“In the ninth thesis of the essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History” Benjamin, inspired by a Paul Klee painting called Angelus Novus in his possession, poetically describes the course of human history as a path of accumulating destruction which “the angel” views with horror but from which he cannot turn away.” – Wikipedia entry on Walter Benjamin
This might be a bit old for some of you, but my new friend Imei posted the Beloit College Mindset List link to her MSN Space recently. Now I’m recopying the link here to share it with you.
For those of you who’ve not heard of the list it’s sort of a snapshot of what incoming freshmen (or people of a certain years’ birth) were born into. This is an odd thing to discover it first, but once you understand the underlying prinicipal you see something very valuable that transcends all generations, and speaks very powerfully about an uncomfortable and often overlooked truth.
That truth goes something like this- All that scary shit that you think is the end of the world? Well it is, it’s the end of YOUR world, the world you’ll spend your life coming to grips with. But the younger generation, the current state of things is sort of the starting line for them. Which makes that scary shit “the facts of life” This means AIDS, iPods, Neoconservative grip on reality, Christian and Islamic Fundamentalism, the implicit and explicit racism that exists in this country, gun violence in schools, metal detectors, invasions of privacy, laptops everywhere, fucked up spelling and grammar, ennui, disrespect for the old and slow, etc.
They have yet to become “adults” and feel that sense of panic for being responsible for the whole shithouse of love and beauty that is the world we live in. They also don’t believe they can do anything about it. Watch it all unfold before you. I, for one, welcome our tanned, sexy, postmodern, overlords.
“I’ve seen the ocean break on the shore, and come together with no harm done.” – Janes Addiction