September 27, 2006: Generation M in the World

The discussion on libraries and search continues vigorously on Confused of Calcutta. JP Rangaswami continues to champion the "unvarnished selves" of Generation M and the wisdom of crowds of such minds. Fortunately, John Dodds was keen enough to recognize the difference between unvarnished and untouched (which I think was part of the story that the above issue of Time was trying to tell). JP's response was to invoke Clarence Fischer and Judy Breck, almost as if they were cultural icons. Since I have always tried to be an iconoclast, you can imagine how I react to cultural icons! However, the stuff that Clarence Fisher does come "from the trenches;" and, to invoke Dodds' terminology, if anyone knows how to “touch” Generation M, Fisher is a likely candidate and, if I am to believe what I have read about him, one who deserves all the awards and recognition he has received. Unfortunately, he is only one person; and that has two implications:

1. First, I suspect that his skill in “touching” is inversely proportional to the number of people he has to “touch;” and it remains to be seen how “reproducible” (to invoke Giddens' language) that skill is.
2. Secondly, as my father has always delighted in saying, “One is not a statistic!”

To develop that point, I really cannot figure out, for the life of me, just how good Judy Breck’s Golden Swamp is at “touching.” I do not need to be sold on how cool it is, but that may be the problem. To invoke another metaphor, my concern is that Golden Swamp may be one of the best circuses on the Web at a time when we have all those students (and probably plenty of teachers, too) hungry for bread. (All those jokes comparing the Bush Administration to the Roman Empire are finally beginning to register with me!)

Don’t get me wrong. It is not my intention to disparage cool. However, just as there has never been a Royal Road to Geometry, there will never be a “Superhighway to Being in the World.” I am not just concerned that Generation M may be untouched by teachers who can guide without disrupting those “unvarnished selves;” I am concerned that the extent to which they perceive the world through their media experience may be leaving them untouched by the world itself!

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones includes a story about the master teacher of Zen, Gasan (an unvarnished self if ever there was one). The story goes that he was visited by a university student who brought along a copy of the New Testament and read him passages from the Sermon on the Mount. After hearing the text, Gasan said, “Whoever said that is not far from Buddhahood.” If we cannot communicate with Generation M through today’s classrooms, can we at least figure out how to “touch” them as the student “touched” Gasan?