Culture and Commitment
Culture and Commitment by Margaret Mead is an ethnography of the 1960's and 70's pertaining to the gap in generations started in the mid 1940's. It tells of the generation gap created by new technologies such as the nuclear bomb, space exploration, satellites that revolve around the earth, and the planet now being an intercommunicating whole. The effects that these new technologies have had on our culture are explained. Also the hopes and possibly new ways to bring the two sides of this gap back together, or at the very least make it possible for the two sides to be able to communicate with each other.On one of the sides of the gap that I have mentioned are the elders, born and reared prior to the mid 1940's when the first atomic bomb was exploded. On the other side, the generation bore after that irreversible date. That day the bomb was dropped is what started the divide between these two sides, starting the "Atomic Age". Now war was not only able to wipe out possibly an entire culture, but could destroy the entire planet. This is a thought and now a concern that the elders never had to consider, but the new generation would have to live with everyday, never knowing what it was like not to. T
As Mead reflects back on the 60's, now looking back from the seventies, and sees the new generation now becoming older she asks a question. In what way can we use this gap constructively to better ourselves? To start to try to mend the gap, children could be brought up being made aware of the changes which their parents had undergone, and be treated as people who could make immediate contributions, and not just learners not yet deserving of notice. With that in their heads and a fresh set of eyes, they could use this to their advantage to develop new technologies, ways of thinking, and help positively shape the future. In this new generation and their ideas lay the hope for the future. When the generation gap was finally realized in the 1960's to be more of a "ditch" then a gap, it was also realized as one of uniqueness and loneliness. There had been many gaps before it, but none like it. The generation gaps of old were small discrepancies between the young and their elders. This one however, was a monumental new separation between young and old. One which could never be bridged or narrowed, but simply spoken across when both sides attempted to listen and truly hear what the other was trying to s
Some common words found in the essay are:
Atomic Age, Margaret Mead, generation gap, culture commitment, peers elders, mid 1940's, child child, type culture, Culture Commitment,
Approximate Word count = 817
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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