An Interesting Election

There are reasons not to be surprised.

Photo by Michael Henry on Unsplash

This is written with all of you in mind that were my students over the years.  Perhaps, some of you believed, as I did, that we were more than teacher and student. 

I saw us as a team struggling together to better understand the world, how it works and whether or not change can be for the better. 

I thought of this yesterday as pundits were parsing the election results.  Two insights stand out.  Those under 30 voted strongly for democratic candidates, and overall the results suggest that we are still midway in the midst of a political upheaval that has not yet resolved itself. 

Let’s think about the former.

The best and the brightest of each new generation sees the political scene with new eyes. 

Young men and women, the rising generation enter “stage left” or “stage right” with eyes wide open.  They are not like the rest of us processing information to fit and confirm established views.

Buffeted by the storm and rage, the sullen disregard and the jittery dances of wave upon wave of information, we manage by what psychologists call “confirmation bias.”  That is, we see what we want and/or expect to see.  The rest is the dishwater that we leave in the sink.  Or forget as the whirling blades of the garbage disposer rid us of what was “not nourishing.”

Not so the young.  I always found my students eager to understand.  They welcomed experience.  They did not have biased filters. This has always been true. New generations see, catch and often ride the waves that are developing far from shore. There is logic to this. It is not so much that we older folk are rigid, as we are saddled with an interwoven patchwork of thought that gives less value to, and has less room for, new information and insight.

It is for this reason that many parents and other adults fear what they call the
“indoctrination” of the college experience.   Or accuse professors of brainwashing the “innocents.” 

No.  Young men and women are uniquely positioned to see the world freshly and unafraid.  They are a light for our darkness and are therefore of the greatest value to those of us who understand the often desperate needs of the moment, but lack a clarity of vision and struggle to bear the burden of hope.