Obama: A generation "unburdened"

Posted by Saint Somebody on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:24:43 PM



Press coverage often summarizes political remarks in a single sentence or phrase, It fits nicely into a headline. It provides a device for provoking conversation in the tightly scheduled formats of talk radio or cable news. The utility of these key words is clear. But now and then, it is helpful to review the full text of the speech or response that contained those remarks. The most interesting stuff often has less journalistic utility.

President Obama made headlines back in April at Strasbourg with his remarks characterizing America as arrogant. This became the ‘apology tour’ remark or the start of restoring America’s credibility in the world, depending on your viewpoint.

In another section of that speech, the president reveals the genesis of much of his vision. He said, in part, “Each time we find ourselves at a crossroads, paralyzed by worn debates and stale thinking, the old ways of doing things, a new generation rises up and shows the way forward. Because young people are unburdened by the biases or prejudices of the past. This is a great privilege of youth.”

The biases that burden others typically contain an element of experience that colored the thinking of the individuals involved. Naturally, that experience is not always processed fairly and the conclusions drawn from it are not always correct. On the other hand, discounting the experience of previous generations does not make the present generation better informed.

Those, who are privileged to be unburdened by the biases of the past, are hardly without biases of the present. Those biases may be purer, not so muddied by the experiences of their predecessors, but they are hardly absent. The argument Mr. Obama makes, is not that the new generation is without bias, but that it is equipped with superior biases and is more receptive to change, albeit change of their own making.

It is not the development of social conscience that is the problem. It is the persuasion that one has acquired something new, that one is in possession of something that no one ever had before.

The biases and prejudices of the past are sometimes impediments to embracing new thinking. But, new thinking is a bit overrated. Most of it is not that new, much of it having been considered and rightfully discarded by a previous ‘new generation’.