At 16:29 03/04/01 +0200, Luca Ingianni, wrote
>As for Marin's lament on the young generation: a friend of mine is an
>archaelologist and he told me that the oldest known such thing is written
>on a Babylonian (or Sumerian? I forgot :) ) stone tablet where a father
>complains that his generation is the last good generation and all that
>comes after that is worthless and whatever. That was 4600 years ago.
If your archaeologist friend has a documented cite for that quote I'd love
to see it because I have never been able to track it down. I strongly
suspect that it is a mutation of an urban legend concerning a supposed
quote once attributed to Socrates.
The reference librarians on the STUMPERS-L mailing list have come up empty
on it as well.
Here's what the experts had to say about the Socrates quote, and again I
think this Sumerian or Babylonian scribe is simply a spin off but I'd like
to be convinced otherwise.
Begin clipping from STUMPERS-L. . . .
>The Library of Congress' excellent book, _Respectfully Quoted_ (1989), lists
>this quote "thusly" (page 42, quote number 195):
> The children now love luxury; they have bad manners,
> contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and
> love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants,
> not the servants of their households. They no longer rise
> when eleders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
> chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross
> their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
>
>*About* this quote, this is what LC has to add:
> Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L.
> Patty and Louise S. Johnson, _Personality and Adjustment_, p.277
> (1963).
> This passage was very popular in the 1960s and its
> essence was used by the Mayor of Amsterdam, Gijsbert van Hall,
> following a street demonstration in 1966, as reported by _The
> New York Times_, April 3, 1966, p. 16.
> This use prompted Malcolm S. Forbes to write an editorial
> on youth.--_Forbes_, April 15, 1966, p. 11. In that same issue,
> under the heading "Side Lines," pp. 5-6, is a summary of the
> efforts of researchers and scholars to confirm the wording of
> Socrates, or Plato, but without success. Evidently, the
> quotation is spurious.
>
End Clipping
Rick Grant
1959 Series II "88"
VORIZO
Rick Grant Communications
Media and Crisis Management
Calgary Ottawa
www.rickgrant.com
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