Talkin' 'bout my generation

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked," says Allen Ginsberg in the first line of "Howl," the seminal poem of the beat generation. Ginsberg published the poem in 1956. In it he describes his generation as one that has been destroyed because the spirit and love presented in its most creative minds have been marginalized by mainstream society, plunging them into a world of decadence.\nMany of the best minds of our generation are being destroyed, as well, but the method of destruction is slightly different. Rather than decadence brought on by oppression and marginalization, the great minds of today are destroying themselves with apathy or misbegotten priorities.\nThe Oscar-nominated documentary "The Weather Underground" was screened at Collins last Friday. The film describes the activities of a radical group called The Weathermen which bombed a number of buildings throughout the 1970s in an attempt to overthrow the government. While the group's violent methods are open to much criticism, the film successfully portrays it as objective a manner as possible the almost universal outrage felt by young people at the time over the war in Vietnam and injustices of the U.S. government. I was stricken by the frustration, combined with passion and social consciousness, that could create not just the Weathermen, but the whole spectrum of activism, from the most pacifist to the most violent.\nAfter seeing the film, I spoke with my father, who opposed the Vietnam War, about why our generation lacks what his generation seemed to have in excess. For him, it was quite simple, "We had the draft and you don't." The cynic in me concedes this is true, but I have to believe there is some way to make people care about the larger world in which we live isn't self-interested.\nAbout two-thirds of the way through the picture, Kathleen Cleaver, a prominent member of the Black Panther Party, says the downfall of that spectrum of activism began in the late 70s and early 80s because activists lost their sense of love and humor. Bill Siegel, the documentary's co-director and producer, commented on this scene when he spoke with students after the screening. He called it his favorite moment in the movie, and he encouraged the students in the audience to discover that love and that sense of humor and allow it to be the driving force behind social change.\nSiegel's words were encouraging, but I fear they would fall on deaf ears when it comes to even my generation's best minds. AIDS continues to ravage Africa, war and terrorism plague the Middle East, U.S. civil rights are being threatened by a proposed defense of marriage amendment and right here at home, according to the Indiana Business Research Center at the Kelley School of Business, 18.9 percent of Monroe County lives below the poverty line. And still, finding the best party or building up the best resumé seem to be the only concerns of the leaders of tomorrow.\nOur generation, the millennial generation, has been criticized as the most self-absorbed generation in recent history. We came of age during the Clinton years, a time of prosperity, optimism and media saturation, all of which served to blind us from the problems that still exist and persist to this very day.\nWe don't need to blow up buildings to prove those critics wrong. Many great minds are doing it already -- giving their time, sweat and tears to causes greater than themselves, and they are doing it with humility, love and a sense of humor. If more of our age joined their ranks, perhaps we could discover what Ginsberg, in his "Footnote to Howl," described as "the supernatural, extra-brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul"