I’m currently studying for the GRE with the hope of getting into the University of Washington’s Executive Master of Science in Information Management program. One of the challenges the GRE uses to separate the men from the boys is a timed essay based on a vague but opinionated prompt. I wrote one today just to practice, and I need blog fodder, so I’m making you read it. This was written in 45 minutes flat without spellcheck. I did have coffee though, so any perceived coherence can be chalked up to the brief clarity that is the gift of caffeine.
Prompt:
The most effective way to understand contemporary culture is to analyze the trends of its youth.
Essay:
No generation has produced more data than today’s youth. Never has so much information gushed from an oppressed people than that which the youth of Iran are broadcasting to the rest of the planet. It is infinitely easier for this generation of youth to understand each other than it has been for any generation in the history of the world. If you wish to understand contemporary culture, the only place to look is to the youth of today.
Instant communication on a global scale has allowed today’s youth to lay bare their lives and their cultures out for all to see. Lest we discount the significance of this fact, remember just a generation ago when a convincing argument could be made that our political enemies are monsters who are nothing like us. The average American, or Iranian, could not fly to the other side of the world to see if these claims were valid. Today’s youth wake up and read messages from friends in six different countries before they get out of bed.
Contemporary culture, however, is a misleading term. When the lines of communication were not so direct, we used representatives like actors and politicians to describe our culture, and our culture appeared more homogenous. It was only possible to buy the books that were carried in your town, so in fact, culture back then actually was more homogenous. Today’s youth see no point in representatives. Why would youth allow an actor or politician to represent them to the world, when it’s simple and easy to represent themselves? The youth of today can order any book they like, and it’s caused them to have a multitude of nuanced perspectives. There is no such thing as contemporary culture anymore. Today’s youth speak with a thousand voices to describe a thousand different cultural backgrounds and experiences.
If culture is so varied, how can we ever hope to understand it? There are several academic projects seeking to answer this question. It is not a question to be taken lightly. Can we look at the backlash from the Iran election, at the terrabytes of data that flowed from Iran in the weeks following that momentous event and draw any meaningful conclusions? We can. There was anger. There was pain. There was fear. These are the places where the many different cultures of Iran coalesced and agreed. We know this because we listened carefully to the many voices of the youth.
Today’s youth have powerful voices. They do not have a homogeneous culture, and the clarity with which we can understand them is sometimes cloudy and fleeting, but if we support more research in this area, if we are willing to try and willing to fail, our understanding will grow over time. This volume of data is a wholly unexpected glut of chaos that the human race has never seen the likes of, but we must break it down into its parts. We must understand it, and in doing so, we will gain a greater understanding of each other.
