Pascal Derrien

6 years ago · 2 min. reading time · ~100 ·

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Ignorance is No Excuse

Ignorance is No Excuse

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The title of this article is loosely inspired by the title of an LP called Innocence is No Excuse from a Brit band called Saxon. I guess it is probably a pretty unknown outfit to most but well respected for those who are familiar with NWOBHM (new wave of British heavy metal).

By just stating the above I realize that either I am becoming judgmental or more than ever I am just conscious of a generational gap between me and the generation shaping this world. In the end maybe its an impartial sentence conceding I am just getting old and bitter.

So we are in the 4th industrial revolution apparently, data its called, some even call it BIG data just to make sure we understand how massive the impact is on our lives. They swear by it, they live by it and they reckon it will save the world.

Sad state of affairs if you ask me when Tech founders like Steve Jobs are held on heroes pedestals or human icons, grim future ahead if Facebook is claiming to change the world for the better, even worse when YouTuber is the trending profession or when a kid genuinely and mistakenly quote Operation Cobra from an X-box game on his D-Day school project. 

Leadership and inspiration has been left to the Kardashians, Putin is a humanitarian at heart and Trump is...  well you know about that one. The only rally Millennials get mobilized for is when they queue  at an Apple store to get their hands on the latest device from the same brand. I don't know you but increasingly I have found myself surrounded by a generation of rebels without a cause.

Sunnydayers (its a new word) are mainly obsessed by posting selfies on Instagram and other Snapchat, most of them with a keen and strong sense of entitlement. Welcome to the global republic of ostrich, a world where the only thing you aspire to is to be rich (and on tablet TV).

I am sorry Millennials but if you are meant to be smarter than us I need more evidence in order to be convinced, we lived in troubled times and if the only thing you can produce is like me if u can that is as inspirational as a blank stare at a smartphone.

I know there are exceptions but inspiring stories about social forces seem pretty scarce at the moment or maybe they are just not relayed because they aren't financially viable. I guess the message of goodwill, commitment and empathy is as blurry as a cryptocurrency wallet.

To be honest it is more than likely my generation has failed to inspire you too, we probably have some big responsibility in having maybe abdicated in front of previous obstacles. I guess it is reasonable and correct to acknowledge our accountability in mass producing a generation of Zombies.

Hey old fart you sound like a broken record. Maybe I am but I don't see much commitment, courage or conviction in making the hard choices currently in the Western world. Young westerners seem too busy ignoring emerging forces from developing countries. 

The global conscience seems to have as much depth and reach in the minds than a Groupon discount voucher. But what do you expect when riding in Uber is the ultimate disruptive statement, when Airbnb is the height of alternative travel and joining the hipster brigade is the new punk. 

Short cuts are taken everyday (like the one I took above :-)) when it comes to collective memory, but sarcasm apart, I must say the whole thing does not sit well with me. 

I know people are saying that they are young and don't know any better, hmmm yeah... but actually no

Ignorance is no excuse




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Written Copyright 2018 -Pascal Derrien-





Comments

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #27

#28
Indeed John we sometimes make up stories we end up believing in :-)

John Rylance

6 years ago #26

Thomas Gray states " Ignorance is bliss its folly to be wise" There is some truth in it think how life changes when we find out there is no Father Christmas, that our parents don't know everything etc. Ignorance is often a sign of innocence, or so we tell ourselves when we break a law. I was unaware of the prevailing speed limit Officer. How often do we say to others I don't want to know what you are up to.

Ken Boddie

6 years ago #25

#26
I guess an “old fart” by any other name would smell as sweet?

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #24

Thanks uncle Ken Boddie you know that age is just a number . that some of us can't read 😉

Ken Boddie

6 years ago #23

Hey, Pascal, if you are an “old fart” then I must be an archaic flatulant. I greatly enjoyed this dummy spit.

Lisa Vanderburg

6 years ago #22

#23
You pose important points Harvey Lloyd; can we ever regain our humanity? Is it like wishing for our lost innocence? The irony of the dawn of the industrial revolution has so quickly brought us from all that wonderful enlightenment to the greed-filled, scared beasts we are. Poverty, as you say, is both of mind and body and we can bleat, but what help are we? What happened to common decency, humility, manners, the small yet essential part of us? If we impart these values to our children, society seems to crush them and they're outcast. Stupid bleedin' humans!

