"no sure guide to the present"

It's an open home that Zekkethal and Joe Thomas have created in the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Nespelem, WA. There are always children there. Children as young as grandchildren. And visitors. Myself included. Together we create an imaginary world behind the house where a seemingly endless field expands into the horizon. Kyle is no longer with us on these adventures – we miss him and we are happy he returned to his biological mother. He was always the first to request an outdoor adventure. Taylor, his half-sister who remains in Nespelem, now holds that memory. 

During an autumn morning, after digging through a stuffed animal pile and practicing piano, we hike out into the field behind the house. It’s a beautiful sunny day. Taylor asks Little Bear to lead and she asks me to be the caboose. I follow and Taylor follows along side with my camera in hand taking pictures of clouds, the ground, herself. Check out those dimples!

 

Caboose: (noun) one that follows or brings up the rear.

Margaret Mead recommended this role to elders today. Be a caboose. A prefigurative caboose.

“The distinction I am making among three different kinds of culture – postfigurative, in which children learn primarily from their forebears, cofigurative, in which both children and adults learn from their peers, and prefigurative, in which adults learn also from their children – are a reflection of the period in which we live.

“We are now entering a period, new in history, in which the young are taking on new authority in their prefigurative apprehension of the still unknown future.”

“It is only when one specifies the nature of the process that the contrast between past and present change becomes clear. One urgent problem, I believe is the delineation of the nature of change in the modern world, including it’s speed and dimensions, so that we can better understand the distinctions that must be made between change in the past and this which is ongoing.

“The primary evidence that our present situation is unique, without parallel in the past, is that the generation gap is world wide.

“The key questions is this: What are the new conditions that have brought about the revolt of youth right around the world?

…emergence of a world community.

…industrial revolution.

…revolution in the development of food resources.

“Most importantly, these changes have taken place almost simultaneously-within the lifetime of one generation-and the impact of knowledge of the change is world wide.

“(T)he young adults had as models only their own tentative adaptations and innovations. Their past, the culture that had shaped their understanding-their thoughts, their feelings, and their conceptions of the world-was no sure guide to the present. And the elders among them, bound to the past, could provide no models for the future.

“Nevertheless, we have passed the point of no return. We are committed to life in an unfamiliar setting; we are making do with what we know.

“The young generation, however, the articulate young rebels all around the world who are lashing out against the controls to which they are subjected, are like the first generation born into this country.

“They feel that there must be a better way and that they must find it.

“Today, nowhere in the world are there elders who know what the children know, no matter how remote or simple the societies are in which the children live.

“(A)s long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can be introspective, invoke his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost.

“(Y)oung dissidents realize the critical need for immediate world action on problems that affect the whole world. What they want is, in some way, to begin all over again. The idea of orderly, developmental change is lost for this generation of young.

“Resistance among the youth is also expressed by an essentially uninvolved and exploitative compliance with rules that are regarded as meaningless. Perhaps those who take this stand are the most frightening. Going through the forms by which men were educated for generations, but which no longer serve to educate those who accept them, can only teach students to regard all social systems in terms of exploitation.

“We must create new models for adults who can teach their children not what to learn, but how to learn and not what (to) be committed to, but the value of commitment.”

Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap, 1970