Sitting last night at a banquet for some honor students, the three 16 year old girls at our table reflected on the rise of the US as a superpower since WWI. (These are honor students, okay? They talk about this stuff.) Their parents sat quietly and just listened to this conversation, amazed at the depth of their understanding of subjects that we learned, if at all, in our senior years in college.
After discussing things like Wilson's 14 points ("too bad nobody paid attention to them," said one girl) and other stuff we adults only vaguely remembered, but which were foremost in the minds of these students who had been furiously writting essays on the subject, one girl reflected, "I guess we're still a superpower, but I don't think that's going to last much longer." She sighed, and we adults all looked at each other and nodded slightly.
How is it that a 16 year old student in suburban Denver understands world politics better than the fellow who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? I want to hug all these 16 year olds and tell them how very sorry I am that my generation hasn't done a very good job of maintaining the legacy of the "greatest generation" and that we were lazy enough to allow things to get to this point.
Still, the evening gave me some hope that this generation might just get it. Maybe our children will save us from ourselves.
Love to all,
Annie42
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