"Our generation is the generation that's going to change things!"

The title is a direct quote from someone at the motley crew at Shawn's bonfire last night. In attendance were artists, actors, musicians, Shawn's roomates from Cairo, econ/political science students, a Harvard student, and a soldier just back from his first tour of duty in Afghanistan. All connected by that oh-so-tenuous thread that is High School.

"Our generation is the generation that's going to change things!" said one of them. There was a drunken debate between two white guys (of course) on libertarianism versus socialism (which seemed to mostly mean privatized medicine to the guy). Lots of talk about the Middle East, and lots of bad Arabic spoken (I countered by talking in Spanish to the guy from Guatemala who was the only other one in conversation group who didn't speak Arabic to some extent). Challenged Clare to define "science", which she struggled with. Would I have done much better? Atheists especially place tremendous value in "Science" (capital 'S') without even understanding what it is. "It gives answers that are true" is not a definition. But I feel even science students who I know might be challenged to really answer the question--there is a whole course on it this year, which sadly conflicts with SD this semester or I might have taken it. Also had a thought last night: while it's a running joke that theatre at St Andrews is all arts students, there are biologists, psychologists, geoscientists, and management students I know who do stuff. My question is, where are the physicists, chemists, and mathematicians (and econ and computer scientists, come to that)? And, of course, the medics...but I'm more interested in the hard/soft science split.

"Our generation is the generation that's going to change things!" I felt so fucking cynical. I'm not sure why Shawn sees me as political, I think it's just that every time someone comes up with a proposition I question it from every practical angle I can think of to see if they've really thought it out. There was a guy in Jordan who annoyed me a little bit because he "tested" people to see if they could really speak the languages they said they could and had the cultural knowledge they claimed to. But I suppose I do the same when people make an ideological statement.

Why *should* it be our generation? Or, assuming that change does happen, wouldn't it be fair to say that *every* generation is *a* generation that changes things? Vietnam, civil rights, the Cold War generally, etc. What makes green issues and US (ex?) hegemony so different or special? Wanting change is great {Onion headline during the Obama campaign: Black Man Asks for Change} but I think there is a danger in overvaluing one's significance, even if that danger is just in coming off as a douche.

So that's a lot of word vomit....Christmas was good, seeing people is good, life is pretty good.