Document created: 17 June 04
Air University Review, January-February 1970

The Time Barrier

Student disillusionment with the alliances between universities and the military-industrial complex has been increasing. In the face of their protest, some of our renowned universities have dropped academic credit for the ROTC program, a program that produces a majority of new Air Force officers.

Student protest has not been confined to a single issue or country. In at least 20 areas from Czechoslovakia to California to China with its cultural revolution, students are translating their ideologies into action. Apathy has given way to activism as students of both repressive and free societies confront established social institutions and question their existence, their goals, techniques, and assumptions. The university has become a “brave new world.” Additional investigation into this world of student protest should aid us in bringing constructive change out of potential chaos.

The reasons for student dissent, why it takes certain forms of expression, and the direction in which resultant changes will take us are complex and difficult questions. The answers have significance not merely for the officer recruitment and selection program but also for the military professional as a leader and parent, as well as for others throughout all societies.

Possible explanations for these contemporary forms of student behavior may be found among the concepts and theories of the social sciences. Generally, these theories regard human social behavior as a complex product of environmental and individual factors. From this perspective, we would seek determinants of student dissent, unrest, and protest, first, in the characteristics of the society of which he is a product and, second, among the unique psychological characteristics of the student as an individual.

The confrontation of youthful idealism with reality has traditionally produced disillusionment among youth. Stresses have been produced throughout societies as their structures are revised to incorporate new graduates. In this respect the experience of today’s college student is no different from that his parents encountered. But the environment of the present generation has been fantastically altered, quantitatively and qualitatively, and at a rate vastly different from that of previous generations.

Discoveries in the physical sciences have enabled man to harness immense sources of energy and power. Nations have applied scientific knowledge not only constructively to the solution of common problems but also destructively against one another. The advent of mass communication has extended the eye and ear in ways that on the one hand promise to make the earth a “global village”¹ and on the other threaten to intensify differences among various cultural groups and nations. The mass media of television, radio, and the press make the student constantly aware of the reality of the present moment throughout the globe. Like it or not, from childhood he has been “tuned in” and “turned on.” The circuits of his senses are bombarded with contradictions and inconsistencies between what is ideally possible and what actually exists. The fuse in his conscience will not handle the overload.

'The scientific and technological progress of industrial nations since World War II has produced college students today who are healthier, more mobile, better educated, more psychologically sophisticated, more affluent and less inhibited than any previous undergraduates.² Consequently, they have a broader range of alternatives available to them in selecting a style of life morally and ethically consistent with their beliefs and goals. Youth has historically faced the beginning of adult life in this manner, but never before with such freedom to choose.

Today’s graduate stands on the shoulders of the accomplishments of previous generations. Science fiction has become fact with the speed of an atomic particle in an accelerometer. Previous generations have built well, and they lift the student high on their shoulders. The picture he sees from that vantage point is expansive. Not yet a productive member of society, he perceives the world with considerable naïveté. Since he has not completely committed himself to a given way of life, he is an onlooker and judges everything about him critically, with a type of detached objectivity and freedom that may never again be possible to him once his commitments are made.

The environment about him is demanding. His price of survival and the right to pass the torch of life on to his own children may not be purchased cheaply. The penalties of indecision and error are foreboding. His commitments will become demanding mistresses once they are made. 

The social-economic security of the student is threatened by the possibility of nuclear, chemical, or biological annihilation if war, as a legitimate means of resolving international differences, ever escalates uncontrollably. The crucial environmental variables that may determine the ultimate success or failure of the human experiment are seen by him as being complex, unknown, or uncontrollable and substantially elusive. Poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and starvation hold approximately 700,000,000 people in a tightening vise. Air and water pollution, together with the population explosion, threaten irreversible changes in ecology. Reconnaissance has revealed that social discrimination, exploitation, prejudice, and racial bigotry have strong footholds throughout the planet. They maintain their grip on societies from entrenched positions. Counterinsurgency has been conducted, but search and destroy missions appear to proceed by trial and error. Some societies remain in a largely defensive posture, resisting the strategy that the best defense against anarchy, tyranny, and revolution is an outright attack on underlying problems. Other societies meet calls for peaceful and constructive change with oppression, suppression, or denial; they meet violence—spawned from hopelessness, frustration, and futility—with violence.

