Wednesday, January 12, 2011

No More Culture Wars

This chapter begins with the story of Rip Van Winkle, a man that fell asleep for 20 years and awoke in a completely different world, a world that that had become involved and educated in government. The relaxed indifferent world that he fell asleep in was no longer. Rip Van Winkle was being forced to make important decisions that impacted his life as a colonist, but he was unequipped. Mark Bauerlien uses this famous story to set the stage for this chapter. This generation is the modern Rip Van Winkle. The authors states that "Most individual voters are abysmally ignorant of even very basic political information." Rip Van Winkle had no idea whom to vote for because he had been asleep for 20 years. This generation has chosen not to be educated. "They are latter-day Rip Van Winkles, sleeping through the movements of culture and events of history, prefering the company of peers to great books and powerful ideas and momentous happening." This apathetic nature has stopped the culture wars. They have chosen to be passive; they are no longer the radical thoughts of Alcove 1 and Port Huron. This decline in radical ideas and lack of civic responsible will be the downfall of this generation. The author ends the chapter with a very bleak outlook of the future: " They may even be recalled as the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever."

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