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Voices
of Our Time featuring CREDE Director Roland Tharp
BY ROLAND THARP, Educator
DATE: Friday, May 7, 1999 Section:
SECTION: Front Edition: Morning Final Page: 4A Memo: Voices of Our Time
Roland Tharp of Santa Cruz is director of the national Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence at the University of California-Santa Cruz and a 1993 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award in education.
From your perspective, what have been some of the most important developments of the 20th century, and how will the world be different 100 years from now?
During the 20th century, from the long view of history, humanity was rocked and reeling by gifts from science that exploded in our hands. The invention of powered flight launched a migration of peoples not seensince Genghis Khan, and we cannot yet hold peace even with our families and neighbors.
The invention of the contraceptive pill has freed sex from obligation, thus dissolving restraint, the family and parental authority. Living in this greedy adolescent dream, society has become adolescent, kicking over all received wisdom, defying regulating institutions and treating its own children like bothersome baby brothers. And the gifts of the Bomb and the Chip!
Now we have all power, and all information, ready to hand, while our social morality and spiritual community have regressed to that of the sandbox. The 21st century will be well-occupied with these problems. Either humanity will develop unified values in which self-restraint will have a supporting context, or we will have restraint enforced by a stern unifying State. One way or the other, in 100 years it will be One World, or only pieces of it will be left.
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