Mind you, this isn't a knock on anyone, just something I've generally observed over the years. Ironically, I think people who are or were more rebellious tend to crack down on that even harder when they're the ones in a position of authority, such as in the workplace or with their kids. I've often heard something similar to the following, from former bad-boy dads with daughters: When I was 16 I was such a wildman and trying to score with every chick I ever could. These boys better not even talk to my daughter, I know what they're all thinking, I've been their age.

Believe me, it took me awhile to fully grasp that concept. Logically, you'd think it would be the other way around. It seems hypocritical and a paradox at first, but when I think about it a bit it makes sense. People often tend to use their own lives or examples as a basis for their thoughts.

Again, no criticism intended. ;)

I think it is more of the fact that they lived through certain situations in their lives, and now that they are more mature and now parents...they don't want their children to have to live through the mistakes that they made when they were younger.  It's like this...when I was young, I vowed..."I'll never be like my parents". I hated that they listened to certain types of older music, I hated that they had the nerve to take me into a Goodwill store and expect me to find things there, I hated that they were so strict, etc. However, now that I am nearly 30, and raising a child myself...I have found that I have quite literally become my parents. You all know how much I love thrift shopping (my favorite store to shop at), I LOVE older music, movies, actors, styles,...actually everything vintage/old/retro/from the past, and now I find myself disciplining Vaughn almost the exact same way that my parents disciplined me. It's funny how when you get older, more mature, etc...how much your views change. I think that these "bad boys" have just grown up, and are now trying to protect their offspring from having to travel down the hard roads, like they once did in their youth.

I think it is more of the fact that they lived through certain situations in their lives, and now that they are more mature and now parents...they don't want their children to have to live through the mistakes that they made when they were younger.  It's like this...when I was young, I vowed..."I'll never be like my parents". I hated that they listened to certain types of older music, I hated that they had the nerve to take me into a Goodwill store and expect me to find things there, I hated that they were so strict, etc. However, now that I am nearly 30, and raising a child myself...I have found that I have quite literally become my parents. You all know how much I love thrift shopping (my favorite store to shop at), I LOVE older music, movies, actors, styles,...actually everything vintage/old/retro/from the past, and now I find myself disciplining Vaughn almost the exact same way that my parents disciplined me. It's funny how when you get older, more mature, etc...how much your views change. I think that these "bad boys" have just grown up, and are now trying to protect their offspring from having to travel down the hard roads, like they once did in their youth.


Yeah, that makes some sense.

Again, I think my laid back attitude on matters like this comes from me never being in much trouble. Sure, I've made mistakes and learned things in life, but I've never done anything that slapped me in the face and forced me to change. Yes, I've improved in little ways, but my overall personality has remained mostly the same. I won't really need to grow up and change my lifestyle since I wasn't really wild to begin with. I've had a longtime theory that cooler/life on the edge people tend to actually age quicker over time because the way they were defined them so much.

We tend to apply other people's lives into things we've experienced ourseives, so I can understand why people do this.


I tend to think liberally on most disciplinary issues (whether its kids or adults). When I have kids, I'll probably be pretty easy on them unless they did something really out of line. Oh, I wouldn't let them get away with anything - I'd be a good dad, and educate them to the best of my ability, but I like to be cool with people/be their buddy unless I have no choice. Even in any job I've ever had, I hate being in a position where I have to set the rules, I don't want anyone thinking I'm a d*ck.

For instance, I know there can be alot of "guilt by association" placed onto people just out of general stereotypes (be it by race, age or lifestyle). The older/authority figures can perceive teens as snotty punks right off the bat because of how the media portrays them. That happened to me when I was younger quite a bit, yet I'm one of those nice/good guys who follows the rules, so I sometimes had an uphill battle to fight because of how my peers could be.

Often times yes.  The question is power.

Look at what the Bolsheviks were in 1918 and look at what they had become ten years later. 

The rebel is often resentful of the will of authority imposed on him.  However, it does not follow that he will remember how much he despised authority when he gets the chance to impose his will on others. 

You see this often in political, religious, and countercultural circles.

Charles Manson defied the will of the state every chance he got, but down on the Spahn Ranch, he was more than just the boss, he was the prophet, the chosen one, God, and Satan all in one person.  He set the agenda, the "family" followed Manson's orders.

"Stephen says...."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Gaskin

Stephen Gaskin was an authoritarian for sure.  He was also a folk hero to the hippies.  Stephen Gaskin is a name rarely mentioned nowadays, but in the 1970s, this hppie English teacher from San Francisco State College set up a farm in Tennessee called "The Farm."  My parents were close friends with a few hippies that lived on The Farm.  The Farm was countercultural--vegan, anti-military, spiritualist, marijuana smoking, and so forth--but Stephen Gaskin was the boss and if you did not agree with Stephen, you were certainly free...free to go elsewhere.  All rules were set according to Gaskin's idiosyncratic notions.  For instance, he forbade the use of nicknames.  If your name was, say, Elizabeth, you were forbidden to call yourself "Liz," and other community members had to refer to you as "Elizabeth."  I knew about this from my parents' Farm friends.  I was amused years later when I read Gaskin's godawful book "Amazing Dope Tales," how Gaskin's own friends had epithets like "Rockin' Jody."  On his "Farm" he concluded nicknames were vain as the phony accoutrements of the establishment he also banned from the compund--makeup and jewellery.  Sounds sort of like pot-smoking Amish!

Members of The Farm community often began sentences with the phrase "Stephen says..."

Here is a story about The Farm I found on line.  Knowing what I know from people who were there, it sounds about right.
http://secondsightresearch.tripod.com/cattales/id13.html

Hippies were freewheeling do-your-own-thing types until they got in charge of stuff!

