I met this wonderful lady last night at the Trident where I was pretending to get work done. I looked across the room and our eyes met. I knew it was a now or never sort of moment so I snatched up my tea and sauntered over. To make a long story short we had a great conversation and somewhere in there the discussion of the latest Twilight craze came up.

Twilight as you may or may not know is a teenage book that is taking the nation by storm. Women near and far are fawning over the main character, Edward, for his romantic prowess and humbling machismo. Just the mention of good Edward brought a longing sigh from my new lady friend’s heart. She mentioned that she was embarrassed to be reading such a sophomoric book.

My remark to that is that the age bracket that Twilight is targeting is perfect. I’ve noticed in the past decade a change in dating customs. Men who are hard wired to be polygamous have managed to convince women to shed relationship labels. You aren’t cheating if it’s not established that you are in fact dating. Funny semantics for a funny concept.

So with this in mind of course a franchise like Twilight would take off. Ladies are eagerly awaiting the return of romance and chivalry - Pride and Prejudice. Which brings me to the point that I am driving at. By targeting teenagers they have reached beyond generational lines and hit the problem before it’s become a problem. Put another way, you can spend your time training bad habits out of people or you can raise children with good ones.

So imagine the Tower of Babel scenario. In linguistics the analogy used is an island. Take a handful of speakers from a number of different cultures and drop them on our imaginary island and watch how long it takes a language to develop. At first there is Babel as the speakers attempt to make sense of one another. By the second generation the babel has become slightly more intelligible we call this pidgin. The third generation has evolved the language further into creole. Finally by the fourth generation the inhabitants are speaking a cohesive native tongue. It takes approximately four generations to establish this new language.

I posit that instead of trying to make massive change by throwing pebbles at our problems we should alternatively look into investing in the generation four removed from ours. Four generations removed will have the slightest recollection of the troubled world we live in today. Mass culture is like a sprawling forest with trees reaching in every which direction. It’s insanity to think that you will be able to move an entire woodland. Observe the ways of bonsai trees with their delicate malleable branches.

I advocate the creation of a social renaissance through teaching our children in a new way. Start them early on philosophy and theory. Cultivate their natural sense of wonder. Show them how good people treat one another. Embrace the fact that they are learning at an accelerated rate and adjust for it. Give them an instrument to learn.

Our future resides firmly on the shoulders of our children. If we take appropriate action now then they will grow to be giants.