We are all conditioned by our world view, and our world view is conditioned by repeated training, environment, experiences and memory thereof. The world view of innocent naive children are vastly different from their disillusioned adult counterparts. This change occurs based on cultural drives within the person’s social experience, usually at the point one is forced to become responsible for his actions and the well-being of others.

In both psychological treatment (such as anxiety management) and in commercial psychology (such as making you want to buy a product) a process is used called “systematic desensitization”. This process came about through study of Pavlov’s experiments and everyone is susceptible to its influence, though some more than others.

Note that these are my personal observations and I have no formal psychological training in the matter. But what I see is that people can change. We have a remarkable ability to adapt in ways that can even go as far as changing our very souls. I’ve also noticed that as people age, they become more sure of their world view and become less motivated to change it. Whether this is a stubbornness designed within their world view (“I believe old people can’t change”), a lack of motivation (“Why change?”), difficulty to fight off habitual impulses (“It’s hard to change”) or laziness (“It’s too much work”) depends on the individual.

With the world view being so strongly influenced by our environment, and with the environment changing from one generation to the next, it stands to reason that a set of people from the same generation will share similar world views.

For example, a general world view that I find with elders – specifically those who were raised during the great depression or during World War II – is that they regard certain social laws to be universal, though they may be applied differently across cultures. Respect for elders, adherence to the law and the importance of self-sufficiency appear to be some of these commonalities, and they’re not specific to the American culture. These people went through possibly two world wars, one of the country’s worst economic depressions, shifts in industrialization towards technology and from old-school theology to Pantheism. The common media culture was auditory (radio) rather than visual (TV) so listening skills were more important. Handling risks was a lifestyle requiring a level of self-sufficiency such as maintaining your own garden for the bulk of your family’s food supply.

Though these principles were taught to the next generation, there was a sizable revolt in the political movements that spanned the 1960′s into the 70′s and reached into their private homes. People became pompous and disrespectful to their elder generation, turning to sexual, spiritual and narcotic experimental realms for inspiration and motivation.

Similarly, the elder generation showed a level of disregard for the younger generation, continuing to send them to visionless wars in Korea and Viet Nam. There was no clear understanding to the paranoia that promoted these wars, though it was mostly pitched that democracy and capitalism were at stake. Many of the “Baby Boomers” lost a connection with family values and a large diversity of beliefs followed. The world view for the Baby Boomers switched from a “Father Knows Best” model to an “All In the Family” model. Rather than continuing to view authority as an entity you could turn to for support and advice, it shifted to to a view that authority was callous and careless – even harmful. It seems that during the time people experimented with sources of happiness and fulfillment, psychological advances were made in advertisement and materialism took a stronghold. The “Me” generation was more about gaining “More” than gaining self. Social splits across the generation formed hippies and yuppies and further shaped the two main American political parties. By 1970, television commercials directed at children and during children shows had gotten so out of hand that a children’s advocacy group formed, Action for Children’s Television (ACT) in protest. The FCC eventually agreed to create restrictions after studies were made that proved the harmful effects of commercials.

Generation-X was referred to as the “Lost” generation by a few when I was a child. Mostly because we’re growing up blind to our identity. The type of discipline and stature from the Golden Era was long lost except for its representation in old books. Marketing came into the schools, usually in the form of political interests. We were taught (by teachers who were the same age as our parents) that the world was changing faster than our parents could understand. In the same rebellious air that these people thumbed their noses at authority with when they were twenty, they discredited their own authority. My generation was taught to be skeptical of authority from the generation that was young and groaned under the corruption of Nixon, LBJ and Carter. It even goes further than that. We were taught not to trust anyone and to view others with a certain level of vengeance – a “get him first before he gets you” and a “stick it to the man” attitude. It’s now my generation who are entering political offices; antisocialites my age are running the IRS. There are those who are hopeful and shine far brighter than the rest. They are philanthropists and humanitarians, respectful of others and generous to strangers. I admittedly struggle to get there against my learned behavior. I’ve heard you can never unlearn a behavior, you can only learn another one that overtakes it. So I’ll have what Pavlov is having. Ring the bell and chide me on. If an animal can learn basic behavior, any man (made in the image of God) can do even better.