Always Look on the Dark Side of Life

As you may have heard me mention before, I tend to believe that things are pretty good in the world right now and overall things are trending upwards. In particular, I think young people today need to be more appreciative of the amazing time we live in and the wonderful opportunities that we've got these days. However, of course many 20-somethings disagree with me. One who definitely does is Anya Kamenetz, author of "Generation Debt". She's of the whine-me-a-river perspective, and her most recent NY Times column is critical of the abundance of unpaid (or paid very, very little) internships that many people get when they are fresh out of college. As someone who's doing an unpaid intenship myself this summer (albeit partially funded as professional development by my present employer...hey, I'll admit that I'm really, really lucky), I was interested in this article. However, as you might expect, my take is substantially different than Anya's. She sees these opportunities (surprise!) negatively, referring to them as corporate welfare and the interns themselves as the equivalent as illegal immigrants. What's nice, however, is how many young bloggers that I respect call her out on this piece, from all sides of the political spectrum. See here, here, here, and especially, here for some responses - they all do a far better job of critiquing her arguments than I ever could.