I just want to preface this by saying I'm a junior at IUP. I'm an English and journalism double major and a history and women's studies double minor. This alone probably explains a little of why apathy irritates me as much as it does.
Anyway, enough about me, I heard something in the library today while I was eating my obligatory onion bagel; a boy said "My goal is to never read a novel again."
Just take the weight of that in: A white boy, in college, in modern America, never wants to read a novel again. There is something seriously wrong with this.
Do you realize how fortunate you are to have access to higher education? Do you even acknowledge that, just because you were born male, white and American, that you have categorical advantages in most aspects of culture? But you just don't care, and so you don't know.
It's not an isolated incident. It's my whole generation. We just don't care. If it's not affecting our access to pizza or beer, it doesn't matter. So, generation, I'm calling you out.
I was born in 1990, so I can remember a time before every seven-year-old had a cell phone, before social media and the rest of the internet sucked us in to its time warp. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, I have a blog, a
Twitter, a
Facebook and a
LinkedIn. Obviously, I spend a lot of time on the internet. But I also care about a lot of issues that are bigger than myself. I just think we have to find a balance and not let thought and discussion become a casualty of this age of immediacy.
Daily, I watch kids texting on their phones during the whole class period. Why don't you just drop out? You're paying $20,000 to text. All you're getting out of your classes are useless facts because you're not paying attention and you're not learning how to apply anything. Put down all of your contraptions and listen. You never know, maybe you'll actually learn something.
Even better, you just might learn something that compels you to do something. You may even learn something that compels you to change yourself.
Look, as far as opinions go, I don't care if you don't agree with me as long as you have a valid argument with facts to back it up. But no one cares enough to get the facts and form an opinion. I can't imagine not having an opinion about abortion or gay rights, or any number of other things. Don't hate on the repeal on DADT, "because it's stupid." Have a concrete reason if you think there is one.
You need to read. Or at least listen to NPR or something. Please don't stop at broadcast news. Balance it out.
This apathy is not totally our fault. The things that are considered "news" in this country are absolutely ridiculous. I mean, balloon boy?! Come on. I don't care about that Snookie character with the appendage growing out of her head. I want to know about Egypt, abortion legislation, gay rights, environmental activism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that this country has completely forgotten about, ect. These things matter. Figure out what matters to you. Some things, like the war, should matter to everyone. Get an opinion and form it around something concrete. Do some homework on some -ism's.
(I had an article published about this skewed version of the news, you can check it out
here if you're interested.)
Really, pretty much out of my own desperation, I'm just asking people to care a little more.
If you don't want to learn, get out of my college. You can go drink and smoke with your friends and not have to pay $20,000. I'm sick of "I go to IUP," being followed up with "Ohh, that's a big party school, right?" I'm here because I like learning and it suits me as a person.
Your parents or the state, or someone, is investing in your brain. I don't want to be 50 years old, when my generation's running the country, and electing a U.S. president that runs on a platform of "Meh." So please, PLEASE, care about something that matters, and please don't ever stop learning.
Photo from
here.
