On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too..." -George Orwell Each generation produces a coterie of rebels and forward thinkers who may or may not edge our culture forward, but will at least add ideas to the mainstream. Very few age groups develop an ability to look inward and see their own flaws in real time. That tends to be the task of the next generation. There were writers such as Voltaire, H. L. Mencken, Paul Krassner, or Tom Wolfe who could see that human nature was really a constant, that is to say, could see the irony in a generation criticizing another, and who turned their sharp eye on their peers' foibles and failings. But most societal critics and lampooners end up becoming, as George Orwell called it, "licensed jesters" who can coast along as honored sages if they stick to approved targets, but the early feminist writers, the ones who stubbornly kept to the core issue of equality, broke that mold, as as a result faced of...