The undergraduate occupies a “transitional status” within society. He is at a midpoint between dependence and independence. In many respects his relationship to his parents and society is similar to the relationship a satellite has to earth. He is a product of his environment, just as the satellite is a product of technology. From childhood to the beginning of adolescence he is largely dependent upon his parents for the satisfaction of basic biological and psychological needs, much as a satellite depends upon guidance systems to place it in orbit. The social status of the student during childhood and early adolescence was primarily derived from his parents. He enjoyed this derived status vicariously merely by the fact that he was a family member, and his parents accepted and valued him for himself, regardless of his competence or performance ability. According to David P. Ausubel, as he moves into later adolescence his independence is acquired through earning a more primary type of status by virtue of his own ability to manipulate the environment.³ As his physical, psychological, and social skills mature, he faces certain developmental tasks. In order to obtain independence and primary or “earned” status, Ausubel maintains that the adolescent must acquire a greater ability to

—Select values, plan goals, and reach decisions on the basis of their relevance to the individual, rather than from loyalty to parents or parent substitutes;

—Select means to accomplish goals that are more in harmony with his ability and environmental possibilities;

—Tolerate frustration longer without losing self-esteem;

—Evaluate his own performance objectively;

—Replace hedonistic motivation with longer-range moral responsibility on a societal basis;

—Accept responsibility for his actions.⁴

Ausubel views the development of these abilities as being the expected normal steps in the adolescent’s journey towards independence. The necessity to surmount these developmental tasks might in part account for the doubting, questioning, and confrontation that characterize student behavior on the campus. These developing abilities are perhaps causative factors among students who do not readily accept all of their forebears’ traditional assumptions and goals. The young adult is in the process of weighing ideas on their own merits and is learning to accept responsibility for his own actions. The academic environment encourages his speculation and consideration of alternative solutions to seemingly insoluble problems.

As frequently occurs in any journey into the unknown, the first steps are often taken by trial and error, accompanied by the highest hopes and the worst fears. The adolescent vacillates in the selection of means and goals that are in harmony with his abilities because he is still exploring goals, discovering his abilities, and trying to find out what is possible for him to do in his environment. Occasional rapid shifts from blind conformity to belligerent self-assertion may typify the adolescent’s attempt to adopt a meaningful role in life. As a result of this and other factors, psychologists have frequently labeled the adolescent’s transition from childhood to adulthood as a period of “storm and stress.” The process of physical and emotional maturation requires that the youth choose values, goals, and means that will be relevant to his future as an individual and as a morally responsible member of a group of persons who will eventually assume greater responsibilities in and control over society. To some extent, then, his “experimentation” is something that he has to do in order to become an independent and responsible adult.

Unique elements come into play as the college student begins to make major decisions about his future. As he attempts to define the limits of his abilities, he may take risks that more experienced persons would not consider worthwhile. The young adult seeks to experience more of life directly for himself, rather than relying solely upon the judgment and interpretation of others. He has the energy and motivation to strike out actively to test the limits of his surroundings. Although he has not had complete control over his heredity and environment, he may have a strong need to believe that he has freely chosen all of his attitudes and values. His peers and others in his environment begin to challenge some of the beliefs he may have accepted unquestioningly when he borrowed them from his parents. The need to feel as if he has freely chosen most of his beliefs can result from awareness that he must accept responsibility for his actions. He may therefore minimize the legacy he owes to his parents or other adults. At the same time the youth is earning his independence, his parents may want to deny that their “child” is becoming independent and thinking for himself because they feel that their position of absolute authority is being challenged and undermined, since they are being called upon to justify their opinions.

Some extreme situations may develop in which the adolescent becomes rebellious and attempts to deny completely any economic, social, or emotional dependence upon his parents. At the same time, his parents may want to disregard his growing independence. Each probably can find more than enough ammunition in the other’s behavior to warrant his own feeling.

When a relationship breaks down, the behavior of members of either group may become ego-defense-oriented: that is, the individual seeks to emotionally justify or rationalize what he has done. He may find himself defending or denying actions in which he may not sincerely believe personally but which have become associated with his position. He may overact, becoming extremely defensive. In the heat of the controversy, he may become so emotionally involved that his thinking becomes rigid and absolute and his position ridiculous: seeking to justify and rationalize his behavior rather than trying to find solutions to concrete problems through open-mindedly exploring all alternatives.

A task-oriented approach usually presents more realistic and efficient means of resolving a problem.⁵ This approach relies upon the taking of concrete and specific actions toward eliminating or minimizing the sources of conflict and is characterized by a more logical and objective evaluation of causes and alternative solutions. Ideally, action would be directed at the level of underlying problems and causes, rather than being preoccupied with the symptoms of the problems. The task-oriented approach provides a more constructive atmosphere for progress in resolving the dilemma. We are thus better able to differentiate “symbols” from the things they represent. We do something about curing the origin of the “itch” instead of beating the hand for constantly scratching. Here I am trying to differentiate as distinctly as possible between the origin of the problem, the manifestation or symptom of the problem, and our response to it. The problem may be that we have skin cancer. The “itch” represents, manifests, or serves as the symptom of the problem. Our response is to scratch. This response may inflame rather than abate the problem. The task-oriented approach, when directed at the origin of the problem rather than its symptomatic expression, should assure us of a more successful resolution.

