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In response to sociology etc.




Rob
you are talking the reality of our civilization.  We do throw our kids on 
the scrap heaps or else impose the burden of education and support totally 
on parents. And often they cannot afford to help the child through 
tertiary.  Our son came home at the age of 27 after working, payed board, 
and drove taxis two nights a week until he completed his primary degree, 
won a Commonwealth government studentship and ended up with a PhD in his 
field. At the age of 42 he has a University position but at 17, he was a 
young , longhaired      , layabout who  was a grave concern to us and to 
his grandparents. They both lived long enough to see him graduate with his 
first degree, and Nanna saw him through the seven years of Ph.D. 
Unfortunately she did not live long enough to see him graduate as scholar 
etc, in his flowing red gown and black cap.


>
>         Youth prostitution is not a sign of the clearances, or the 
> intergeneration
>abdication of individual responsibility - it's a sign of the times and our
>petty age-ism.
>
>         Some of these kids under 18 are as intelligent and usefull as you or
>I...who among us adresses them them that way...excepting Niven of course,
>who has always paid attention to our youth...
>
>         Are you saying it's a Scottish trait to beat the kids? I thought 
> that also
>was a western civilization issue...
>
>                 rob cohn
>                 halifax
>And in the job I do Rob, there is no one country with exclusive rights to 
>beating the kids.

Jean



>  themselves.  True, it provides employment for
>psychologists
><but the end-results are purely negative.  I hope Sinclairs are wise enough
>to avoid this
><escape route - this 'shifting the blame' syndrome."
>






>and some do shift the blame for such behaviours through this type
>of  "rationalization."
>   But that view gives only a partial picture of the phenomenon we both
>speak of.
>
>The question may not be merely whether these folk are not strong enough to
>help themselves
>but whether they even want to bother helping themselves since life doesn't
>seem to be
>quite worth the effort. Hedonism seems a better alternative," eat drink and
>be merry for
>tomorrow we may die." Indeed many of us did die, through little or no fault
>of our own historically.
>That erroneous view is stereotypically , factually justified and
>intergenerationally transmitted
>with the aid of abuse within the Scottish family, disguised as "discipline".
>
>There are no easy answers to the problem but one can say that a shift away
>from
>cultural materialism might give some possibility  of awareness of
>historical alienation
>and the social processes through which suffering is promoted
>intergenerationally.
>Certainly it would be interesting to see several politicians, who sit in
>Scotlands Parliament,
>take this view of their nation. In it there is slightly more than just a
>mere grain of truth.
>Scots are also a nation unto themselves, just as one can speak of a "
>Jewish" nation, so we too exist that way internationally. I do not say this
>to seem "holier than thou," but I want to point out that this is a fact
>which is often understandably minimized by resident Scots, who have the
>very powerful , immediate concerns to deal with, in the way their country
>is unfolding in front of them. Those of us who care about Scotland very
>much, look to her with a much broader perspective, augmented by both the
>time and distance of the historically disenfranchised. In this way there
>may be some useful insights which might provoke some constructive thinking.
>
>Yours, aye,
>
>Dale Hinchey
>Caledonia County, Vermont,
>USA
>
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