I read a book review this morning in the "Sacramento News and Review" by Hannah Strom-Martin. The book she reviewed was, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30 by Mark Bauerlein, an Emory University professor.
Hannah's approach to reviewing the book was a sort of adolescent "I'm cornered" style. She used a "we may suck but it's the baby boomer generation's fault, neener-neener-neener" argument. Hannah's "we're simply too young to be responsible" arguments can be summed up in one long sentence; we're in debt up to our eyeballs and it's your fault, we're unloved and it's your fault, we're undereducated because we can't afford college and it's your fault, the world is polluted and it's your fault, and American culture promotes pea-brained lifestyles so it's all your fault. All taken together it's the ultimate psycho babble cop-out, I'm a victim and it's my parents who screwed me up.
Hannah Strom-Martin, a 2003 graduate of Bennington College and the "Odyssey: The Fantasy Writing Workshop" is quoted on the Odyssey web page saying, "That's the most creative use of a cucumber I've ever seen." I doubt that Mark Bauerlein's conclusions have been injured by Hannah's book review or by her online Metroactive.com article titled, "Hey U! Everything no one told you about going to college" in which she warns new college students that, "You Might Not Get Laid"; in fact, these quotes appear to reinforce his point of view.
It may have been more interesting for Hannah to look at the bigger picture. What is causing so many people young and old to select digital paralysis and isolation instead of action and problem-solving? What is infecting Americans with such malaise?
Perhaps there are answers to be found if we look more than one generation back. The most interesting character in The Red Pony by John Steinbeck was the grandfather. He made the journey across America when the west was being settled. He traveled across the wilderness with wagon trains herding ponies, avoiding Indians and experiencing freedom of adventure and discovery. He called all this activity, "Westering".
The grandfather explained to his grandson Jody that the desire to go west, to discover and explore, was dead in men. He described what had killed it, "There's no place to go. There's an ocean to stop you. There's a line of old men along the shore hating the ocean because it stopped them." (Steinbeck, John. The Short Novels of John Steinbeck. The Viking Press, New York. 1953.)
Westering is an interesting idea. While the world had unsettled spaces people had room to start again, they had hope that there was something better out there. It was possible to overcome mistakes, start a new life, erase a past. Human beings lost something valuable when America was settled, they lost the ability to go someplace new and better.
Westering became an anachronism for Americans at the ocean's edge. America was and is the one of the best places to be. But what about those for whom it has stopped being so, or for whom it never turned out to be? Where do they go from here? It isn't possible to go someplace new in America because it is all the same, it's all connected, it's all the same restaurants, it's all the same media, the same people, cars, houses, laws, rules, regulations. Is it that young Americans live slunk down on the couch at the edge of the ocean hating the boundaries?
Perhaps the change that politicians seek to define, the revolution impending is the uprising of young people who actively seek solutions. Perhaps they are poised to bolt off the couch into action and use their energy, intelligence and creativity to solve problems and break the boundaries created by their elders and their ancestors. With the lack of new geography to explore, perhaps a new form of Westering is to tear down and create fresh starts within. The brief and powerful moments of youth should not be wasted avoiding responsibility for the present by arguing the unquestionable; that they are simply too young to be held responsible for the past.
Boomers used that argument in the sixties Hannah, so pat-pat on your head; move along now and get something done.
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