Reply #87: I don't believe experience is put to good use

[Radical Activist]

by telling everyone why everything they're doing is a waste of time without offering constructive alternatives.

You wrote: "Young people just haven't had enough experience screwing up to have any idea of all the myriad ways things can go catastrophically fubar."

Yes, I believe that was my point. That's why the young try things that more experienced people will think is a mistake or a waste of time. But that's what you have to do. That's how progress is made. You can't succeed if you don't try.

History is full of examples of repeated failures that are forgotten because one time it finally worked. How many times before the 60's did Presidents waste their time introducing civil rights bills full of half-measures? How many times was Martin Luther King warned by his elders about what would happen if he was too aggressive about defying white leaders? They knew from experience what would happens so they didn't try. That's why it was mostly high school students being hosed down in Birmingham. Many of the experienced adults in town had already abandoned the marches because they knew how everything could go fubar.
Think about that the next time you want to make a condescending remark about teenagers. It was high school students and younger who desegregated Birmingham with Martin Luther King after the experienced, hopeless, cynical adults who "knew better" had given up.

The teenagers and children didn't know any better but to keep trying.