The rebel is often resentful of the will of authority imposed on him.  However, it does not follow that he will remember how much he despised authority when he gets the chance to impose his will on others. 

You see this often in political, religious, and countercultural circles.

Hippies were freewheeling do-your-own-thing types until they got in charge of stuff!


Yeah, Hippies became Yuppies in full force circa 1983.

Perpaps their unwillingness to lax up on the rules once they become in charge is because they fear change and don't want anything different than what they're used to.

Sounds like the case with The Farm guy.

Yeah, Hippies became Yuppies in full force circa 1983.

Perpaps their unwillingness to lax up on the rules once they become in charge is because they fear change and don't want anything different than what they're used to.

Sounds like the case with The Farm guy.

...And they're only human.  Each group who seeks to tear down the old order seems to forget they are subject to the human psyche that maintained the old order.  There are leaders, there are followers, and there are followers who want to become leaders.  You can see both Manson and Gaskin spent time in authoritarian systems.  Manson in prison, Gaskin in the U.S. Marines.  I'm not equating Gaskin with Manson.  Manson prided himself on being a force of evil in the world.  He said so himself.  Gaskin believed, like most authoritarians, that what he was doing was for the good of his followers...if not all humanity.  Compared to the outcomes in cults of personality, such as Jim Jones' Peoples Temple in Guyana (Jonestown), or David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, Stephen Gaskin's Farm was benign.  There was no mass murder/suicide.  There was no conflagaration.  "The Farm" simply petered out from financial problems and diminished interest!

The problem the hippies had was a failure to question there own utopian leanings.  I found the same with my friends in the Marxist-Leninist Progressive Labor Party.  They had no sense of irony.  They would not consider they were making the same mistakes as those who went before them.  They were not "fascist," but they were every bit as authoritarian as there "fascist" nemesis. 

When hippies got wealthy and become yuppies (think Alex P. Keaton's parents on "Family Ties"), they still considered themselves countercultural and spiritual.  They were my favorite object of ridicule in the '80s.  You bought a Volvo instead of a Buick.  Big deal.  It was so much Yoga, crystals, organic wine, Bach flower remedies, and getaway weekends to learn the Indian wisdom with Sun Bear.  The yuppies were every bit as consumerist, status-oriented, and materialistic as their parents....and just like their parents, they were suckers for marketing.  Oh, the yuppies were smart, but "Madison Avenue" was smarter!

::)

Mind you, this isn't a knock on anyone, just something I've generally observed over the years.


No, you've got it.  The canonical example this campaign season -- the kinkiest politicans and kingmakers of the past few years have been the ones in charge of the Junior Anti-Sex League.

For an even more interesting time, poke around into the psychology research around S&M types. In general, studies have found that people who have no control in their day-to-day lives (burger flippers, meth heads / trailer trash, low-ranking politiical hacks) are the most likely to enjoy dominating others (though given their incomes, they're likely to stick to abusing their spouses, children, or becoming TSA goons or prison guards and abusing the general public). And the people who have the most control over their public lives (CEOs, lawyers, high-ranking politicians) are the most likely to be hiring $1000/night Dominatrix-types in full Nazi regalia.

Your homework is to consider the ramifications of the Standford Prison Experiment and the fact that there's been 30 years of applied and theoretical work done since then.

No, you've got it.  The canonical example this campaign season -- the kinkiest politicans and kingmakers of the past few years have been the ones in charge of the Junior Anti-Sex League.

For an even more interesting time, poke around into the psychology research around S&M types. In general, studies have found that people who have no control in their day-to-day lives (burger flippers, meth heads / trailer trash, low-ranking politiical hacks) are the most likely to enjoy dominating others (though given their incomes, they're likely to stick to abusing their spouses, children, or becoming TSA goons or prison guards and abusing the general public). And the people who have the most control over their public lives (CEOs, lawyers, high-ranking politicians) are the most likely to be hiring $1000/night Dominatrix-types in full Nazi regalia.

Your homework is to consider the ramifications of the Standford Prison Experiment and the fact that there's been 30 years of applied and theoretical work done since then.

My limited experience with kinky-types has demonstrated that they are  uptight than the general public, not less.
"Just because I liked to get bound and gagged and (censored) on doesn't mean I have no standards.  I'm not some kind of a sick-o, you know.  You will respect me while you are thrashing me with a cat-o-nine tails, chaining me to a beam in the cellar, extinguishing cigarettes on my privates, and (censoring) on me!"
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/07/nut.gif

(I'm not personally into the domination/pain lifestyle.  It's a total turn-off to me.  I do know a guy who tells me of his exploits and of his being exploited!)

My dad was a quasi-hippie back in the late 60s and he partook in the hippie lifestyle to some degree, but he said he ruined the trust and relationship he had with his parents and he doesn't want that happening with my sister and I, which explains why the both of us are pretty boring, compared to other people our own ages.  My sister has had a few drinks every now and again when she's out with friends, and I've told her that I won't blab to daddy provided she doesn't act a fool and come home drunk.  She knows the minute she does, her ass is grass.  It's the agreement we have with each other and our mother....she drinks in moderation, doesn't get sh*tfaced....we don't tell Dad.  We know if we say outright "Don't do it", she'll do it, get drunk and then wish she was dead.  This way we both win.....sort of.


So yeah, I think my dad is a lot stricter than most parents, but we wouldn't be the kind of kids we are if he wasn't.  I'd rather have my dad be too strict than not give a damn.

My dad was a full blown hippie in the late 60s and early 70s and although he wasn't still what you'd call a hippie by the time I was a kid, he still basically had the same values. Thats part of why I have a somewhat non-traditional view on sex and relationships, which alot of people have been intolerant about in the past.