DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21216#0285
their lives with not working as "warriors of the sun". She has repeatedly said
that she finds american youth harder to reach and less open to what she has to
offer politically than european youth are. Referring to the nuclear freeze move-
ment in America as being mostly an adult movement Baez has asked recently:
Why won't kids leave their classes, their Computers, and their video games and
get involved? Is this apathy of Americans — kids and grown-ups — a result of
a genuine fear that any political involvement comes at the risk of economic
security, or are they simply too self-centered to care? (Humanitas newsletter,
Winter 1984 p. 1)
The above is her recounting of some questions raised at a one hour seminar held
after a Baez concert in the fall of 1983. The participants were some american
high school students from Washington D.C. in a course on nonviolence led by
Baez' friend columnist Colman McCarthy. In the same article Baez quotes
favorably the comments of a sixteen year-old, "Dante" whose "punk" style
included blond spikes in bis hair, black jeans, and a leather jacket. For her this
Student summed up their discussion:
'You see' he said, 'y°u guYs in tne sixties had everything. You had the music,
the issues, the Symbols, the momentum. You had each other; you had glue.
We are missing that. We don't have any glue.' [Baez agrees concluding] We
need some common bonding ingredient — some social and political 'glue'.
When I asked Dante if he'dbe interested in taking risks if he feit that he were
not alone, he said 'sure'. (ibid)
Again the criterion for seriousness is the willingness to take risks. And alack of
a feeÜng of solidarity is seen as inhibiting this willingness. The solidarity must
last longer than the time spent in a concert. Fear, kept to one's seif, is also a
hindrance to becoming active:
It seemed that these kids [in the seminar] were all coping, each in his or her
own private way, with the fear of nuclear holocaust, which has to affect
everyone's behaviour, whether they accept or deny the reality of the Situa-
tion — and that the job of coping is taking up a lot of energy. (ibid)
This Supports my contention that Baez' pedagogical activity must be understood
in the context of our living in an atomic age. Baez would have young people get
this fear out into the open and have them Channel their energy into doing some-
thing to turn the tide of violence. Her song "Warrior of the Sun" (the sun being
a symbol for the anti nuclear movement) does not shy away from depicting the
possibility of extinction, "Will the children of the eighties be ashes or discover
their prime". But Baez judges it harder to communicate this urgency to an over-
280
that she finds american youth harder to reach and less open to what she has to
offer politically than european youth are. Referring to the nuclear freeze move-
ment in America as being mostly an adult movement Baez has asked recently:
Why won't kids leave their classes, their Computers, and their video games and
get involved? Is this apathy of Americans — kids and grown-ups — a result of
a genuine fear that any political involvement comes at the risk of economic
security, or are they simply too self-centered to care? (Humanitas newsletter,
Winter 1984 p. 1)
The above is her recounting of some questions raised at a one hour seminar held
after a Baez concert in the fall of 1983. The participants were some american
high school students from Washington D.C. in a course on nonviolence led by
Baez' friend columnist Colman McCarthy. In the same article Baez quotes
favorably the comments of a sixteen year-old, "Dante" whose "punk" style
included blond spikes in bis hair, black jeans, and a leather jacket. For her this
Student summed up their discussion:
'You see' he said, 'y°u guYs in tne sixties had everything. You had the music,
the issues, the Symbols, the momentum. You had each other; you had glue.
We are missing that. We don't have any glue.' [Baez agrees concluding] We
need some common bonding ingredient — some social and political 'glue'.
When I asked Dante if he'dbe interested in taking risks if he feit that he were
not alone, he said 'sure'. (ibid)
Again the criterion for seriousness is the willingness to take risks. And alack of
a feeÜng of solidarity is seen as inhibiting this willingness. The solidarity must
last longer than the time spent in a concert. Fear, kept to one's seif, is also a
hindrance to becoming active:
It seemed that these kids [in the seminar] were all coping, each in his or her
own private way, with the fear of nuclear holocaust, which has to affect
everyone's behaviour, whether they accept or deny the reality of the Situa-
tion — and that the job of coping is taking up a lot of energy. (ibid)
This Supports my contention that Baez' pedagogical activity must be understood
in the context of our living in an atomic age. Baez would have young people get
this fear out into the open and have them Channel their energy into doing some-
thing to turn the tide of violence. Her song "Warrior of the Sun" (the sun being
a symbol for the anti nuclear movement) does not shy away from depicting the
possibility of extinction, "Will the children of the eighties be ashes or discover
their prime". But Baez judges it harder to communicate this urgency to an over-
280