Re: <nettime> A Current Student Profile

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

lists like this circulate every so often, and it's hard to 
know how to read to them. they certainly pack a punch on a
certain level--but by describing young people as deficient
for not having experienced certain things. in doing so, it
seems as though their main appeal is the way in which they
reaffirm a really pernicious kind of bias, as if experienc-
ing X or Y event (like the invention of the CD--please) is
a salient factor in whether someone is qualified. taken to
its extreme--which developed societies do by various means,
for example, capital acquisition and fanatical use of cred-
entialization--the result of this worldview is gerontocacy.

the fact that these lists are fairly random in their organ-
ization means that they can slip fluidly from year to year,
as well as across cultures and nations. one could push the 
time frame back a few years and mention 1968, sputnik, the 
marshall plan, the anschluss, verdun; or the cultural revo-
lution, or the founding of israel or india's independence--
you get the idea. in every case, the impact would be about
the same: the 'current generation' is missing this or that
experience, which is somehow constitive or decisive, so we
can only wonder about their ability to...

for a society that's allegedly so obsessed with its future
(whether in the form of financial speculation, the amazing
advances of 'technology,' or conservation--no matter), all
these lists would seem to suggest priorities of a very dif-
ferent kind--priorities that are played out in really vile
ways on a daily basis, and in ways that will leave the gen-
erations now 'running the world' with a very spotty legacy.

my paternal grandmother was born in 1899. i'm glad she was
dignified enough--the fruit, of course, of being raised in
a world drowning in ignorance by our standards--not to lec-
ture her juniors on all the things they had missed, for ex-
ample, WWI, radio, TV. nor, for that matter, did she spend
much time marveling at all the wonders that technology had
brought (and not because she didn't know or care).

and then, of course, there's the minor matter of some pret-
ty mind-blowing things which the current generational hege-
mons have missed. i'd trade in trudeau in a second to know
what it was like to live in a world where land that wasn't
owned by anyone was quite common. it wasn't very long ago.

cheers,
t


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