Grumpy Old Men - Literature Edition

When I first saw the interview with reason.tv, I thought this guy was just an outgrown Holden Caulfield with not much merit to what he had to say. The articles didn't really change my mind, but they at least gave me material worth thinking about. I thought he was an over-generalizing man who skewed facts with little evidence that can be interpreted pretty much however you want to. For example, if I had a huge soap box to stand on where I could get everyone's attention, I could complain about how most adults over the age of 30 are the dumbest generation because they can't do physics, calculus, or programming. It's probably true, but then again, the majority of people in any age group probably can't. He really repeated this theme of generalization until it almost got boring (or sickening, not sure which).

In my discussion group we didn't have much good to say about Mr. Bauerlein. We spent a lot of time complaining about why he's becoming a success by simply complaining about the youth of the generation. EVERY OLDER GENERATION COMPLAINS ABOUT THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS. We talked about how this man is unoriginal. Then, with surprising irony that we should have seen coming, we began not only defending ourselves, but arguing that the generation after us is WAY worse. I know I made the argument that "I never even had a TV in my room when I younger. Now these kids have everything they ever want in their rooms."

With regards to our generation, there is some truth to what he says. We may not have as much knowledge as previous generations, but as the Newsweek article says, we have so much more information readily available for us wherever we want it, whenever we want it. Does that mean there's no reason for us to know, understand, and appreciate the knowledge that generations gone were expected to know? Absolutely not. However, we have a very unique privilege, and as far as I'm concerned, there's really no reason for me to spend my time memorizing formulas, authors, and old-fashioned actors when they're only a click away. I know Lasn constantly laments the overuse of technology, and maybe I'm biased because I'm a computer science major, but I think technology is a beautiful thing that can be extremely advantageous. Sorry if you can't figure out how to browse the Web, Mr. Bauerlein, but quite frankly, technology is here to stay so we might as well use it to our advantage.