The New Millennium Devil's Dictionary - Evil and Good
EVIL, n. Your prosperity and comfort, when it's pursued at my expense and out of my control.
GOOD, n. Your sacrifice of prosperity and comfort at my say-so. GOOD GERMAN: One who is habituated to obedience of political authority. Said of German university students in the third decade of the 20th century, and American university students in the first decade of the 21st.
- Four years ago, while Afghanistan was raging and Iraq was looming, an official of the Bush Administration gave a speech that was broadcast on what was then still called National Public Radio. I forget his name and title, which is just as well, but his office had to do with youth activities. He related an episode that had just taken place at Williams College in western Massachusetts. It was lunch hour. Several members of the faculty, veterans of the Vietnam War era and anticipating the Iraq invasion, took it upon themselves to draw up anti-war placards and stage a protest march through the cafeteria. Our speaker, with great pride, told how the students rose up, grabbed the protestors and threw them out of the room.
- I flashed back to a visit I had made to a university in Germany, fifteen years before. An Australian colleage on the faculty there (I was on a New Zealand faculty at the time) wanted to show me something. He made sure the laboratory was empty, locked the entrance, then ushered me to a back cabinet and opened the door. Pinned to the back was a poster, red and black on white, with marching men, jackbooted and arms raised in salute, dated 1933. The heading: Universitätsstudentin für Hitler (“University Students for Hitler").
- Today I sit in the “Free Speech Café" on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, looking at the glossy fossilized icons of student protest while the living students nibble at the fancy panini that are the featured items on the menu and speak glowingly of intelligent design and American Idol. And the tears run down my cheeks.
- O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2006 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
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I don't always agree, but
I usually feel like there is unnecessary gloom and doom in the world; I see an overriding pessimism if you will. It seems that every generation is sure their's is the worst and that the end is near, going back to the protests of Lincoln shutting down newspapers in DC and all the way to today. Having said all of that, though, you speak here with elegance and nastalgia that makes me feel your pain. It is not that you don't believe in the people, right? It is that you don't believe in their will power. You beleive they have forgotten how to think freely and how to make a difference....and though I am young (31), I agree.
Later
Nastalgia? :) (re: don't always agree)
Now there's a Freudian slip. What are you trying to tell me ...?
every generation is sure their's is the worst, going back to Lincoln
Further. The Roman orator Cicero, two thousand years ago, was convinced that the young people of Rome were lazy, shiftless and good for nothing and would drag the Republic down with them.
I believe in the people. I also believe that sometimes you have to plant an alarm clock by their ears and set it off.
. There is "pessimism" that is really despair, and "pessimism" that represents a goad, a call to action. There is more to life than Skating with the Stars. I strive, with my limited abilities, for the latter.
Appreciate the feedback. Thanks.
Yea, what you said
Lincoln was just the first one that popped into my cluttered mind.
You are right, and I actually agree with you. Well stated about pessimism, and the latter is a valuable part of what moves our country and society as a whole forward.
These are the reasons I'm back in school and vigerously eating up all the information I can get as I prepare to shift to a career teaching. I don't see what I think I should, so I strive to make a change.
And you are right, there is also "Dancing With the Stars" and reruns of "Friends."
Later