If the human animal functioned with mechanical simplicity, there would probably be very little misunderstanding and interpersonal friction, because we would all see reality the same way. Our differing needs and objectives, however, may alter the significance we find attached to the things we taste, touch, smell, hear, and see. As Otto Lowenstein notes in his book The Senses: “The saying ‘seeing is believing’ may fittingly be reversed in this context into ‘believing is seeing.’”

If we were all transformed into machines, we would probably still not interact with each other with mechanical simplicity. Our eyes might be replaced by TV cameras, but if our mechanical likenesses were to be accurate (faithful to our human characteristics), our brains would have to be replaced by computers programmed to store different data or interpret the same data differently. We might become machines then, but we would still have the same human problems.

All of us live in physical, technological, emotional, and social environments that are changing all the time. Perception of this world about us through our five senses allows us only to see changes at the moment they occur. Through the operation of our memory, reasoning, and imagination upon these events, we are able to go beyond the mere objective perception of physical reality. We can store, recombine, compare, and evaluate our perceptions and apply them in ways that allow us to make estimates or predictions about the future.⁶

Any person or group of people in a given social situation, at a particular period of historical time, will have a specific set of feelings, purposes, goals, and interests. These unique individual characteristics constitute the basis of their structure of reasoning, pattern of thinking, and view of society. Consequently, although we may all be looking at the same things in the present, our interpretations will vary. Our memories of the same events will not be the same. Since we will anticipate or imagine a future in terms of our past and present experience and knowledge—and these memories will not be the same—we will not agree in our predictions and estimates about the future. Since we never appear to be in complete agreement about what is happening at the present moment, we have difficulty reaching consensus on what has happened in the past or will happen in the future.  

If the world about us never changed, we would probably still interpret it differently. Since the environment about us is constantly changing, there are possibilities for even greater discrepancies in our viewpoints. When the fact that scientific, technological, and social changes are occurring in our environment at ever faster rates is added to the fact that each of us has unique memories and forecasts about reality, we find that our viewpoints can vary considerably. The physical or objective distances of space and time that separate us from each other may be accentuated by our psychological or subjective perception of differences among ourselves.

Different interpretations of reality become a source of some of the anxiety and tension that arise between generations. It may be useful in this discussion to think of the “generation gap” as a “time barrier.” The “time barrier” that exists between adults and students might be said to result not merely from the differences but also from the different subjective temporal perspectives which may be associated with age. One can easily show how factors of age may bring about differences in the perception of time. Both the adult and the student coexist in the present moment. Although the objective reality of the present moment is the same for both of them, there are important differences in how they subjectively interpret that present moment.

The average adult has usually made major decisions about such things as a career and marriage and has assumed a number of personal and financial responsibilities associated with carrying out these commitments. Preservation of his status quo and continued progressive continuity between his past and future are his primary objectives. Tempered by experience, he has developed a historical perspective in his adaptation to his numerous responsibilities. His idealism may have been translated into a more practical realism. After living with both his responsibilities and the contradictions of life for a number of years, he has had to tolerate, accept, or take for granted a number of societal problems that appear outside his sphere of control. He generally finds that his past experience provides meaningful guidelines for coping with daily responsibilities. For maximum psychological comfort, the adult desires stability, evenness, constancy, and equilibrium in his established beliefs and vested interests. Durability is desirable where irrevocable decisions may have been made. His options and alternatives may diminish to some extent as more and more of the major decisions of his life become history. We might say that he tends to perceive the present and future in terms of these past decisions he has made.

The student, on the other hand, is still struggling with making major decisions about the future. He looks for challenging tasks that remain undone. His major decisions lie before him or are in the process of being made. Often the subjects he studies and the assumptions he takes for granted are the result of the social and physical science information explosion of the last ten years, which has doubled man’s recorded knowledge. He is in the process of preparation for the long journey that lies before him. The possibility of nuclear war, environmental pollution, overpopulation, economic and social injustice comes under serious scrutiny because he will inherit these problems. He may seek opportunities that will allow him to make creative contributions in roles that are not stereotyped and conformist but instead are spontaneous, personal, natural, and real. He is generally idealistic, and he pursues consistency between ideals and reality. The gap between what can be and what is sparks his imagination. He may look for tasks in which he can lose himself, searching among causes greater than himself for a way of life. The student might be said to look at the present and the past, therefore, primarily from the viewpoint of his future.

