The paragraph is forming. Really, though, it’s been forming for quite some time. What I mean by this is more of a watered down, boring version of “the fire,” that was not started by Billy Joel. We may not have started the fire, and it could be called into question how long it has actually been burning (since the world’s been turning seems to be a bit of a hyperbole), but something is happening.
This something is what I like to call the paragraph. Now, the lengths of paragraphs can vary greatly, and I teach writing for a living, so don’t fight me on that, but it is being written and it is a paragraph. This paragraph is what history books and anthologies use to introduce chapters, units, sections, or whatever you want to call them. They are usually meant to give you all the pertinent information to understand the surrounding social environment of the time period about which you are going to read. For example, an American literature anthology will give you a quick background on the Industrial Revolution, World War I, and immigration in order to introduce you to literature stretching from the Romantic period to the Modern period. They manage to accomplish this in a few, required by the syllabus pages, probably less than 20, and then they do it again when you reach a specific section of the book, or a specific author. Other books do it much more efficiently (we Englishy types can sometimes have a problem with over explanation).
I feel our paragraph taking shape. This idea became most evident as I talked to my students about #OccupyWallStreet and #OccupyPhiladelphia. Living in Philly, the latter event was in our laps in such a way I felt that I could not ignore its happening and continue to talk about MLA formatting while watching their heads bob. So, during class they enjoyed a clip from The Daily Show and they genuinely seemed interested. Although, when I mentioned they were living during a modern day revolution, a sweet girl looked up at me from the first row and asked, “Can we get extra credit for that?” Can you get extra credit for the fact that you just happen to live during a time of financial crisis, citizen discontent, and public demonstration. No. No, you cannot. What you can get is a discussion led by an eccentric professor (their label, not mine) who is trying to figure out what is going on and how to feel about it, and who is looking for your input and feedback to help her do that.
This intro paragraph our children/grandchildren will read will, I assume, talk about the great debt crisis and financial downfall of 2008. It will mention how America began to tumble from great heights and how the world followed, with the exception of the Arab Spring. I hope that portion of the world, once considered to be the most chaotic, will rise and our grandchildren will not realize the cradle of civilization was ever anything other than a prosperous, rich, cultural center. What I am sure of, though, is that the description of today’s youth, let’s say 25 and under, will be somewhat like that of the “Age of disillusionment” after WWI. The individuals in America who are meant to be at their most idealistic, most dreamy eyed, most optimistic, are afraid, tired, and already sick of the world they live in. They have a “what’s the point” look on their face, and it’s more than a, what’s-the-point-of-writing-to-music-to-discover-our-soul-aren’t-you-too-young-to-be-a- hippie-professor, look. They know they won’t get jobs, or at least the ones they are able to get won’t pay their college loan bills, they won’t be able to get insurance, and they will most likely live with their parents until they're nearly 30 or later (if they’re lucky).
They know that the Boomers and our institutions have failed us despite all talk that we (as a country) have been working to build a better future for our children. We have not, did not, and they know it. Powers that be have been working to build a better future, retirement plan, and bank account for themselves with no regard for the condition it will leave the country in after they retire or die. The youth have seen the leaders of religious institutions, universities, corporations, and the government fail them. Where I once felt there were a select few in power that ruined it for the rest of the country’s administrators, the majority of whom really had the best of intentions, I now believe, as do my students, that no one in power can be trusted (or we are just overly skeptical to the point of biting cynicism).
I'd rather not say that the loudest call for change is coupled with public urination, defecation, and the idealistic (maybe unrealistic) goal of a leaderless / demandless movement. And despite the volume of this call for change, it is falling on, perhaps, the deafest ears there are. But I just did say it, and I am fearful I believe it. Hope glistens in the eyes of my students, but it is clouded by confusion for a movement they want to believe in more than anything. They see it as their last option, to turn to their peers instead of their fathers, mothers, and grandparents currently in power.
This paragraph, as it is slowly swyped on society’s collective touch screen, will, I hope, be proof read before it’s sent (don’t trust auto-correct). I want my students to be idealistic. To travel. To write. To dream. I want them to believe that the time is now, that they will have time to be cautious later. I do not want them to fear the future. I want them to live and learn about who they are as people before they obsess over where those people will find jobs. I want the paragraph to end with an enlightened turn around, not with distilled disillusion. And, by god, I want the paragraph properly cited in MLA format!
*Some of these ideas were conceived because of and adapted from a lecture given by Junot Diaz. Go, read his work. See him speak. You will be thankful you did.
Diaz, Junot. Writer’s Conference, Montgomery County Community College. Science Center Theater, Montgomery Co. Community College, Blue Bell, PA. 4 Nov. 2011. Keynote address.
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