THOUGHT: In the 60’s, activists were as concerned with poverty in their neighbourhoods as with global affairs. Now, though, an “activist” is one who goes to Sudan, who goes to the Middle East—we go to college for international politics, international affairs. Because the homeless in the US almost never starve, we turn our eyes outward to look for what “good” we can do in the world. We have outsourced our labour. Now, we are outsourcing our caring.
A follow-up: This is, of course, only maybe 10% of the population—the upper and middle classes, college bound kids. Do we really care or do we just need something to look good on college/job applications? Good question. But the fact remains: the majority of people are just trying to make a living, have some rudimentary happiness, and live without affecting the larger world. I am worried about going to college, about picking my major and figuring out what to do with my life. But I’m 18. For every college-bound kid like me, there are people my age who are already pregnant, already married, people who have been working and living on their own for years.
MY GENERATION: When we (white, middle-class Americans) were small children, we were told we were special—we could change the world. When we were small children, we were told our education was important. But college costs are the highest they’ve ever been and a degree is a guarantee of only one thing: entry into the bourgeois white middle-class American society. We have no purpose. There is no “great cause” of our generation. Since we remember, even our own government has lied to us. We have become cynical. We know that money is important—we borrow it for everything (for college, for cars, for houses, for everything) and have a terrible need to pay it back. This problem is not unique to our generation. Another common American problem is the question of are we doing worthwhile work? The American dream is the self-made man, but we own nothing, we make nothing, we do nothing.
So, cry past generations a river. They’ve been dealing with all the same crap. What’s new? Technology, for one. Our entire means of communication is different. Virtual identities (ala MySpace) and instant communication (IM and phone text messaging) have changed our personal dynamics to enable us to keep in contact without great effort or even great interest. Such programs also delete many ideas of privacy—we don’t hide our “bad nights”, we put them on the internet for everyone to see. We don’t keep private journals. We have blogs and status updates. Being connected to the internet means that you have myriad communities living in your house.
What are your thoughts? What constitutes my generation? What is our identity?
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6 comments:
This post is DEEP! Hard for me to imagine that I am getting paid to work AND read your posts!
My generation (80's) is just as pathetic as yours. I remember in college marching in a protest of the Rodney King beating by LAPD. I felt so empowered, proud and giddy-united. Haven't felt that way since.
The 60's had not only the Vietnam war, but integration in the South. The BEST class I ever took @ SDSU was an Afican American History class- The professor was a brilliant WHITE guy who was able to really engage the students (at least me) into feeling the rage at injustice and the power of the people.
I don't think your generation feels impowered. Everything is so instantaneous- like you said, e-mail, texting, etc... I remember when my friends went to college, we didn't have the internet (or computers). We communicated via old fashioned, hand written letters. And I remember the joy of receiving those- waiting and waiting for the USPS to deliver them. Now, all I get in my mailbox is bills and credit card offers. E-mail is so impersonal and too "quick"...
Well, this is all over the place... So, that's it for now!
The primary power that youth have is to disrupt. They (you) have little or no power over large organizations, control little wealth (even the elite put money for their kids in trust funds where they can't get at much of it), and have limited impact on the media (except to buy pop music and teen movies). Youth power in the 60s came from marches, shutting down universities, and generally making the power structure uncomfortable (and threatened the smooth application of the military draft). More recently, witness the WTO protests and before that ActUP.
When you finally reach a position where you have power to construct rather than disrupt, is it possible to not have sold out? I know quite a few 60's radicals who are now in positions of power as the heads universities, esteemed journalists, and prominent politicians. Now that they are part of the system they no longer agitate to tear it down (that is a no brainer). But, by and large, they still have the same core values and try in different ways to make the world a better place to live. So maybe the key is to be true to your beliefs and use whatever tools you have at your disposal today to work towards them. And you have to assume that every small step moves you closer to your goal (otherwise you might as well just crawl under the bed and wait for the end to arrive).
Technology -
I was in a meeting at work, during the ninties, when everyone thought that Libraries were dying and the Internet cured everything from Information deficits to planter's warts. My then boss was showing some new database and asked for comments. I yawned and said rhetoricaly, "Why do I always fall asleep in the presence of Technology?" His boss howled. (who wasn't much impressed either.) I lost major points. (with my boss)
Technology generally means that you can do more and go faster.
Socio-historically speaking, the development of Technology has always followed a drearily predictable pattern. Social elites get hold of it first and use it to maintain and expand their power against rivals and those below. In 1700 BC, iron and working with iron was the hot, new technology that the Hittites (an historical footnote empire based in Turkey) stumbled upon. They made their swords out of it. It trumped bronze. And they rolled the eastern Mediterranean up in carpet with it (including Egypt for a brief time). Then all the people they conquered figured out how to use iron too and sacked their empire and killed them.
So - Technology is used to gain temporary political advantage. It then diffuses and the advantage is lost. This has been the pattern for the past 5000 years and so is kind of boring.
