“I don’t get why young people today are such pussies. Turn over a car- why don’t you?”
(That's a picture of John Waters- you get the idea) Not to be a traitor to my generation (which anyone who knows me, knows I blatantly am), but I couldn’t agree more. What happened to the days of the youth running riot? Standing up for something? Protesting? Defacing private property? Being anarchic opinionated brats?
Our government wants to increase military spending at a time when there is no real threat yet we are set to face the worst economic crisis most of us will see in our lifetimes (paradoxically the whole military spending fad only raises tension in the Asia-pacific area). Australia may soon be run by one of the few governments in the western world which unconditionally censors and monitors the public’s internet usage. I’m pretty sure that that’s a concept which usually washes in countries such as, oh I don’t know, communist china maybe? The European Union is pledging to cut emissions by 20%, whereas our government is revoking election promises of making major emissions cuts and has instead decided to cough up a mere 5%. We are looking at a very real global environmental melt down in the near future; unfortunately, the politicians of today who still won’t take it seriously will be long dead by the time we’re all decked out in our designer oxygen masks.
We’ve hardly even scraped the surface of scum directly affecting us, though: What about 3am Lock outs? What about alco-pop taxes? What about extra university fees? What about that little kerfuffle in Iraq? Does anyone else see a problem with the shit and fuckery we’re lapping up without question here? Am I some kind of crazy person?
Somehow the onus to stand up to all these things continues to fall on people like the ones who were out there protesting ‘nam and dropping acid the first time around. What’s the best our generation has come up with? Make a facebook group about it? Wow- Achievement! There’s an island of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas, when I found out about this I rushed to face book, joined an “awareness” group and sent invitations urging all my friends to do the same ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch ). There I waited smugly as the notifications multiplied, congratulating me on signing up x number of people. But guess what? That island of trash and plastic and nappies is still out there and it’s only getting bigger. See, the point of spreading awareness is so that more people know of a problem and are subsequently driven to action. Yet this is where we fall short. We’re all fabulously “aware” of many things, yet no one is DOING much about them.
I raised the issue whilst out to coffee with a friend of mine at sassafras in Paddington. We lamented the inactivity of our generation as we were swooped by the resident bird population that anyone familiar with the cafe dines in fear of. University students have recently been forced to pay an extra $200 a year in fees, “If it were my parent's generation, they’d be chaining themselves naked to the gates of the university!”, my friend declared. There we sat- a mixture of gloat and sympathy towards the other young punters who were clearly ignorant of the infinite wisdom being dispensed at our table. Really though, no one was getting naked yet and no one was getting chained to any gates in the near future either. Who could blame us though? When was the last time you saw someone of our generation take a stand who DIDN’T have dread locks and an aversion to bathing?
Now, I am normally adverse to public ego stroking, but I cannot really explain how this fits with everything the 'right side of the bed' offered me this morning. But, fit it does.
ReplyDeletethankyou!! glad my rambling finds a place in there somewhere.
ReplyDelete- friendly fire:
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the days of the youth running riot? Standing up for something? Protesting? Defacing private property? Being anarchic opinionated brats?
youth running riot? Standing up for something? Protesting? Defacing private property? Being anarchic opinionated brats? – All of these things still happen, but to what degree is most likely learnt behaviour. This as well as the acknowledgement of crime/punishment makes our generation if anything smart.
The increase in military spending is for a reason. Regardless of there being a reason or not there is a process of justification when changing a government budget. And despite what people believe terrorism is still a huge threat. I’m sure you would be of a different opinion if you or the people you cared about were directly affected my terrorism.
The monitoring of the public’s internet usage is again in place for a reason. Living in a democratic country does not give the public the right to looking up child porn or find out how to build a bomb. Such things are unnecessary and more likely to harm than not.
3am lockout – again in place for a reason. The flaw in your arguments is that you are just attacking the idea not the reasons behind it; you haven’t even acknowledged most of the reasons behind what you’re arguing.
friendly rebuttal:
ReplyDeleteLet us pause a reflect a moment here, I think you have missed the point of the argument by focussing only on what is missing from the post, rather than what is said. It is a direct criticism of the youth today being in the wonderful position of having access to so much information but never using that information for the purpose of sculpting our future with it. Action isn’t always in words and reasoning, crime and punishment, it’s in action. For fear of punishment, or failure, we would never succeed at anything.
The youth of today are hell bent on either good intentions or complacency. It is ALL about making a Facebook group, discussing it over the dinner table, mulling with the morning coffee and closing the web browser when the day’s news becomes boring or no longer entertaining. The point is we are so informed we are no longer shocked. We are so saturated with entertainment that we also need not experience life to feel we have lived. We can live through the constant stream of information that beckons at our doorstep each and every day.
However, with our generation’s love of the immediate, we are also to blame for not having the desire to see these grand plans out. We want to change the world NOW! But the changes that need to be made sometimes do need to be made from the top down, and that is because our society deems it so, due this adherence to the ‘man’. But we are empowered to force the changes, to make people think, to show them with action what is important to us rather than letting the Channel 7 news polls sum up our opinions. We are informed where we can base our arguments on facts and information. Yet the buck stops there, with our Facebook group getting 543 members, and a few comments that trickle in. Or you get a few more followers on your Twitter account because of your ‘Down with the man!’ outcry.
It was not so much the examples that were used in the blog that captured me, but the general concept that we have the tools, we have the power, but we don’t seem to have the balls.
friendly rebuttle part 2:
ReplyDeleteActually i have nothing to say because hello tomorrow captured it perfectly here!
But just to clarify: I was just mentioning examples of all these thigns that are "current issues" your opinion on them doesn't matter to this article, nor does my opinion matter. Thats all supurfluous to the actual point I was making which is, what are you DOING about your opinions?
Good on you for having an opinion and thankyou for voicing it, but thats just one paragraph in my entry, and really picking at threads.
The point is: the first step is to be aware, the second step is to have your opinion and the third step is to DO somehting about it.
The point is ACTION.
To quote abbie hoffman:
"Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps."
He said that back in the sixties, i think if we change "hanging up che's picture" to "making facebook groups" and its just as applicable here!
Oh God do I want to read that article. I do believe that the youth of today are turning into passive little whiny bitches. I've tried hardning up my nephews but they keep crying. Pussies.
ReplyDelete