In a very real sense any invention, discovery or innovation in any field
of human thought or action, if widely accepted or adopted automatically,
becomes a revolt against the status quo. Our experience with innovation
during two centuries of the great revolution gives us every reason to
suppose that the flow of scientific and technical invention and
discovery will continue for an indefinite period into our future. On the
whole the evidence suggests increase rather than decrease of innovation
and therefore of change.
A time of troubles such as that through which western civilization is
now passing offers individuals and social groups unique opportunities to
play significant roles in shaping the course of events. In every human
population there are individuals who are dissatisfied with the status
quo and prefer change to status. For such individuals a time of social
troubles is a holiday.
There is also an ever-renewing social group for whom a time of troubles
presents a challenge and an opportunity--the young people of the
on-coming generation.
Adults are generally conditioned and shaped by the social situation into
which they were born and in which they matured. Young people are passing
through the conditioning process. They are undergoing the process of
rapid change.
Young people in their teens and early twenties stand, usually hesitant,
on the threshold of life. They are bursting with energy, eager, hopeful,
anxious to enter the stream of adult activity.
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