On Being a bit Dramatic

Douglas Haddow of Adbusters posted an article July 29, 2008 which warranted 1425 comment. I do not know a lot about the company Adbusters but would tend to think, just going by the name, that the people in the organization have a high sense of purpose, and maybe because of that, tend to be on the outer edges of thinking, thus, polarizing themselves and leaving little room in the middle. In blunt terms, they speak in blunt terms and maybe get others riled up about it.

Being a 'middle' person myself, most of the time, I tend to not get too riled up. When reading Haddow's article, I was amused because he somehow thinks the majority of twenty-somethings know themselves and what they are doing. I say that having been a twenty-something myself and knowing many people who were that age. I am so sorry to say that you, twenty-something, really are just at the beginning of everything, but really, that's a terribly fun place to be. Just remember, we know that you don't know, and it's ok. It's not that we, being SO much older, know much more than you do, but we do know that's what others think. So There. ha HA!

Back to the article, Haddow talks about how the youth of today don't have any sense of self and are just repeating things done before and breaking no new ground and he says it's turned into the Dead End of Western Civilization. Clever.

I can't help but think that the article itself stagnated. Maybe it's some kind of call to arms but I am done with the argumentor who says that it's all dead and yet gives no direction back to help guide.

So, I'm going to make one up. Things today are a tad bit different than back in the 80s, and forget about being similar to the 60s. People are busier, are gone much of the time, are trying to pack things in more, are trying to make a lot of money, are trying to do so much that they kind of forgot about culture. This might be ok.

This might be ok because it's kind of like putting it on the back burner for awhile to sit and coalesece into something great. People are back there working on the back burner, but its a skeleton crew in places like Houston, Raleigh, Chicago, etc. Meanwhile, chidren in unique classrooms, and with unique parents, are getting some quality education on the past cool leaders. In the NYT, a Gardner trained psychologist, Passarella, is teaching children about jazz and Coltrane and they are into him and it. They are now connecting that period of music to the art of that period increasing their cultural knowledge.

When is the last time you or I looked at art from the 50s? Maybe we knew that the beatniks started around then, but what else?

It may be time to rest. There has been quite a lot coming across our eyeballs and we haven't had time to digest it. We can't go forward until we know what we just went through.