Oil is more important than the blood spilled to get it.
December 10, 2002 12:07 a.m.

Letter to the Editor

December 09, 2002

Dear Editor:

In his Dec. 6 letter, alumnus Paul Cooper implied "today's generation" lacks moral integrity. Cooper voiced an opinion echoed by many other professors, alumni, parents and politicians, as we're so used to hearing in the media. They say that the 18-30 demographic is apathetic. Friends, we fit comfortably into this generalization and frankly, I'm tired of it.

They all look down at us from their aged points of view. We've never known war. We didn't have a Vietnam or Cuban Missile Crisis or a World War. Our cell phones ring out that we've never known a Great Depression. We are the generation of instant gratification. We research our papers on the Internet and IM friends who live in the dorm room down the hall. We have no sense of duty, honor or patriotism. We're the apathetic children of parents who struggled so much for civil rights that we've never had to ask for them ourselves. We know nothing of life in the REAL World. I ask you, professors and parents; do you know what our real world consists of?

We've seen AIDS kill men and women of our own demographic. While most of us can boast grandparents who remained married until death parted them, more than 60 percent of our children won't be able to make such claims. Broken homes, babies having babies, interracial families, homosexual couples, alternative lifestyles of all sorts - we haven't lost a sense of morality, but have recognized that there is more in our world than just Black and White. These things DO exist in our world. We don't shun them in the apathetic, Nintendo-induced daze, as so many "scholars" would like to believe. We accept these things because we can't ignore them. We haven't lost our morals; we've lost the faith in our elders to decide what IS moral!

While you watched "Leave it To Beaver," our television history has been rife with talk shows, reality TV and OJ Simpson car chases. Your generation had President John F. Kennedy - a visionary family man (who kept his infidelities to himself) assassinated all too soon. We grew up listening to our parents moan in the fallout of George Herbert Walker Bush's economic mistake, then saw Bill Clinton emerge from the Oval Orifice with a sax in one hand and joint in the other. While you danced, had "free" sex and smoked out at Woodstock, we got Tipper Gore's signature of approval on our "controversial" rock music, AIDS and a War-On-Drugs. We're paying for the sins of our fathers. If we don't protest sodomy, then we're immoral children. If we protest our president's masturbatory war, we're naive. Oil is more important than the blood spilled to get it Who do you expect us to be?

Jamie Wyman

Senior, Music Composition