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Edited on Mon Apr-13-09 09:03 AM by karynnj
There were of course, serious people in the 1960s as well - I was one of them. I had an easier time affording college than you did, not because of family wealth, but because oddly enough Indiana's state constitution included the provision that state supported education be affordable - and this was interpreted to mean through college. Therefore, there was a "Hoosier Scholarship" available based on need for all students with over 1000 in SATs and at least a B average. For me and most of my siblings, it paid the full tuition at a state university. I earned the money for housing etc through a job at a shipping office of a steel mill - where my family knew the right people. I was raised as one of 9 kids and my dad was a milkman. My parents very strongly pushed all nine of us to go to college and we all did. As to fashion, we did follow it. My mom was incredible and made most of our clothes. We might not have looked the height of fashion in certain areas of NYC but we were following the fashions of the time that we liked.
I have three very different daughters - all very smart and each very much a person who moves to the beat of her own drummer. They all are far better, more expressive writers than I am. I also know the kids of many of my friends. I realize that many of these kids were among the top students in the country and are not representative. Many went on to extremely competitive colleges. One of my daughters is graduating this year and she and most of her closest friends have decided to commit a year or two to volunteer jobs before going on to graduate school. They are serious, committed to making the world better and are really good people. My husband and I were both very impressed when we sat and talked with a group of her friends in her sophomore year when we dropped by to drop off cookies on the way to Boston in December 2006. :) I know this daughter posts, but not here. In fact, posting as a 13 year old led to one of her posts being included in a book - for which she got a couple of books and $75. At 15, posts in a different place on a different topic led to a PM conversation with an author which led to a book contract and becoming a published author by her freshman year in college. As to political action, she protested the College of the Americas with a large group from her school and other colleges - something far more focused than the antiwar protests I attended in the lovely meadow in the center of the campus I was at.
However, my youngest chose a VERY non-competitive college in Idaho - a very different situation. The kids she knows are very engaged and very serious about college. They are definitely not privileged spoiled kids. My oldest is in a very liberal NYC university and I do know that she knows people who post here and elsewhere. I don't know their user names and it was weird, but nice, to have my daughter mention that one of her friends liked my posts after she told her my user name.
For the kids now in college or recently graduated, you have to think how their world looked over the last 8 years. In some ways, as one who graduated high school in 1968 - I see parallels between the two time periods. Kids graduating college this year started their high school years with 911 in their Freshman year - then the invasion of Iraq, the abysmal response to Katrina, the unbelievable unitary President actions, including allowing torture and spying on us, and now the financial crisis. All are major events where our government failed us. Even before that, as long ago as in the 1990s, it was already very true that most of them would not be as affluent as their parents even if they did everything right. For those of us graduating in 1968, the Kennedy assassination happened when we were in 8th grade, followed by the Vietnam War and Nixon's paranoia and targeting of his "enemies", the assassinations of MLK and RMK and as we graduated college, the story of Watergate was unfolding. (For those two years younger than me - they had this, more Watergate revelations and a major recession.)
For decades, 1968 was seen as one of the most volatile divisive years in US history. Had their been an internet, the immediate postings of my peers would have looked a lot like what we are seeing. Having been fascinated by the undergound newspapers then - that IU's library got and saved on microfiche, the posting may well have been worse. By their nature, many posts are done without self editing or even much reflection. This is why some can be gently pushed back to more reasonable positions.
I think part of the anger in the 1960s was that many were hurt and angry at the loss of the comforting beliefs that the world was a safe place where America was always a force for good and that doing the right things would lead to success. My daughter postulated that because of that her generation, our kids, were raised with more cynical political beliefs. This may have lead many of them to seek solutions via non-political avenues to make things better. Although Obama was able to motivate many of them last year because he was seen as different, they may still channel their energies into those alternative actions - even though they are still ecstatic that Obama is president.
Anyway - I never intended to imply that our generation was not serious or committed. I think over time the silly or most radical elements of that time have been used to stereotype both the era and us negatively. Most of us, like most of the current generation, were people working to complete their education, to find their values and to live by them. The intent was to say that I think today's kids really don't deserve the level of criticism they get.
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