Correlation
Indiana has the worst high school dropout rate in the country: a statewide average of 13%. I am now, absolutely, positively, certain why this is so. As I write this, for the endless night in a row, fireworks pop into the evening sky in our staid middle-class suburban neighborhood. Pop, bang, scream, etc. Our state legislature has made this legal across the state. Why? There are many reasons, money and profit the chief of all as they always have been, and those may be worth talking about, but I know the real reason. Here it is: the racket and spray of lights of these fireworks are, to so many, so peaceful. Yes, peaceful. And when peace reigns, or so the theory goes, prosperity follows. And how does it go but like this: the glittering lights and the explosive sulfurous spats are reminiscent not of war and strife and battles at sea, but rather of sweet illspent summer hours, hours spent not reading, not studying for that test tomorrow in algebra or Shakespeare or Plato, not worrying about tomorrow. The fireworks tonight in the neighborhood conjure up memories of summer in reality and in metaphor, a stretch of long hours spent in amusement, pure indolence, when you could lie prone gazing at the sky, maybe a glowing cigarette between your fingers, maybe your fingers entwined with someone else’s, maybe nothing more in your hands than a pop and a candy bar, but always, there you were, at rest, thinking of nothing but nothing.
Sweet summers. Those fireworks bring that back in yummy waves, nostalgia nuzzling the back of our necks, and so we applaud the legislature for its wisdom. Thank you for letting us do this all year, at home, in our neighborhoods. It’s good for us. It’s good for our children. And there they are: our children. They are watching us as we laze about, gazing at the sparkle and fizz of the night sky (or is that the TV? ah, but, it’s all the same: sparkle and fizz) and our children say to themselves: this is the life. This is for me. Rest. Relaxation. No responsibility. Nothing but hours stretched ahead of me with nothing to do but nothing.
And now, the hood of night drops down and there they are, our neighborhood kids, clothed in black and draped in chains, shuffling down the streets of Richmond, long after dark, their garb and their posture protesting something, or someone, but they don’t know what, because they don’t know, they just don’t know, and so they keep slouching toward the future, wherever and whatever it may be.
September 8th, 2006 at 2:21 am
This post is a fascinating contrast to the last, or at least, I read it that way. We work and work and work and it seems like there is never enough time in the day, yet the youth seem to think we have all the time in the world–and that’s how they want to live, too, without the cares that they fail to see.
I’ve been taking note of several issues affecting our nation here lately and I’ve become really envious of the young revolutionists of the 70s–aka, the hippies. (Yeah, I know I wasn’t even around back then, but still…) They protested something and had a passionate desire to make a change for the better. I don’t see that in our younger generations now. Like you say, they want to protest, but they don’t even know what…
September 8th, 2006 at 11:21 am
I hadn’t seen it that way — this contrast — but it might be so. For me there’s a split in the way we live our lives these days: we work like hell, yet dream of leisure. Our days are consumed with projects, meetings, emails, commuting, work, all that — and our nights are leaden moments of sloth in front of a glowing TV set. Okay, so I exaggerate. But there is this sense that if we “had more time” we would really do what we want. But what is it that we want? Simply more time? To sleep late? To watch more TV? To shoot off fireworks? To shop? To party? To go to bed early? There’s a split in American lives that seems, at its foundation, unhealthy to me.
Recently, I saw a television ad for some new Starbucks coffee drink in jar. I have no idea what. But the premise of the ad was this: you work so hard, you deserve moments of pleasure during your day. Here’s your moment of pleasure: this little jar for a couple of bucks. Sip and feel happy. And it’s this, this cycle of working to earn money and running ourselves ragged with the effort and then spending the money we’ve earned to “reward’ ourselves with moments of pleasure. Starbucks. A glass of wine or two or three. A night out. A big screen TV. We’ve earned it. So the advertisers tell us.
As for the youth of the 70’s…having been one (sigh) I can tell you that we lamented the fact that *we* had missed the most important revolutionary decade of the 20th century: the sixties. *They* had something to protest — the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, the draft, you name it — by the late 70’s, the war was over, Civil Rights supposedly established, the draft defunct. In the seventies we had nothing so big, so important to protest against. Well, okay, we did have disco.
But still, like you, I wonder what it will take for a new “passionate desire to make a change for the better” to reach a critical mass of individuals. Wouldn’t that be something…
September 8th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Personally, and I think I will sound like a crotchedy old man (although I DO turn 26 today) for saying this, but…
I think part of the problem is lack of direction and knowing where to fit in. We are beginning to have a human surplus because there are less and less ways for people to make themselves useful. Back in the 60s and 70s there were jobs galore. Even the 80s was pretty good about that. As technology improves and more and more automation happens, more and more good-paying jobs require higher and higher amounts of education (And education, is of course, completely overlooked by government funding, but that’s another ball of wax) .
In the 60s, if you weren’t working, you could define yourself and your life’s purpose by protesting (either for the war, or against it… for civil rights, or against them). They were REAL ISSUES. These issues came up because there was a GENUINE INJUSTICE that was going on, and people really felt like they had some power or influence in the matter, that they could DO something about it.
What do we have now though? We have an ambiguous issue (TERRORISM! :-O) that none of us can really do anything about. The only way to “fight” terrorism, says the gov’t, is to invade countries with brown people, as the US so loves to do. I think most of us are able to make the correlation that bombing brown people does not equal fighting terrorism directly. Our youths are becoming so pampered with having things easy because parents are too busy with trying to relive their childhoods to be actual parents that they are becoming spoiled.
