From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Introduction
Date: 19 Aug 92 11:47:05 GMT
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison


In article <1992Aug19.045611.8967@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com
(Steve Dyer), who though more than 20 years junior to me is
a somewhat tougher buzzard than I am on certain topics,
writes:

>In article <m=!n=+m.jfh@netcom.com> jfh@netcom.com (Jack
>Hamilton) writes:

This was Donald Agarrat:

>>>I am the future.  The future of men, the future of
>>>African-Americans, the future of homosexuality.  You have
>>>the choice between reaching out to me or ignoring me.
>>>Either way, I'll survive ...  you can believe that.

I think Donald said a mouthful.  The main thought I get from
it, and the reason I think it's so important, is this: he
intends (by whatever means necessary) to project himself and
his values (and those are a rapidly evolving set of ideas)
into the future.  This is a far different thing from merely
*letting* yourself get older, I think, though the
distinction isn't important to all the likely outcomes.
Furthermore, he has spoken for the one person (itself a
laudable step, given the alternatives so often seen here)
whose life he can actually be in charge of to some degree:
himself.

So though Donald is what I would call young, a youth that
sometimes shows up as naivete, he has said a very adult
thing, something I see as very sophisticated and wise.

>>I'd prefer to think that people like John Dorrance and Elf
>>Sternberg are the wave of the future.

As an aside, it would not have occurred to me to put Elf on
the "about-20" crest of the wave; he's been around much
longer than Donald, John, Nelson or Trey, in my impression.

Now we get to the wise words of Brother Dyer, who in many
ways is the Mother of this newsgroup, so listen up:

>However, I really have to step in and state the obvious,
>namely that *we* (the over-the-hill gang and those rapidly
>approaching) are the wave of the future.

From the point of view of the new wave just coming on shore,
we are the beach, we are the bulwark against the future.
There are bezillion paradoxes in all this, but it's one of
the eternal truths, cutting across many cultures, that one
generation pulls the one behind it into the future at the
very same time as it blocks the path to the future.

Another truth is that the wave we're talking about has
continuity and discontinuity at the same time.  One
generation flows seamlessly out of the past into the future.
Both past and future are fictions, for only an infinitesimal
present exists.  But the fictions are (better than most
fictions) very real too, and they are as different as things
can be, connectable with one another only by yet another
kind of fiction.  Here's one such:

>Lovegod, John, Elf, Nelson, all of them will become old
>farts like us in a remarkably few years, tender chickens
>suddenly turned to tough old hens, destined to lecture to
>those too fresh 'n clean to appreciate that they'd been
>there before as well.  Just wait for the 25th anniversary of
>soc.motss.

In 16 years, soc.motss will be 25.  Steve will be 52.  I
will be 73.  Nelson and Johh will be 36.  Trey will be 34 (I
think).  Guessing, I think Donald will be about 37.  George
Bush, with any luck, will be in Fundy Heaven and 16 years
out of office.

Here's a relevant thought-experiment: What were you doing in
1976?  Soc.motss was -7, Steve was 20, I was 41, Nelson and
John were 4, Trey 2, and so forth.  The world was a *very*
different place.  Not one of us in 1976 could have *begun*
to fashion in our minds how things would in fact be now, in
1992.  This is certainly true: we can't even guess what the
world will be like in 2008, from today's vantage point.

But we can say with fair assurance, as Steve does, that
today's chicken is tomorrow's tough old bird, and they will
have their heels (long may they wave!) pecked at by pushy,
brash people who are today only 4.  The fiction "queer" will
be being shoved aside by people who have only the vaguest
notion of what happened before they were born, if that.
Various people who are today making spurious distinctions
about "gay" will be yowling their heads off about the
history they've finally managed to live through being
slighted by a new generation of kids in god knows what kind
of get-ups, as a new wave gathers itself to crash down on
them.  And out to sea is the wave behind that one.

In sum: situation normal, nothing to get excited about.

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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