We hardly need observe that the adult and the student coexist side by side at the same present moment in tune. Both of them have a past behind them and a future before them. In terms of their life spans, the adult has lived more of his life, and the youth has more of his life to be lived. This objective fact of age difference yields even more significant differences in the subjective perception of the present moment, in the temporal horizon (perspective) of adult and student. The student’s psychological perception of the present moment could be represented by a viewpoint halfway between the immediate present and the long-term future. He could be said to interpret the present in terms of anticipated experiences. The adult, on the other hand, could be characterized as interpreting the present moment in terms of past experience. The “time barrier” or “generation gap” results from the incompatible assumptions which each holds to be absolute.

Einstein’s theory of relativity transformed modem physics with his finding that time and distance are not absolute quantities but instead have relative properties that can simultaneously show one value to one onlooker and a second value to another.⁷ In much the same way, research by anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists has pointed out the “relativity” of human perception and behavior, in groups and as individuals, with somewhat the same revolutionary social consequences. They have found that both cultural and individual values, attitudes, customs, and beliefs are socially learned, rather than genetically inherited. The assumptions and presuppositions underlying human behavior in groups and as individuals are therefore opened to doubt and questioning. Possibly from awareness of the relative nature of human judgments, Albert Camus said, “I am against all those who believe they are absolutely right.”

Whatever the content of our mind may be, life has it that we must perform and we must perform well in order to survive. The actions we take, which result in consequences, are a function of the conclusions we have come to and the skills we have acquired. But, whatever we do to meet the predicaments of our existence, we are always committed to action. We can freely commit ourselves to actions, or we can be directed by the forces of change.

In spite of its risks and consequences, students are committing themselves to action. A 1968 study by Kerpelman concerned relationships between student personality, ideology, and activism.⁸ His findings suggested that political “activists” of all ideologies are more intelligent than are students who are not politically active. He believed that one explanation for the finding might be that only more intelligent students can afford the commitment of time and energy involved in any form of  “activist” group membership. This interpretation might be supported to some extent by his observation that “activists” on the average belonged to more campus activities of all types than “nonactivists.” If these results are found in additional investigations, the nature of student involvement may be somewhat different from that which is generally acknowledged.

Student involvement with contemporary issues and causes has been associated with some of the social and political problems of our time. The forms taken by their involvement range from violence to pacifism.

There is probably greater inclination in others toward agreement with or tolerance of the validity of student causes when their means of achieving their objectives are through peaceful processes. Where their methods become increasingly violent, fewer people support or tolerate them, and more oppose them. The reasoned application of force through power politics may eventually result in deadlock in these cases.

Another part of the significance of student involvement may lie in the fact of “involvement” itself. Where some students may disagree in whole or in part with the values or decisions of a prevailing social, political, or economic system, it is worth noting that numbers of them have still sought to resolve their dilemma personally and directly through trying to change elements of their immediate environment. An unfortunate few may turn entirely inward and retreat, withdraw, or seek escape from what they see as an alien environment through a self-destructive reliance upon drugs. But the majority are optimistic and realistic enough to work within the established structure.

Some of the methods students employ in advocating change are unique, while others have been borrowed from the labor movement or the civil rights movement. These techniques may result from the combination of two factors: (1) increasing costs of higher education have necessitated prolonged economic dependence upon their parents;⁹ (2) their “transitional status” in society often denies them legitimate or legal forms of social, economic, and political power. As a result of these two factors, there are possibly few socially sanctioned methods of influencing change available to them. Where they become frustrated in the pursuit of objectives or in the resolution of reality with their ideals, there may be few courses of action open to them short of civil disobedience, massive strikes, protests, and demonstrations. Since they may have relatively little legitimate basis of power, the safety valves that might exist to channel their dissent constructively may be lacking entirely, may fail, or may be used by others to suppress and deny valid claims in ways that may cause a situation to explode prematurely, uncontrollably, or radically.

Student frustrations, like many human frustrations, may give rise to aggression. When masses of people unite in controversial causes, emotions of participants and onlookers can become highly charged. Adults may also become frustrated in the face of this protest and become aggressive. Members of either group, in the ensuing power struggle, may attempt to apply punishment in a variety of forms to change the opinion of the other group or to discourage the other from acting in ways they feel are improper. When the confrontation arrives at this stage, it can branch in a variety of directions.

Research during this century has revealed a number of principles about the effects of punishment and reward. The effect of reward upon behavior is generally simple. It tends to make a given response likely to be repeated, where the timing, scheduling, and nature of the reward are appropriate to the individual. On the other hand, the effects of punishment tend to be complex. Punishment under a variety of circumstances may have any of the following results:

(1) The occurrence of undesired behavior may increase.

