Letters to the Editor: Negative Nancies

Published October 16, 2007

Sometimes reading The Water Tower inspires our readers to get naked and fight the power. But most of the time, they just send e-mails.

In regard to the article “ Why I Pity My Generation,” I applaud your ability to make remarkably overarching and would-be ominous statements, but get real here.You cannot make a few pop-culture references and expect your edgy point of view to have any relevance.

And don’t start your article with “we are the oddest generation yet” because there is absolutely no way to quantify that statement, and it seems very naïve and ridiculous to assume, let alone publish such a thing.

You make a few good points about the alienation of our generation through the ideals that have been instilled in us (i.e. get the degree, job, etc.), but then you dash any amount of credibility with your assumption of a common reaction in our generation to something like 9/11, or even MTV. As someone who was living in Europe at that time, I can certainly tell you that not everyone our age reacted in the same way.

The Real World does indeed suck, but people are capable of making their own distinct choices and so I think that your wonderfully eloquent, “chicken with its head cut off” analogy is completely irrelevant, though I would say that taking the typical “college kid” attitude seems to have been the path of least resistance. So here’s a tip: broaden your mind a little bit. I know it’s considered “cool” to be nihilistic and cynical, and to write such enormous blanket statements as “We blew it.” (Hell, you even used repetition- that’s a literary device!) But please, reflect a bit and try to realize that there is actually no possible way that what you say can be correct: “No changes will happen. Ever Again.”

There are great expansions in scientific and artistic realms every day; why don’t you pick up an actual newspaper and read about them, and if you’re going to give up on yourself, don’t you dare assume that the rest of this generation is going to follow suit, printing passive-aggressive articles that reference Family Guy.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Brooke Morrison

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