Once again stuff from outside one's domain can be a serious kick to the head. This one comes from uber-curmudgeon James Howard Kunstler. He addresses an issue I smash up against in education circles--disagreement. When I disagree, I am branded as negative at best and ignored at worst. I get pretty bent when I get treated like a troll and all I want is a conversation. His remarks here are a nearly perfect echo to that frustration.
I don’t like talking about "solutions." I prefer talking about intelligent responses. My beef with the whole "solutions" thing comes from my travels around the country, talking on college campuses and such; there is this whole clamor for "solutions." The idea is, if you’re not optimistic enough, you should shut up. But there are subtexts to all these things. And the subtext to that particular meme is, "Give us the solutions that will allow us to keep running our stuff the same way we’re running it now, except by other means." They don’t really want to hear about other arrangements. They want to keep on running all the cars, only differently. You know, like hybrid electric cars, or electric cars, or cars that run on algae secretions. But they don’t get that we’re done with that way of life. The mandates of reality are telling us something very different. They are telling us we have to inhabit the landscape and move around in it very differently in the future.
You gotta love it: mandates of reality, the prevailing subtext, and 'done with that way of life'. Read the whole article and hope he is wrong. I don't think he is.
James Howard Kunstler on Why Technology Won't Save Us | Jeff Goodell | Politics News | Rolling Stone
