Philosophy
Been thinking of an off-hand joke Kerry made yesterday that implied that his generation, the Baby Boomers, had more sex in college than my generation, Generation X. The cultural narrative is that the Boomers were the generation of free love, while we were the generation AIDS. Sex for them was a political act, a subversion of the Ward and June Clever image of the world that the 50s forced on them, whereas for us, sex became the infectious disease version of Russian roulette. The accepted wisdom is that because of this difference, we had less sex. Is this story true? I was a physics major at the time, so anecdotal evidence I could provide would be flawed.
What of the current generation of college students. If Tom Wolfe is to be believed, free love is back. Is this all nonsense? Is the rate constant across generations or does it change significantly with other sociological factors?
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Philosophy
Generation seX
Been thinking of an off-hand joke Kerry made yesterday that implied that his generation, the Baby Boomers, had more sex in college than my generation, Generation X. The cultural narrative is that the Boomers were the generation of free love, while we were the generation AIDS. Sex for them was a political act, a subversion of the Ward and June Clever image of the world that the 50s forced on them, whereas for us, sex became the infectious disease version of Russian roulette. The accepted wisdom is that because of this difference, we had less sex. Is this story true? I was a physics major at the time, so anecdotal evidence I could provide would be flawed.
What of the current generation of college students. If Tom Wolfe is to be believed, free love is back. Is this all nonsense? Is the rate constant across generations or does it change significantly with other sociological factors?
- One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest And The Birth Of American Freedom
This is the 50th anniversary of the publication of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Few books hit me as hard as that one did -- only Hiroshima and Death of a Salesman have affected me that deeply. It's not only a timeless allegory,...
- Oprah, Bob Dylan, And Middle Class Neuroses
Yesterday was Bob Dylan's 70th birthday and today is Oprah's final show. In a certain sense, the work of both have been about the same exact thing, the neuroses of the American middle class. Dylan's rise to prominence came as a result of...
- The Feast Of Saint John
My Fellow Comedists, This weekend would have been the 52nd birthday of John Belushi, the Hunter S. Thompson of comedy. He was born in Chicago to first-generation Albanian-Americans in Chicago, growing up just outside the city. In high-school, he was a...
- Student Entitlement Or The Usual Whining?
Interesting article in the National Post, "'Entitled' Students Expect Better Grades". The thesis of the piece is that students today widely believe that in college moderate effort ought to necessarily translate into good grades: Most university...
- Send More Chuck Berry: Music And Politics
This is far too rich not to comment upon. John McCain had been using Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Good as a campaign song. But now that Berry has come out as a strong Obama proponent, he's switched to...wait for it..."Take a Chance on Me" by ABBA....