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #21

#22
We look at industry as the destroyers of society and ideal futures. This is a political perspective that started back in the fifties. Give the voting populace something to hate, blame etc and we can offer to fix it. No industry produces and sells what we want. Wer want security and protection so that we can go about our lives while others do their job at security. We don't want to know how this is accomplished and don't want to know. But when we are exposed to it and it is shown as barbaric we cringe at such human behaviour. You have three people in front of you. One has planted a bomb that will kill thousands and you have no way of evacuation. You know the timeframe is short, not sure how short but is within hours. Its your job to secure your town, city or people. Whatever your choice is to get the info is yours to live with. Secondarily if your choice left the three alive what do you now do with the guilty party? These are tough question that i have had to ask myself. I didn't cause the setting/situation. My job is to make a decision within this mccabe situation. Yet there is no good decision here. All of them suck. Each day we are faced with situations when we include the world. Is it arms sales or people who want security, power or wealth. Do we not all desire some of these in varying degrees? Lawlessness will always be with us, the larger question is how have we become desensitized to this in such away that we have lawless people in charge? We broke the human barrier a few decades ago with power and wealth, this will be a difficult cat to get back in the bag again. We can have arms and still be human. We destroyed each other when we only had sticks and we will be destroying one another when we have brain wave cannons that shoot from our eyes. Humanity needs its code back and all need to live within it.

Lisa Vanderburg

6 years ago #20

#12
#13 #19 I truly hope that we have learned from our past mistakes and that we are indeed evolving to become a better humanity. I also hope that 'something' we lost Harvey Lloyd, doesn't just turn out to have anything to do the arms-race biz. 'Wisdom is to be shared and not leveraged against someone or something.' Amen to that, brother!

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #19

#20
not necessarily how I would phrase it but this is your point of view :-), I can think of many ladies who have been heroic in the French resistance yes I also know some were not

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #18

#11
War is an end game that does seem to flush the toilet of tyranny. But we loose something in war. Brilliant minds on the losing side get squashed and it is hard for us to recapture this humanity. So in war we all lose. But this is the wake up cal before the war starts, for us to begin rethinking humanity and its last 50 year track. We have walked away from something that held us together for a long time. We need to find that something and reinstate "it" before its to late. Wisdom is to be shared and not leveraged against someone or something.

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #17

I agree there is a huge potential the issue is that it is largely dormant but when it's in action it's hugely impactful if I judge by what I see in social enterprising 🤔

🐝 Fatima G. Williams

6 years ago #16

That was a good rant Pascal Derrien I was a bit like that myself until I had a awake up call. All is not lost yet just the medium, people , situation and the environment we live in has changed. Oops I kinda mentioned almost everything. What everyone needs is a wake up call. Hello we can do much better.😇😇😇😇

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #15

#15
ah that's a very nice comment Debasish Majumder just a few words doing my best, it does not mean its the best but hey as long people like you keep reading... :-)

Debasish Majumder

6 years ago #14

you never cease to ponder about your delightful insight Pascal Derrien! enjoyed read and shared. thank you for the buzz.

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #13

#13
thanks Kim Wheeler we hopefully wont need another carnage having said there are already a few going on which would indicate that our ability to educate and learn is limited unfortunately , bad generals seem to reproduce and multiply :-(

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #12

#11
I hope you are not right about major crisis and wars etc.. Lisa Vanderburg because this would mean we have learned nothing, I think it is a phase maybe a lost generation there seem to be a collective sense of apathy which is only awaken when materialistic or shallow purposes are threatened

Lisa Vanderburg

6 years ago #11

Hate to say it, but there's something to be said about good ol' fashioned war Pascal Derrien. It made men from boys and women better mothers. The cost is enormous in lost and broken life; is that what we're down to? We our first two grandbabies in the last year, I see the world in ever smaller circles; and our time is passing as is the righteous way of it. You've aways to go to get there yet! But I do worry for the what our grandchildren will be. Sunnydayers...who makes up these words!!

