Ok, ok, I'm not really in favor of junking theories. But this post by PM about the syllabus for an introductory International Relations course does prompt me to say that without knowing some history it's impossible to understand "the contemporary condition" (to steal the title of another blog). There is a passage at the beginning of Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes (which I have quoted previously on this blog) in which he notes the date on which François Mitterand chose to visit Sarajevo when it was under siege during the Balkan wars of the 1990s: June 28, 1992. (Google "Mitterand visit to Sarajevo" and you can find the New York Times article by John Burns, published the following day, which indicates that Mitterand's visit to a city under continuous artillery and mortar fire, as Sarajevo then was, entailed some personal risk; he flew 100 miles in a helicopter over mountainous terrain from the Croatian port of Split.)
But to the point: Why did Mitterand choose to deliver his "message of hope" to the inhabitants of Sarajevo on June 28? Because the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. However, as Hobsbawm points out, virtually no one caught the reference, apart from professional historians and some elderly people (probably mostly Europeans) with long memories. So here's a proposal for the nonce: no student should leave an introductory International Relations course without knowing a little about WWI, including the date on which Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Ideally, they should learn a few other dates too, such as, for example, the date WW2 in Europe started (Sept. 1, 1939), the date it ended (May 8, 1945), and the date on which the Cold War officially ended with the Charter of Paris (gulp, without looking it up I don't know that precise date myself). And I'm sure one could suggest a number of other dates, but I won't drag this out. Isn't this hopelessly old-fashioned, having students learn dates? Of course, but old-fashioned isn't always bad. I'd much rather that a 19-year-old be able to tell me when Franz Ferdinand was killed and why it mattered than that he or she be able to give a little disquisition on the different versions of realism, liberalism, and constructivism. There's nothing wrong with the "isms" but you have to be able to connect them to something (how else can I say this?) real.
Showing posts with label advice (unsolicited). Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice (unsolicited). Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Friday, August 20, 2010
Carpe diem
When certain sociologists and psychologists find themselves insufficiently occupied, they invent new phases of the life cycle. That's one possible, admittedly somewhat cynical reaction to the piece in the NYT magazine on 20-somethings taking longer to reach 'adulthood' as conventionally defined. My patience for this kind of article tends to be so limited that I doubt I would have read much beyond the first couple of pages in the print version (which comes out Sunday); confronted with the online version, I read even less. However, I read enough to get the gist and enough to furnish an excuse for a post.
My take on this topic is much influenced, not surprisingly, by my personal history. When I was in my 20s, I wish someone had said to me: "Look, you will only be this age once. Don't feel that you need to rush into a career. Take some time to reflect on what you really want to do, perhaps travel, perhaps just mess around. Don't be afraid to take a rather low-paying, low-status job for a while when you need money. Explore, be adventurous." As best as I can recall, no one said this, or anything like this, to me, nor was it, I think, standard advice in that era (what era? well, just to fix a date, I turned 22 in June 1979, in fact on the very day I graduated from college). I went through college in four years without taking any time off (stupidly), and although I did take a one-year break from school between college and law school, I spent most of that year working. I then went straight through law school and on graduating I considered myself lucky to find a job (because graduating with a so-so record from an o.k. but non-elite law school in 1983 was not a recipe for being inundated with job offers). I wish someone had asked me at some point why I was in law school at all, but no one, as best I can recall, did. And, just to take another example, my college roommate's path was even more lockstep than mine: he didn't take any break at all between college and law school, but went straight through, getting his law degree in '82. (True, he went to a more prestigious law school than I did, and he seems to have liked his subsequent career; but I digress.)
The point is that when I see these hand-wringing articles about why young people are taking so long to 'grow up,' I think: 20-somethings should be allowed to take their time to grow up. They shouldn't feel they have to hit certain benchmarks (schooling, career, marriage, children) by a certain point, nor should society at large be concerned by their lack of interest in doing so. I do understand why people are worried about the phenomenon of young people moving back in with their parents, but that's not the central issue here. The main issue is that you're only 25 once. Readers of a certain age may remember that old TV ad (was it for beer? yes) in which the announcer intones: "You only go around once in life." A banality, of course, but it's true: you only go around once. This need not be a prescription for hedonism; rather, a prescription for considering possibilities. Maybe more middle-class kids should even think about (gasp) serving in the military. Or working for a cause, even if the job is difficult and ill paid (though many are doing this already, I admit). But I would say to a young person: whatever the exact course, step off the treadmill for a while; trust me, it will be there waiting for you when you get back.
My take on this topic is much influenced, not surprisingly, by my personal history. When I was in my 20s, I wish someone had said to me: "Look, you will only be this age once. Don't feel that you need to rush into a career. Take some time to reflect on what you really want to do, perhaps travel, perhaps just mess around. Don't be afraid to take a rather low-paying, low-status job for a while when you need money. Explore, be adventurous." As best as I can recall, no one said this, or anything like this, to me, nor was it, I think, standard advice in that era (what era? well, just to fix a date, I turned 22 in June 1979, in fact on the very day I graduated from college). I went through college in four years without taking any time off (stupidly), and although I did take a one-year break from school between college and law school, I spent most of that year working. I then went straight through law school and on graduating I considered myself lucky to find a job (because graduating with a so-so record from an o.k. but non-elite law school in 1983 was not a recipe for being inundated with job offers). I wish someone had asked me at some point why I was in law school at all, but no one, as best I can recall, did. And, just to take another example, my college roommate's path was even more lockstep than mine: he didn't take any break at all between college and law school, but went straight through, getting his law degree in '82. (True, he went to a more prestigious law school than I did, and he seems to have liked his subsequent career; but I digress.)
The point is that when I see these hand-wringing articles about why young people are taking so long to 'grow up,' I think: 20-somethings should be allowed to take their time to grow up. They shouldn't feel they have to hit certain benchmarks (schooling, career, marriage, children) by a certain point, nor should society at large be concerned by their lack of interest in doing so. I do understand why people are worried about the phenomenon of young people moving back in with their parents, but that's not the central issue here. The main issue is that you're only 25 once. Readers of a certain age may remember that old TV ad (was it for beer? yes) in which the announcer intones: "You only go around once in life." A banality, of course, but it's true: you only go around once. This need not be a prescription for hedonism; rather, a prescription for considering possibilities. Maybe more middle-class kids should even think about (gasp) serving in the military. Or working for a cause, even if the job is difficult and ill paid (though many are doing this already, I admit). But I would say to a young person: whatever the exact course, step off the treadmill for a while; trust me, it will be there waiting for you when you get back.
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