BY ABBY ROHMAN
At three o’clock on Thursday afternoon, the streets are busy. As trucks and cars pass, a boy walks down the Boston Post Road after the school day has ended. Escaping from his thoughts of molecules and Napoleon, he entrances himself by listening to music on his iPod. He steps to the beat of The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Tell Me Baby.” He does not hear the autumnal leaves crunching beneath his feet, but he can feel his phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulls it out, and opens his text. Quickly reading and responding to a friend’s message, he continues toward home without a moment’s pause. An old woman driving to the market passes him. She shakes her head scornfully.
“When I was a kid, we did not walk home with our musical toys. We walked home with our thoughts,” she laments. Eluding her thoughts is the faint trace of a memory. Her grandparents contemptuously scoffed when she enjoyed big band sounds like Benny Goodman on the radio. Those were the sounds that helped her dream of the future. However, she cannot connect the boy’s positive feelings with his iPod to her positive emotions toward the radio. Her heightened view of herself that comes with age prevents her from regarding this boy on the street and the generation he represents as anything but second-rate. She is unable to grasp the concept of change.
Progressing years are perpetually accompanied by social and technological development. The evolution of habits and ideas is partnered with the misunderstanding and disregard from the preceding generation. Innovative ideas are often criticized when first introduced, examples from history being plentiful. When women’s suffrage was ratified across the nation, it was seen as a blasphemous act. The introduction of homosexuality to mainstream culture was met with disparaging opposition. The promiscuous sexual behavior of hippies in 1960s in communities across the country was widely denounced. Most of the resistance to change was voiced by elders who were afraid of change. It comes as no surprise that Barack Obama was less capable of drawing votes of support from older citizens with a campaign slogan of “Change We Can Believe In.”
Overcoming transformations, including differences in habits, differences in lifestyle or differences due to globalization, is unquestionably a difficult adjustment. The chorus to MGMT’s “The Youth” reads: “The youth is starting to change / Are you starting to change? / Are you / Together.” The song brings up the idea that the youth can change along with elders. The song also encourages everyone to recognize the change of the youngest generation, and to join in the change, rather than discourage it.
A young person can feel admonished by older generations who condemn the recreation and delight of the current generation. To be told that one’s daily activities are rotting their brain is demeaning and contradictory. The Who, speaking for young people forty years ago wrote in the song “My Generation”: “People try to put us down / Just because we get around…/ Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation).”
Those who find fault should recognize that they were criticized in the same way in their youth. This is a call to end the cycle, the pattern of coming to age, believing in what you know and then censuring what follows. The hope is that children and teenagers today will realize that there is no need to deprecate their children and grandchildren. Rather, they should rejoice and revel in the change, enjoying humanity’s ability to make progress, both socially and technologically.