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #10

#9
true I had in mind to mention virtual reality and AI but failed to transfer them from my draft blame the age 🤔 I am not getting any younger Lada \ud83c\udfe1 Prkic

Lada 🏡 Prkic

6 years ago #9

Pascal, you're ranting for a reason. It almost makes me want to shout "Millennials show me some intelligence!", to paraphrase @Phil Friedman's #SHOWMETHEINTELLIGENCE series of posts about AI.

Lada 🏡 Prkic

6 years ago #8

Pascal, you're ranting for a reason. It almost makes me want to shout "Millenials show me some intelligence!", to paraphrase Phil Friedman's #SHOWMETHEINTELLIGENCE series of posts about AI.

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #7

#6
I would venture to guess that you know five people right now that could benefit from your wisdom. I would propose some research. Pick the five people who you sense could benefit and write a post about the communication. Three goals in mind: 1. You can state their case 2. They can state yours 3.Each walks away with mutual respect. The gauntlet of action has been laid against apathy:) Secretly i am saying this to myself. If we are to die then make it on the battlefield of righteousness, not apathy.

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #6

#5
very thoughtful and articulated comment as only you Harvey Lloyd can come up with :-) I think there is still a small possibility to reverse the trend but its slim and may not be sufficient what a waste .....

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #5

I resemble that remark:) I went through this patch a few years ago, i sum it up as i am no longer the target market anymore. Big data is always trying to target the future flow of dollars towards or away from something. The more discerning the buyer the less influence marketing ahs, therefore big data is attempting to find the buyer that is not discerning but emotional about a purchase. I got apathetic, judgmental and basically became a hermit. Now i still have some of these residual perspectives. But i also realize that the old farts, regardless of perspective, are the de facto leaders of the world. We have a commitment not just to ourselves, but to also pass along what we have learned. In the passing of this wisdom of understanding, there will be conflict. The conflict is what is new. Communities could pass this on without fear of contradiction from media driven marketing campaigns such as we see today. Today we battle with big data and marketing in passing on wisdom. Sometimes what we have learned through experience is not easy to pass on while TV says its ok. Youth have not experienced what we have, and big data is leveraging this paradigm by providing marketing with alternative experiences. The old have broken trust with the young. Not necessarily a nomination of fault as it is admitting that circumstances have rendered unintended consequences. How in the hell did Facebook become the leader of the free will opinion? But as in the past the human experience tends to find away to right itself. Unfortunately this usually involves a civilization collapse. So believing we have evolved past that style of self correction, we old farts have a job to do. What is one take away you would like every young person to walk away with because they observed, listened or experienced something with you?

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #4

#3
I think Neil Smith your comment does encapsulate pretty much everything from our own responsibility to lack of drive. I am also curious and somewhat anxious to see what will the generation after the millennials is capable to produce.... :-)

Neil Smith

6 years ago #3

I don't know about "Rebel without a cause" more "Rebel without a clue". To be fair I was hardly the beacon of amazingness I am now when I was seventeen. Stumbling from one angry mess into another isn't a record to be shouting about necessarily. I did however learn and grow up a bit. When I moved to the US in 1986 I was struck by how young and parentally dependent lots of the young people I met were. It seemed that the easiness of life had led to a situation where teens and young adults stayed in a child-like state for far longer than I was used to. Goes the US goes the UK. Nowadays I see the same thing in my working life on this side of the Atlantic every day, at work and in my family and community. The thing to bear in mind though is that this is learned behaviour. The kids learned to be like this from old farts like us. The parents at the school gate indulging the child's whims and justifying the mobile phone for their six year old on the grounds that "It's just so hard to say no". The huge toy pile at Christmas, the expensive hobbies, dad's taxi, bank of mum and dad, etc. The question for me is about what do the next generation learn from the millenial parents of tomorrow? Nice rant Pascal and I look forward to seeing the reaction.

Pascal Derrien

6 years ago #2

#1
ah thanks Paul Walters I am expecting to be bruised all over with that one so it is not bad to get started with a praise much appreciated :-)

Paul Walters

6 years ago #1

Pascal Derrien . Bravo...well said !

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