On the Brink, All Together

I charge you, young soldiers of thought and art, to take up the arms of your talent and to boldly declare yourself. During my time in Salzburg, I have been struck by the amount of confidence that faculty from the States and from Europe, some of whom are very reputed thinkers, profess that they have in the world's youth. I see a tremendous discrepancy between the potential that they suggest we have individually, and the means that we are afforded, generically. That is to say, I can count on my hands the number of occasions that I had to hear conversation about university policy, for example, or to understand a justification for a civil law or a process that seemed to make no sense. But if we are the ones who have all this latent potential, then why not offer us a podium? I do not necessarily think that this amounts to hypocrisy or empty flattery, but it certainly does confound any student (or young person, full stop) who thinks about it critically. Why affirm someone's potential, and then squash their opportunity?

On the Seminar's website, I have extrapolated some of the tenets of this mismatch, which I have started to refer to as the academy disconnect. It seems to me that some of the disparity is directly connected to the concept of change. I have heard the old adage about change being the only constant, but I have also heard the contrasting axiom that those who are the authority are uncomfortable with the rustling of change. It simply will not work to disallow the next generation to take gradual, measured steps onto the pedestals of authority, or to dissolve and resurrect them as we estimate they should be. After all, if the leaders of the future are stifled, they very clearly will not have the full perspective of experience, for it is often one's failures which reveal the new and best way to do a thing. I therefore wish to advocate a change in perspective, as a resolution of this disconnect. Instead of viewing a contrary opinion or a burgeoning young leader as subversive, disruptive, or destructive, let us instead conceive of it or him as a product of the full sum of current leaders and opinions. One person must necessarily replace the next, and if a new and strange philosophy comes with him, then the current generation has no one to blame but itself, for it is the creator of all that is incoming. Thus, the viewpoint that one is being supplanted falls away: instead, a new leader or ideology is left in place of the old one, as its successor but also its progeny. As an apple falling from a tree is not cause for the tree to fear that another will sprout up, rather the old tree should be proud that it will engender some fresh new thing: this is the way of progress.