Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Brave New World

I think the next generation has such different attitudes - toward almost everything - that many hard fought social issues will evaporate or morph over the next 20 years. I remember seeing several gay activists interviewed after Proposition 8 passed saying - 'if we have to, we will wait for the generation that stopped us to die.' When I was born, segregation still existed and intermarriage was illegal in a number of states - now there is a casual acceptance of interracial relationships (well at least on TV and the streets of NYC, I don't know how things are in Smalltown, USA).

And here's the shock of shocks - the NEA announced a few days ago that Americans are reading more fiction! Commentators have attributed a lot of rise in reading to the popularity of Harry Potter and Twilight, the kind of fantasy that also got us ostracized in our youth. (I remember frequenting small shops in Pittsburgh which carried used fantasy and science fiction magazines in dark corners - it occurs to me now to wonder, in my enlightened adulthood, if there wasn't pornography somewhere in brown paper covers in those shops, keeping them alive.)

So all hail to the next generation, out there reading gay-themed YA and large quantities of fantasy and science fiction, scooping up graphic novels, improving their reflexes and speeding up their synapses with video games, apparently even dipping into the occasional book of poetry, and then Twittering away about all this to their friends. Keep reading. Keep Twittering. Keep dating (oh wait, I forgot, you don't "date") - well then, keep seeing whoever you like. It's kind of a cool world you're inventing, and I'm happy to be around to see it come into being.

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