Ditto with communication technologies. During the early ninteenth century, the Rothchilde family developed the fastest privately run courier system in Europe, And that single family used it to gather political/social/military information BEFORE ANYONE else. They used this advantage to trade in the financial markets and get the jump on competitors. For instance, during the Napoleonic wars, the English Prime Minister practically chewed his hand off waiting for news of who had won the Battle of Waterloo. In the financial markets, the Rothchildes suddenly began buying massive quantities of British war bonds. At that moment, the Prime Minister knew that the English had won. The military courier didn't bring him the news until a day later.
No matter what the new commnications technology has been, it is always used by the elites to gain speedy informational advantage.
These comparative advantages have developed in exactly the same way - no matter the technology - for the past 5000 years and I expect they will continue in this fashion for the next 5000.
So I tend to consider technological developments as predictable, background noise that is not that important.
As I said in the beginning, Technology allows to do more and go faster. It's spiritual ancestor is the Ape figuring out how to use the Rock.
The really important questions are - WHERE are you going? WHAT are you doing? And WHY are you doing it? These questions never go away - no matter what the technology. These questions have been with us since the first Ape wondered what the hell he was doing up a tree eating this damm banana that he'd stolen from his friend by hitting him over the head with a piece of advanced technology - a rock.
Even some of the most important technologies don't answer these questions. Medical technology can give us "more" life. When I was a child, I had a strep throat and earlier, an appendicitis - both of which would have killed were it not for antibiotics and surgery. But I was granted longer life - a very good thing, in my view! - but; the where, what and why questions still remain.
i was listening to NPR this morning, and they were talking about the frustration that hiring managers are having with twenty-something employees. They are very clever with the use office technologies and software. But they can't compose a decent memo to save their lives much less develop a position, take a point of view or generally think critically about the needs of the company.
When I was a kid, we wrote with paper and ink in LONGHAND! and folded the pages up, stuck a stamp on it and mailed the letter by snail mail to distant loved ones. With email, I do it all at once and almost instantly. But WHAT am I saying? HOW am saying it and WHY?
While in retirement in Fontevrault Abbey, these we're questions that Eleanor of Acquataine (1124 - 1204) had to consider when she took pen to parchment to write to the Pope wondering/reflecting on her life - she had lost her empires (several of them), lost her sons (four of them), lost her money (lots), and now was old (in her seventies - an unusually advanced age for the era). She was feeling a little bitter. She refers to herself as an "unhappy Mother" who has lost the "light of her eyes" and "staff of her age'. She signed her letters, 'Eleanor, by the wrath of God, Queen of the English."
I'm sure it took weeks to get to the Pope. But she could have sent by email. No matter - it would have been the same letter.
Wow Art...you should post this as a topic unto itself in your blog (nudge!).
I'd never thought of it that way...how nontraditional/buddhist of you to look at the progress of technology as cyclical rather than linear. I absolutely agree about the idea of "core questions" (the content, really) which remain the same always.
But I think technology has changed human relationships. A parallel example could be medecine: sure, we do the same things with our lives, we still have the same basic existential questions, but it is undeniable that we live longer. In the same way, extremely easy communication does not change the core of what communication IS, but every piece of contact you have with a person changes your relationship and so I would say that on a personal level weekly letters and daily (hourly, minutely) e-mails, phone calls, texts, etc are different in some way.
At a larger level, I do agree that brand new technology is almost always used explotively by those in power--because they've thought it all out or simply because they can afford the best when others can't I'm not sure of.
Good stuff!
You've hit a couple of nails squarely on the head, I think. When I look out at the world, I tend to organize the incoming data stream "cyclically" as in "we've been here before" or "it's happening again!" or "Oh! It;s you - again!" (Some people - your Dad probably - would call this "going in circles" - that's another way looking at it!)
Regarding Technology - Is there something about tecnological innovation that qualitatively changes how we "are" in the world. Or, are we just constantly pouring old wine into new bottles.
Americans have been trained to think "linearly" about these things - especially as regards technologies that get turned into products. Marketing mavens innundate our lives with."Buy this product because it will CHANGE everything you are and everything you do for the BETTER!". Or, "Buy this product because SOMETHING AWFUL WILL HAPPEN TO YOU if you don't!".
I maintain that this style of linear thinking, like almost everything, has it's origins in the Christian idea that life is the march of "Progress" from a state of Sin to Redemption (for Christians, that is) History is the march of humanity from Genisis to the Apocolypse and the final union with a "Perfect" God (or dammnation and the Devil for most everyone else - especially Hindus, Buddhists, Moslems and other Heathen types!)
Business people just harness this idea that Life is the march from BAD to BETTER to sell their stuff. Secular or Religious, we all tend to think linearly. Secularists/Materialists just substituted the" March to God" with the "March of Progress". Marx was very big on this. So was Adam Smith. But the tendency to think linearly is a fundamentally Judeo-Christian idea.
So - is "technological innovation" "good"? Are we always marching from BAD to BETTER. Or, are we jsut changing the color of the ponies on the carousel (sp) ?
Are we just going in circles?
Interesting thought that the idea of linear improvement is grounded in Christian theology. But don't most world religions have a concept of "betterment," whether it is getting closer to nirvana or some other goal? And I always thought that Western dualism (good v. evil, etc) was grounded in Greek Cartesian philosophy. But all simplifying schemes are just that, over simplifications of reality...
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