Dr.
Graves:
Yes – and – no! I don’t find this problem that so many
people talk about except in one transition, that is, where the
family settled was straight, that is, settled down around D-Q and/or
E-R and isn’t growing at all. This is where the young people show
their negativism toward authority. But his is only a very rare
phenomenon. I’ve been with kids all over this United States. There
aren’t an awful lot of them who are tied up in this rebellion. So,
you get that particular rebellion out of the parental group that
became affluent after the war. They want to throw off the values of
that parental group. But this is not what I find to be most youth.
What I find is most youth are in a highly open state of affairs.
Most people in the 16 to 20 age group are coming out of high school
going out into the world today are not involved at all in this drug
business. They are not involved in any kind of matters people get
concerned about. They are just growing up at a higher level of
operation than people have ever been before.
Question:
Accepting the fact that they are on a higher level starting
point – what does this have to do with their starting point? What
I’m thinking is this: it seems to me that with the technological
advances we have made, in terms of more level 5 people, that we’ve
solved so many existential problems for so many of the kids that
they are able to start off on a higher level. Is this what has
occurred? Are the children of today able to move through the first
few levels faster, so that, - and this gets down to the question of
the speed at which one can move through a level, - they are actually
starting off getting out of high school and hitting college
. . . they are starting off way ahead of where we might have started
off 15 years ago?
Dr.
Graves:
I represent that on the last page. What is happening today is
that children are being born into a world where so many of the
N-O-P-Q-R system problems have been solved by the day that they have
been born. So it is easier for these children to grow through to the
F-S system. The only problem I find with these people – and
believe me – it bothers me because I’ve got a couple of children
and I’m terrified. Let me illustrate this personally. A young man
and a young woman, my son-in-law and my daughter, believe that this
is a good world. They operate above the E-R level trusting people
and the like. They didn’t recognize the totality of the school
situation in which they were teaching as junior high school
teachers. Instead of playing the game at the E-R level as E-R people
would, keeping quiet when they wanted
to get married and getting married and coming back the next year
when the labor contract was signed and they couldn’t do anything
about it, they went and told the school administrators they were
going to get married. They got fired. They can’t work together at
the same junior high school. Then they went ahead to buy a piece of
property and get some horses. They didn’t have a dime. They felt
that it was going to come. They were absolutely certain. All was
well and they went right on expecting-expecting-expecting. They did
not seem to have any ability to think about the possibility
that they wouldn’t get a job. They couldn’t conceive of it. This
is the thing that bothers me. In other words, I get scared to death
when they enter the F-S system, and think that everyone in this
world is nice. If we can get to the point that we solve that problem
of getting up one more level so that their eyes are open and they
realize that there are all kinds of people in this world who are not
nice . . . we’ll be better off. This is the problem that I’m
faced with. It isn’t the problem of the drug culture and the like.
I sat around yesterday morning with a dozen young men graduating
this year. Unless this economy changes incredibly they haven’t a
ghost of a chance of getting . . . jobs . . . paying taxes . . .
having lodging, getting food. . . just wandering around being happy,
etc.
I think that this is a very serious cop-out. Now, I’m not
being moralistic or I’m not looking back. I’m just saying, look,
anyone who can do this doesn’t look at this world and see that
this world cannot afford the waste of human kind.