Archive for April 2006
insight in an unlikely place
“Young people have a biological right to be excited about the times they’re living through. If you are very lucky, that hormonal urgency is matched by the insurgency of the era, and your built-in adolescent need for amazement and belief coincides with a period of objective abundance.”
- Simon Reynolds, Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk, 1978-1984
This is neither a period of insurgency in our culture nor a period of objective cultural abundance. Perhaps that explains a lot about the generation coming of age. We’ve handed them consumption and called it satisfaction; we’ve handed them tools without rigor; we’ve handed them a world of fear and greed and called it freedom. It’s obvious that we’ve failed them in profound ways. What are we going to do about it?
