How to Tame The Beast: The Lessons of Recent History The present situation does seem bleak. However, one of the greatest lessons of history is that the present does not necessarily predict the future. As previously outlined in this chapter, many baby boomers were radicalized to accept or at least be curious about critical theory thinking during their college student days. However, as they grew older, as their wants and needs in life changed with the advent of parenthood, and as the general environment changed to become more peaceful and stable, most boomers gave up their views from their student days, and became family and community orientated people. They became the responsible adults who raised my generation, the responsible adults who provided us with a mostly healthy environment to grow up in, who made an effort to make the world safer and more friendly for the sake of us. And now, many of us are paying that debt forward, by doing our best to promote healthy communitarian values in an increasingly divided world.
The point is, support for the extreme ideas of critical theory and postmodernism is context dependent. It tends to happen when young and inexperienced people are faced with what they consider a hopeless future, with no solutions for what they see as widespread injustice. This was the reason for students embracing critical theory in the 1960s; it is also the reason for students embracing critical theory and postmodernism today. Furthermore, this is also likely to at 145
