It's all been done

Everyone I talk to on campus seems to have an extremely bleak outlook on the future. People claim that consumerism, mind-numbing entertainment, and decisions of the man upstairs (Bush, not God) are sending us straight to hell in a hand basket. Some of the more religious folk believe that locusts are going to fall from the sky and we're going to break out in boils. This very well may be.

However, I've scoured many an overpriced textbook, and have found profuse evidence of these situations throughout history:

Boils, Dumb Rulers, and Mind-Numbing Entertainment.

I'm sorry to inform you that everything we're experiencing right now has been echoed through history many, many times before, and probably will continue for many generations. Our ancestors have been through starvation, slavery, oppression, overseas pilgrimages, the Black Plague, corsets, pirates, philosophy, and the Clinton scandal, and still the human race remains as fertile and hardy as ever.

I'm not claiming that the quality of our species has always been excellent, I'm just arguing that it's been consistent. After all, history has a habit of repeating itself.

I guess we can't help the fact that stupidity is in our blood. Bad ideas date back to a time before English had become the official language of Everywhere or the government even existed:

Chimp 1: "Hey Mo, check this out! I'm balancing on my two hind limbs and walking upright!"

Chimp 2: "Freakin' sweet! Let's genetically predispose our successors to this trait, causing centuries of lower back pain and making it even more excruciating for females to give birth!"

Other great ideas in history:

Enslaving an indigenous population because they were different and killing them when they wouldn't convert! Depriving peasants of food in order to build the Palace of Versailles! Puritanism! MTV!

On the subject of entertainment, people are always concerned with the direction the media has taken towards sex. They say that young stars like Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan are nymphets churned out by large corporations in order to create sales. And of course they are being exploited, and they are skank hoes. But history has had its fair share of dirty skank hoes that have successfully marred the name of decency. People just used different language then.

Mary: "Behold that duchess Charlotte, romping about like a brazen hussy! See how her bosom bears itself to the wind, bouncing like dumplings at the king's feast!"

Constance: "Yea, verily."

I guess it would be unfair to neglect the people who have fought valiantly against humanity's long history of stupidity, the constant voice of decency on a planet so ... full of humans. They are usually a legion of rebellious youths who have used their voice to try and eliminate injustices and change the future for the better.

For example, everyone thinks hieroglyphics were created to remember and honor leaders of the time, but I'm convinced they were just journals kept by socially maladjusted and politically angry Egyptian youths.

Something like, "Snake, Pyramid, Squiggly Line, Egret," would roughly translate into, "Oh my god! I hate my parents! And the pharaoh's so stupid - he's squandering all our money on the Siamese cat militia. Vote European Imperialism!

The fresh face of history, youths throughout the centuries have always held an acute awareness and fascination with the world they live in.

Caveman 1: "Oh man, look at Jerry and his wheel. That is so gay. The wheel like totally went out with wooly mammoth sheaths."

Caveman 2: "Nah dude, the wheel's here to stay."

Perhaps the epitome of this fight against history and time still shines in a living generation of rebels, none other than your parents.

Bob: "Hey man, let's totally trash society and smoke our education away and then become straight-edge ultraconservatives who collect decorative plates and drive Plymouth Voyagers!"

Cathy: "Yea, verily."

Blame it on genetics, blame it on not being able to learn from the past, but our world remains steadfast in its values, and probably will for centuries to come. Of course, some horrid natural or nuclear disaster could occur, or we could just become our parents. But hey, that's another column.