Earlier this week I was sitting with my friend Rachael over a healthy snack of TDR sugar cookies and fries. When I looked up from my reading of Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” I noticed Rachael making this face:
I was slightly concerned, but I decided to let it be. However, ten minutes later when I went to go dip my fry in my mayo, and I saw her with the same facial expression, I decided it was time to inquire. It turned out she had been staring a convoluted midterm essay question. We all know, when we are presented with a difficult question, the first step is to stare at it really hard and await the bestowal of inspiration—which is what she did. When that doesn’t work, the next best step is to try to get some ideas on paper by writing with no filter. When Rachael tried that method, this is what she produced:
“America is a land of bullshit founded by liars, rapists, and douchebags who only came to the “New World” for economic growth and prosperity, as well as a mass grab-bag-raffle for land stolen from indigenous people who treated the land with the love and respect it deserved. Until Columbo the clown himself came over from Spain…..well let me re-phrase, got so goddamn lost that the flat-earther-founding-father himself thought he was in India, and decided that this land was now “my land,” and yet somehow his fan club stuck into the song that he also sang “this land is your land’”--- bringing about the shittiest patriotic American song. The song is literally about putting a disease-ridden peace blanket over the atrocities Europeans so nicely gave to the Native Americas, that also follows America’s weird and creepy obsession of expansion, manifest destiny, and ‘civilizing’ others with a nice hand-holding melody to go along with it. In this essay I will talk about how Columbus is a dick that did not create, find, or found America, but how somehow the asshole himself is apparently so important that he wriggled his way into millions of American text books for 4th graders to learn about “America the Beautiful”. Wake up kids, history is a liar.”
(This was published with permission from Rachael H. She has since edited it and filtered it for a brilliant essay)
I know, at first read, her thoughts may sound extreme.
I think there are two different general, initial reactions:
1) You laugh grimly, nod your head, and say to yourself “Well, she’s got a point.” You then let your mind wander down the long path of all the problems the U.S. has, ending with an overall sense that the U.S. is simply kinda crappy.
2) You feel the heat rising. You get frustrated. You want to tell Rachael to watch her language, and you feel the need to defend the attack, the slander, the negative implications Rachael just made against the wonderful United States of America.
To those whose reaction aligned more closely to the latter, I urge you to practice some Thich Nhat Hanh compassionate listening. I can assure you that her purpose was aimed more at questioning the overly positive, and often non-critical, lens in which we are taught to view America’s history, rather than slandering the U.S. Furthermore, her language may be extreme, but her words are still valid, and they tap into an overall outlook expressed by a rising number of millennials.
That outlook is one which permeates the first type of reaction to Rachael’s paragraph. It is an outlook that I’ve noticed in conversations with a lot of AU students, and it is an outlook that showed its influence in the past week’s discussions on realism. It is an outlook of negativity and pessimism surrounding The United States. There is, of course, plenty of foundation and reasons for this trending lens which I will leave to you to list. I particularly noticed the implications of this type of negativity/pessimism when reading the blogs concerning the issue of climate change under a realist perspective. I was surprised to see that a lot of writers came to the conclusion that the protests don’t matter, and nothing will be done to combat climate change under realist principles. Although these conclusions may have been produced by the limitations of having to apply a theory which one may not agree with to the situation, normally, I’ve discovered that if someone has a more positive and hopeful outlook, they will find a way to express that despite limitations. This brings me back to the conclusion that a lot of my classmates are examples of the trending lens of pessimism and negativity.
I fear that this mode of thought, that the U.S. is basically shitty and everything is hopeless, compounds itself in a negative feedback loop ending in low efficacy and inaction.
I also cannot ignore the reality of the situation. In one perspective of history, the U.S was founded on power hungry, realist, ‘survivor of the fittest’, principle which has hurt a lot of people. As Rachael inferred, that narrative is certainly expressed in the story of Columbus.
To confront the outlook of negativity and pessimism, which I believe to be quite dangerous. I would urge this: Acknowledge the issues found within American History, acknowledge the current problems in the U.S., but then actively begin to think about how you can make amends with our past and begin to fix the present. Don’t succumb to the sense of hopelessness and negativity.
Some Positive things millennials have created:
2019 Millennial Slang Crossword
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Down:
- 1)What to say when you are shocked or surprised. “I’m____”
- 2)What you say when someone says something relatable. “What a___”
- 3)Phrase to say when you think something is funny or ridiculous.
Across:
- 1)Word to use when expressing an emotion/desire without coming across too forceful needy, or serious, or when you fear judgement for expressing the emotion/desire. “I ____ want to eat that whole cake right now.”
- 2)When someone says something that criticizes, insults, or trashes someone/something else, oftentimes in a subtle and sometimes indirect manner. “Wow, you really just threw some ____”
- 3)Used to describe someone who really knows what’s up
Millennials: expanding the English vocabulary one slang word at a time. We can make a difference.
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