Peter Wood is to speak at the University of Alaska Anchorage on November 4. His lecture entitled "Pre-Occupied: Higher Education, Anger and the Wall Street Protests" will begin at 7:30 PM in Room 307 of the UAA/APU Consortium Library.
The American temperament has undergone a profound transformation since the end of World War II. We went from a nation that treated self-control as an ideal and looked upon anger as a weakness to be mastered, to a nation in which venting anger is treated as healthy and in which public exhibitions of anger are often a source of pride to the performer and entertainment for the audience.
In the last few weeks, “Occupy Wall Street” has emerged as a national protest movement, drawing to a large degree on the anger and frustration of recent college graduates who are unemployed or under-employed. The movement provides a striking example of this “New Anger” in action. Peter Wood’s lecture places the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in the context of how contemporary American higher education fosters New Anger, and by doing so sets its graduates on a path of profound alienation from their own society.