(2) Undesired behavior may last longer.

(3) There may be a short-lived deterrent effect.

(4) The individual may vary his behavior at the impact of punishment but not control the direction of the variability.

(5) Negative feelings may be aroused that often lead to even less-desired behavior.

(6) Mild punishment may help improve behavior by at least providing negative feedback on performance.¹⁰

As we might conclude, then, coercive or punitive action may have a variety of often unpredictable effects. The application of punishment either by adults or by students to each other may direct the encounter into a number of unforeseen directions.  We might readily conclude that each group would be well advised to apply reward rather than punishment in attempts to efficiently modify the behavior of the other.

One person’s expectations of another’s behavior can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As Goethe observed:

If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as he ought to and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

Recent experimental findings in social psychology tend to bear out the potential power for modifying human behavior contained in this statement. An individual’s expectations and predictions about the behavior of another may have significant effects upon the other’s thought and action.¹¹ Through believing that certain things are true about another person, one acts toward him in certain ways and contributes to fulfilling one’s prophecies about him by one’s effects on his behavior.

Daily we gamble what “we are” against what we might “become.” In this process, we may also be gambling with the future of others. We may be wagering what “they are” against what they might “become.” The unique perception of each of us governs our predictions, which, in turn, contribute to fulfilling our expectations of ourselves and others.

A time barrier exists between the generations. Youth cannot become immediately older and profit from the wisdom tempered by adult experience. Adults cannot become immediately younger and see the world anew, unhampered by the past. Each has a unique contribution to make as they walk side by side into the future. Adults can recall the best solutions from the past and propose paths that avoid previous pitfalls. Young people can imagine a future in terms of the future and contribute the new assumptions, alternatives, and methods of innovation. Together, they will confront the challenge of the journey into the unknown and build the future through action and choice in the present.

No one can argue with the past—it has happened and cannot be changed, good or bad, perfect or imperfect, relevant or irrelevant. Everyone can argue about the future. It can be perfect in our conception or imagination, since it has not yet transpired. What it will be, in reality, we shall determine through our actions, a moment at a time. It may be differently imagined by each of us, but we will walk into it side by side, no matter which way we are looking and no matter why we are looking that way.

Perhaps that is what disturbs students today. They see adults as riding backward into the future, creating a future that is only an extension of the past. Students fear that we will perpetuate our failures rather than better our best successes. What disturbs adults is that youth appears to ignore so recklessly the relevant portions of the past that can ensure both continuity and progress toward a future that will be a fulfillment of mankind’s greatest dreams. They fear that youth will not know where it is going because youth will not be able to see where we have been.

Certainly the journey will be made by all of us, some of us walking backwards, some sideways, some of us squarely facing the future on its own terms. We will find our destiny in the process of creating our past. We cannot ignore the legacy of the past or the realities of the future. We can break the time barrier between the past and future only by our actions in the present. We can fulfill our most noble expectations if we do not ignore the realities of each other.

Norton Air Force Base, California

 Notes

1. Marshall McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 11.

2. Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, The Academic Revolution (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1968), pp. 41-57.

3. David P. Ausubel, Theory and Problems of Adolescent Development (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1954), p. 171.

4. Ibid., p. 176.

5. James Coleman, Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life (Chicago: Scott, Foreman and Company, 1964), pp. 94-96.

6. Paul Fraisse, The Psychology of Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), pp. 65-198.

7. Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein (New York: Mentor Books, 1948), pp. 53, 54, and 56.

8. Larry C. Kerpelman, Student Activism, Ideology, and Personality, Proceedings of the 76th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1968, pp.377-78.

9. Jencks and Riesman, p. 42.

10. Timothy Costello and Sheldon S. Zalkind, Psychology in Administration: A Research Orientation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963). pp. 214-17.

11. Articles by Rosenthal and Jacobson, Peter and Carol Gumpert, Dienstfrey, and Mansfield, in the September 1968 issue of The Urban Review (published by the Center for Urban Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). Additional relevant findings in this area are summarized by Robert Rosenthal in his book Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966), and in Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson’s book Pygmalion in the Classroom (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968).

Contributor

 First Lieutenant Charles M. Plummer (M. S., Indiana University) is a Career Development and Training Officer, Professional Services, Hq USAF Auditor General, Norton AFB, California. After commissioning through AFROTC, 1965, but before entering active duty, he completed his master’s degree in educational psychology, a professional certification in psychometry, and a practicum at the Institute for Child Study, Indiana University.