Where do they fit in? How do they define their lives with respect to the rest of humanity? We are all so quick to divide everyone into smaller and smaller sects of humanity via the over-zealous labelling and partisan politics. The fireworks are like the tip of the iceberg, a tiny symptom of a growing problem: gross apathy. People just don’t care anymore. We have become over-marketed sheep that get herded around on a tour of technological gadgets and creature comforts like we’re on a tour in Disneyworld. We’re just here to see the attractions then go back to our jobs. We’ve stopped questioning our existence, we now just question what time Springer is on, how much it costs to super-size our coke, and how fast our new luxury car/computer can go.
I think if people in general, not just youth, felt their lives had purpose, that they were more than just placeholders for their children to grow into, that they would be more apt to stay attached to reality instead of escaping into the latest reality TV show or online video game. Not knowing how you fit in with something is a very disconcerting feeling. I’m not really sure how best to address it, but I feel very confident that lack of purpose is a big thing.
September 8th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Oh, and that reminds me:
Statistics on “high school dropouts” are very often inaccurate. School Districts will often NOT count drop-out students if the students *SAY* they are going to take the GED test. (whether or not they actually do doesn’t matter. The schools just assume, to their own benefit, that the students will do as they say).
So the actual rate of dropouts is probably even HIGHER than that!
At least Wayne County is now #15 on the top unemployments for the state now…
September 9th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Oh, crumbs! That’s right, the majority of the protesting was actually in the 60s. I don’t know what I was thinking (or if I just made a typo) on that…I really do know history–er, at least THAT much.
It’s interesting that you bring up Starbuck’s. Would you believe we have actually had weeks when, after all the bills have been paid, all my husband wants is a lousy little strawberry frappuccino? Not because it’s an extremely desirable product to work toward, but because that’s sometimes the only little pleasure we can afford. One lousy little caffeinated drink on a Friday night is what he sometimes has to look forward to, even after working 50-60 hours a week at the factory so support a family of three.
It could be anything, really…cigarettes, fireworks, etc. But yes, it’s really something that such trivial things are glamourized to be the things we really “want” in life.
On a mildly unrelated note, one thing I would “want” more of out of life is fellowship amongst people. Call me old-fashioned, but I love hearing my grandparents talk about the days when neighbors would get together and spend entire Saturday afternoons together just enjoying each other’s company. Then Sunday was the day of rest–unless you lived on a farm, and no day came without at least some work–and everybody picked back up and hit it hard on Monday morning. Of course, back then, there wasn’t the influence of television ads that seem to direct the purpose of so many people’s lives today. Perhaps I’m disillusioned, but it seems like our states would be more “united” if the people within cared more about each other rather than bigger, faster, greater material possessions.
Shoot. Speaking of neighbors, my neighbor is here and wants to go for a walk. I definitely have more thoughts to add to this later…
September 10th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
[…] Local author Jean Harper noted this week (in one of her as always excellent pieces: Link), that a new study has Indiana’s actual school dropout rate is 13%, making it the highest in the country. Jean goes on to link that statistic to her perception of a distinctive lackadaisical attitude among us inhabitants that drives us, not towards learning, betterment, and general improvement of the human condition, but rather towards the goal of being able to just hang out for the duration. […]
September 11th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Ms. Harper: Your post reminds me of an essay I read several years ago. I believe the essay was by Scott Sanders. Anyway, he wrote about how Hoosiers are so enthusiastic about sports but not about the larger issues–such as environmentalism–and the world in which we live.
A quibble: I assume that you live in Richmond. Years ago, at Michigan State University, it seemed everyone there hailed from a “suburb of Detroit.” I know that Michigan, like Indiana, has small cities that are not outgrowths of larger urban areas. Yet one wouldn’t know that from the quizzical looks I received whenever I tried to explain that my hometown wasn’t a suburb.
Anyway, interesting post.
September 12th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Pila - Yes, i do live in Richmond, and no, we’re not a suburb of anything. We are, solely, Richmond. About 38,000 of us more or less.
As for Scott Sanders — yes, he’s written some good insightful things about the Midwest. I admire his writing a great deal, even if I don’t share at all times his fairly dark vision of the world. To his everlasting credit as a writer, however, he addresses this very fact in his lovely book Hunting for Hope.
Audrey - It’s so interesting that you talk about fellowship. Check out my brother’s blog (link on front page of my blog to Yet Another Unitarian …); he is a UU minister and struggles with the challenge of getting people to come to church, arguing that religion, or being religious, is in large part about worshipping in fellowship. It seems to be something we want, but don’t do…hmm.
September 12th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
jean, i can’t help but relate this posting to the posting you made (and to which i added) about time, and what are we looking to fill our lives with? if we have the time, will we reach out to others, or retreat, or ask others to do for and give to us? it’s a small town (although not limited to small towns) problem that the generation that gave so enormously of their time and energies for all the things that keep little towns running and peaceful is aging out of community life, and the younger generations are not stepping up. instead many spend their time isolated, kicking back to relax from over-taxing lives, enjoying what’s theirs, what they worked so hard to “get”. of course it’s not everyone, there is still a small group of doers, but for how long can we tap a small group of 20 or so citizens for all that needs to be done? and what about community, the feeling that it’s a place in your soul, not merely an address. the problem gets bigger and bigger the more we think about it. the disattachment, the distractions, the dissolution, the dysfunction. how it affects the adult popluation, the school, the town government, the children. uck. i’m feeling brick wallish right now. time to get back to teaching.