“A PURPOSELESS GENERATION ”

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25391, 14 January 1948, Page 3

“A PURPOSELESS GENERATION ”

ARTICLE IN CHURCH MAGAZINE VIGILANCE THE PRICE OF FREEDOM It was not cynical to suggest that although living conditions were now much more comfortable than during the Dark Ages and although educational facilities available to the common man were greater than at an y other time, nevertheless the modern citizen was dominated by prejudices and cabined by his masters as thoroughly as at any period in history, states a leading article in the Outlook,” the monthly magazine of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. “All this is to say that we live in a purposeless generation.” says the article. “The few may desire it otherwise, but the majority are content to accept things as they come, letting hope overcome any slight stirring of fears, and letting complacency cover realities. , “The effort and energy which is the evidence of purpose is missing. Life is a heavy-laden fruit tree under whose shade men sit to enjoy the fruit which falls, over-ripe, from its branches. There is little appreciation of the fact that this is a day when the whole basis of man’s hard-won freedom is being shaken and the axe is being laid at the foot of the tree of individual security. Men do not see that even the purpose of education is being prostituted. Schools, and even universities, are being used by rulers as a means not of the advancement of knowledge but of a conditioning of the people to a certain mode of living. Control of the radio and the press furthers the same purpose.

“We may indignantly deny that such things are happening in New Zealand and in the democratic countries, but the progress towards them is clear to the discerning. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom —so men were once taught; but that vigilance is strikingly absent from a generation which is content to wallow in luxury and reftises even to consider the unpleasant or the difficult. Improvident, it trusts to governments for safety and for security: accepting the privileges of prosperity, it acknowledges no responsibility for adversity. Its false optimism caricatures Browning and cries: ‘the Government is in power: all’s right with the world,’ and satisfies itself with the new revised scripture. ‘the state will provide’,” concludes the article.