adverse consequences become too adverse, society eventually provides feedback. Since improvements often depend on feedback, delayed feedback is better than no feedback, but delayed feedback often means that the adverse consequences have been tolerated longer than necessary and have resulted in avoidable problems.
Technidigm-2000 encourages active and timely feedback, with objectives being identified and worked toward at a pace limited only by prudence and valid information. If your child is physically sick with a potentially permanent affliction, you want the doctor to proceed with prudence and with valid information. You would not tolerate a medical treatment that depended on waiting until your child is so sick that death was imminent.
Yet, this is exactly what we all did with regard to the mental health of our children over the past few decades. We tolerated the loose social and moral standards of television and even the real life lowering of these standards, which eventually became so outrageous that more and more people reached their limits. The result, at least with regard to television, is a modest program evaluation scheme intended to avoid stronger measures.
Stronger measures would naturally flow from Technidigm-2000. The primary principle observed in television programing is freedom of speech and expression. The confusion of principles involving separation of church and state with principles important to parents has obscured the perspective and sense of responsibility of parents. Just because religion suggests standards and moral commandments does not mean that the standards and moral commandments are not appropriate social guidelines that need to be observed and enforced.
If there is an underlying principle that, when applied, leads to a legitimate objective, then that principle should be stated and applied. In a good-principle vacuum, the bad-principle fillers are always available and ready to take over. Often, the adverse principle fillers are commercial and are not openly stated.
For example, tobacco companies do not recognize what is obvious to everyone -- that tobacco is addictive and harmful. If we were each asked to identify and state the currently unstated principles implied by our acceptance of advertizing directed at hooking teenagers on nicotine, we would each quickly be embarrassed. We have accepted a principle that states "Society is better served when commercial interests are allowed to make a profit degrading the health of its citizens as long as each individual has freedom of choice and as long as health insurance is available to allow everyone to pay for the consequences of that freedom."
If you do not care for that principle, as stated, then please state the one that you believe is more accurate. Send it out to your friends in your next Christmas letter or birthday card. Include examples of how much more sophisticated your children look now that they smoke cigarettes, and tell your friends about the bank account you have set up to pay for their lung transplants when the time comes.
Based on this simple example, we can conclude that identifying and stating the principles behind each issue are very positive steps in understanding the issue and how to address it. It is a particularly powerful approach when we are dealing with issues close to home, such as the health of our children. All you have to do to motivate yourself to take a stand is to state the underlying principles, state the relevant objectives that those principles are serving, and decide whether the adverse consequences make any sense relative to the expected benefits.
Once the problem is identified as a system-like entity, the next step is to try to understand the issue at the right Technidigm-2000 level. The difference between an activist and a problem solver is often that the activist never gets above levels one (opinions) and two (some facts). The additional research and effort required at level three to support a level four decision is seldom undertaken by activists because they are "active" on only one side of the issue.
The circumspectness that comes with experience and education is applied at Technidigm's level four. It is here that the various principles, objectives, resources, feedback, and interfaces are considered. If an issue is being considered within the Technidigm-2000 framework, the facts being addressed are already "on-the-level" and the people dealing with the issue are so honest and fair that this may even be a notable part of their reputation. Would you like it to be otherwise?
Family life will improve over time once we decide that the most desirable context within which to raise children is the one that has a framework of good principles, clear objectives, and encourages hard work and integrity. With the 12 Technidigm-2000 elements in place and understood, active citizen participation becomes a high priority, and that participation is responsible and effective. It is also more timely.
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