Flashes of Panic

Beloit College has published its Mindset list for the class of 2009.

I’m not as impressed with this list as I once was; sometimes I think they’re getting a little lazy about the specific years. Yes, it probably means something that these students “have always lived in a single-superpower world,” and that’s relevant; the dozen or so years I have on them means I grew up with a Cold War and they didn’t. But noting various television ad campaigns? I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, except reminding professors that catch-phrases they’re used to may just confuse their students.

I’m also troubled by their free use of the word “always,” for example, “Biosphere 2 has always been trying to create a revolution in the life sciences.” Really? Constantly? Sure, I remember when B2 was in the news when they started, but I thought they had failed by now; certainly we’re long past the point of revolution. I think the only people who have “always been trying to create a revolution” are the dogmatic Communists. (Unrepentant Marxist-Leninists, not mere socialists, that is.)