We Offer a Dangerous Hope
When Andy is released from solitary confinement in the Shawshank Redemption, he returns to his inmate friends to regale how his stunt playing opera music over the loudspeaker system was worth it because music lives within him and offers him hope for something better. Red replies: Red is right. Hope is dangerous. It's what we offer our young people if we communicate it right. We are competing for their attention. The other things our teens are offered are packaged nicely and scream LOOK AT ME! In a recent issue of Time Magazine about why we should have optimism (hope) about where the world is heading, Bill Gates served as guest editor. The introductory article said, "It's probably not surprising that Bill Gates' approach to optimism is rooted in hard figures, specifically in statistics around child mortality rates, poverty lines, and disease rates. Science is numbers, and numbers tell the truth." Among other messages our teens are receiving, thi