Those Horrible Young People

When I was young, my parents always compared me to everyone else's children. It was not a pretty picture. It seemed that every time there was a social event, family get together, school function, etc., I acted like a jerk and the other duplicitous two faced punks put their best foot forward. So on the way home, all I heard was "Why can't you be like the ___________family's kids. They are so respectful and well behaved." I heard this a thousand times to the point that I really thought when it came to being a renegade, I was the floor from which every kid in the neighborhood's behavior was measured. Of course, the truth was that my parents were wrong on two fronts: the nieghbors' kids were horrible and I did stuff that was ten times worse than what I often was punished for. But that is all history. And so is this. I was reading one of my favorite blogs this morning, The Volokh Conspiracy (www.volokh.com) and came upon this a post comment by someone named Joe:
“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint” (Hesiod, 8th century BC).
Very interesting. For all of you graying hipsters from the 60's who thought you were re-inventing the wheel every time you lit up a joint or had sex with your high school sweetheart or ridiculed your father for (gasp!) working for a living, take a look at this quote from a 1585 case, Stanhope v. Blith, 76 Eng. Rep. 891. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Again, thank you Eugene Volokh.