"The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap"
About this Quote
The intent sits squarely in the late-1960s/early-1970s political weather, when student protest, antiwar activism, and the counterculture were being translated into electoral language. As Nixon's vice president and a reliable voice for the "silent majority", Agnew specialized in recasting cultural conflict as a crisis of respect. This line does that efficiently: it elevates tradition into "lessons" (implying hard-won wisdom) and positions the young as both ungrateful and dangerous, not because they disagree, but because they sever the chain of inheritance.
Subtextually, it's a defense of authority. If the past carries "lessons", then established institutions (government, schools, media, parents) become the custodians of truth, while challengers become reckless iconoclasts. Even the clinical label "generation gap" gets rebranded as a weaponized myth: a name for antagonism that excuses contempt.
The rhetorical power is its sleight of hand: it shifts debate from specific grievances (Vietnam, civil rights, state power) to etiquette and memory, where older voters instinctively feel on home turf.
Quote Details
| Topic | Legacy & Remembrance |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Address on Vietnam War Protests ("The Generation Gap") (Spiro T. Agnew, 1969)
Evidence: The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism know as the Generation Gap.. Primary-source verification: The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a Library of Congress/GBH collaboration, catalogs a WNYC-held audio item in the series 'CBS Library of Contemporary Quotations' with a dated transcript excerpt. The AAPB record explicitly dates the transcript to 10/19/1969 and contains the sentence in question as part of a longer passage beginning 'Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated...'. Many quote sites later reprint the line and sometimes attribute it to later printed collections (e.g., 1970 speech anthologies), but the AAPB transcript shows the line in use on October 19, 1969. Note: the AAPB transcript excerpt contains a minor transcription error ('know' for 'known'). This record does not supply a page number because it is a broadcast/audio transcript record, not a paginated book. Other candidates (1) Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Quintessential Collection of... (Bathroom Readers' Institute, 2012) compilation95.3% ... Spiro T. Agnew ( 1918–96 ) , served as a “ mouthpiece ” for the administration , saying the things that Nixon cou... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Agnew, Spiro T. (2026, February 11). The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-lessons-of-the-past-are-ignored-and-25694/
Chicago Style
Agnew, Spiro T. "The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap." FixQuotes. February 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-lessons-of-the-past-are-ignored-and-25694/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap." FixQuotes, 11 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-lessons-of-the-past-are-ignored-and-25694/. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.
