Tuesday, August 25, 2009

When Dissing Stinky Old People Is Good Enuf

What is this?

Oh, it's Coco Masters and Hannah Beech. Together.

Never let a preconceived notion or a naked prejudice remain unpublished, I always say.

Seriously, is trumpeting elements of an alienated youth culture at a time when the society at large is embracing change not a kind of intellectual crime? "Yes, a revolution is set to happen on the national scale but block all that out of your mind. These supercool young persons are the real drivers of societal change. Their actions and thoughts affect, oh, dozens of their fellow citizens at any one time!"

Meanwhile, Tobias Harris has ventured where angels fear to tread, into the mind of presumptive prime minister Hatoyama Yukio, via the article Hatoyama published in Voice.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are some elements in this article which make me wonder how well it was researched-my guess is that the NPO director they interviewed probably said she was involved in education because that's the category the organization is registered under.

But, the idea that lots of people are disaffected and that lots of people involving themselves with NPO's aren't mutually exclusive. People are joining NPO's because they think party politics has limits.

And that in turn doesn't preclude voting.

So what's the point in running down the NPO scene which this is a faithful peice of press for? For that matter, what's wrong with 'changing the lives of dozens of people?'

I don't want to be pushy or ad hominem, but I know a number of people who work with (not at) NPO's and social welfare organizations who have tried to help out with the DPJ campaign this time around.
Frankly, the DPJ people haven't treated them very well or displayed much understanding of the needs of NPO's or the communities that the NPO's serve.

And, interestingly enough, the DPJ is expected to lose this district.

Not because they're pissing off NPO's, of course, but because they've already given up on this district as too tough to fight.

And in turn, the NPO people are getting more disllusioned with party politics.

Mitchell said...

I flipped through that article in a newspaper store, and my principal thought was that all the facial expressions seemed to be the same. I'm now wondering if this was the work of the Time Magazine photographer - were they told that "all subjects must look serious and self-distancing, with a slight frown"?