Ace Venture 8/27

While discussing Post Modernism in class on Thursday, I was most surprised and intrigued by the concept of "system failure" within our generation. System failure is the idea that systems can not make changes, it is people that make changes. Dr. Rog said that my generation is much more likely to volunteer and to want to incite change. This came as a surprise to me because I've always seen my generation as somewhat lazy because of all the luxuries we have like the internet and new technologies coming to us every day. I see previous generations as harder working and because they seem to be the ones that have gotten us to where we are today. While I'm glad to hear that people my age are willing to volunteer and help for change, our lack of trust in the government and systems is disappointing. Perhaps all these negative events that we discussed when attempting to define post modernism like 9/11 and the Columbia protest are part of the reason that we've lost faith in systems to make effective changes. What is confusing for me is that our systems and government are made up of people, so why can't we trust them to make change? Why when we are asked to vote on a policy or sign a petition we are less likely to do that, but when asked to volunteer and give our time to create change we are willing to do that? It may go back to the "aesthetic of speed" idea that was discussed in class. When we volunteer our time and are actively participating in making a change, we can almost get that instant gratification of seeing the change that we have made. But signing a petition or casting a vote doesn't really give us that gratification. We have to wait until a vote is passed and then wait for a system to process this and then continue to wait to see a change that may not even come. It is not only technology that we want to be faster, we want changes made in the world and in our society to be faster as well.