It's a Disaster!

Imagine for a second, that in making his case for, say, a policy banning mid 20^th century modernist architecture, our Prime Minister advised residents that, say, Winnipeg was an example of why changes were necessary.  “Winnipeg is a disaster,” he would say. “Everyone knows that Winnipeg just doesn’t work.”

How would that make Manitobans feel?

Or what if the province’s Premier, for whatever reason, specifically advised people to avoid Burlington?

It’s hard to imagine the amount of criticism that would follow if an elected representative of a population actively criticised and turned people against one specific area and its businesses.

For the past few months, our Mayor has been decrying my St. Clair neighbourhood as a ‘disaster,’ as an example of why a specific mode of transportation is not a good idea.

It's actually very difficult to get a table at the Rushton without a reservation

Never mind that his comparison is unfair. Never mind that the disaster doesn’t exist, and that the idea that St. Clair is uninhabitable has been rightly corrected. What’s really baffling is that our Mayor, knight of the small-businessman that he is, has actively been advising people to avoid one specific neighbourhood and the stores and restaurants that populate it.

We have a partisan Mayor. That much isn’t new information to anyone who pays attention. Whether through political shrewdness or intellectual inability, he has governed with an ‘us vs. them’ attitude, pitting the suburbs against downtown. It’s not surprising that he’s willing to point to a downtown neighbourhood as an example of backwards priorities. But still, it’s got to be unprecedented to see an elected official so openly selling out an entire neighbourhood to win political points on the other side of town. 

Responding to Dr. Jean Twenge's (SDSU) claim that Millennials are Disengaged

A  recent study conducted by Dr. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University (Generational Differences in Young Adults’ Life Goals, Concern for Others, and Civic Orientation, 1966 –2009) that measured hierarchical values of three different generations (Boomers, GenXers and Millennials) in their respective late teens has been reported on in a variety of media over the past few weeks. Millennials, the study found, show a tendency to valuing “an increasingly extrinsic and materialistic culture that values money, image, and fame over concern for others and intrinsic meaning.” As a Millennial, I find the communication of the study’s results deeply problematic.

The problem with the case being made is that the assumption seems to be that these generational changes occur in a cultural vacuum. It is unfair to measure the character and values of two disparate groups against one another on the same matrix. Indeed, the core differences between Millennials and the groups to which they are being compared is difficult to overstate. Not since the fall of the Berlin Wall have two completely different worlds been forced to co-exist in the same geography and economy.

Millennials are the first generation of the Digital Postmodern Age, and we cannot be measured by the same values and definitions that Boomers and even GenXers understand their world through. It may be difficult to relate, but the pre-internet loneliness of the 20^th century is a vague memory to only the oldest members of my generation.

For instance, it would be difficult to qualify the claim that Millennials treat “intrinsic values (self-acceptance, affiliation, community) [as] less important” when the definitive scope of community has changed to such extremes that it's meaning is completely different to one borne into the digital age. Is the supposition that Millennials are not engaged in their communities actually being made? Or are we only using an antiquated geographic definition of community; one that is irrelevant to most young people.

Millennials are deeply involved in altruistic pursuits, but we act on them on our own terms, in our own communities and in our own languages. It misses the point to fret over how we don't care about the area in which our physical bodies reside when the members of sites such as Reddit, 4chan, and a host of others produce, in quantity, more collaboration and creative output that the artistic communities of entire cities combined.  

It also bears taking a look at the society we are being criticized for not taking a greater interest in. For the last fifty years, dominant culture has been geared towards the coddling nostalgia of the accepted Baby Boomer narrative. When GenXers rebelled against that culture, it was quickly absorbed into a narrative of its own. While people over 30 may see their lives as stories, becoming a narrative is not interesting to a Millennial. This is even evidenced by the study’s finding that “[Millennials] rated developing a meaningful philosophy of life, finding purpose and meaning, and keeping up to date with political affairs… as less important”  With instant access to information, hearing, or even being part of, a long story doesn't have any value to us.

It is important to accept that those who came of age in the digital age will hold different values than their predecessors. The study is right to highlight those changes. To ascribe a character judgment based on those differences, the way that media reportage of the study has tended, is dangerous, unfair, and misses the point entirely.

This guy is so chill in a crisis

A Word Cloud of Rob Ford's Media Scrum This Morning

This shouldn't surprise anyone. Transcript via Posted Toronto

An Occupy Reading of the Posters for Kevin O'Leary's Redemption

Look at the background of the image. Kevin stands behind bars but with bank buildings behind him.

There he is, trapped behind bars in the Financial District. This begs the question: is Kevin, himself, trapped and seeking his redemption? Does he feel guilt at his life of luxury borne of selling shareware computer games? Is he sorry?

Kevin O'Leary is the prisoner. Desperately seeking his own salvation by castigating those who slipped through the cracks not to freedom, but to a new kind of jail.