Generation Overwhelmed

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:



Generation Overwhelmed

Thomas Friedman has mistaken my generation's absolute paralysis in the face of so many choices, so many causes, and so much awareness, for a mere quiet.

Courtney E. Martin | October 22, 2007 | web only



At my housewarming party last weekend there was vodka and tonic and indie rock, there were a few, inexpensive cheeses, and there were some 20-somethings with loose tongues and misunderstood hearts.
My friend Molly, an assistant in a big New York publishing house and a fascinating world-wanderer, had sent me the link to Thomas Friedman's New York Times op-ed, "Generation Q," earlier in the day. "So what did you think?" she asked. Molly and I met while studying abroad in South Africa together.

"About what?" asked my friend Daniel, a labor organizer destined for Harvard Divinity School next fall. A native of Paul Wellstone's Minnesota, he's spent the years since college on the Hill in Washington, in Harlem sky rises, and Los Angeles barrios and synagogues alike, trying to figure out how to bring people together.

"That Friedman piece where he alleges that our generation is idealistic and 'too quiet, too online, for own good,'" I summarized, I admit, rolling my eyes.

"What's that?" asked Ben, a new friend of mine who works for the Clinton Foundation and who was a speech writer and a campaign organizer before that.

A lengthy, raucous conversation about outrage, its sources and manifestations, ensued. Until of course, we got distracted by a really good dance song ...

And this, it turns out, is what I'd like to talk to Mr. Friedman about. Not outrage. Not online activism. Not statues of long dead emancipators (which he invokes at the end of his piece as the symbol of what has been lost on us, the young and passive). But distraction. I think that he has mistaken my generation's sense of being overwhelmed, our absolute paralysis in the face of so many choices, so many causes, and so much awareness, for a mere quiet. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=generation_overwhelmed

[Demeter]

1. So Many Choices--And All of Them Bad

Welcome to the adult world, kids. Try to pick the least damaging ones, okay?