Young People Problems ICA

You should complete this before class ends today (or within an equivalent amount of time if at home).

Read Alistair Mackay's "Young People Problems" from Adda.  (Note that this website estimates the story should take you about fifteen minutes to read; YMMV).

After you've read the story, write a reading response. Be sure to follow the directions for doing that.

In the same document, respond to the following:

1. "Young People Problems" is a dystopian story.  Dystopian stories rarely reveal much in the way of specifics about how the world  or a place became the way it did, and we're left to kind of guess what exactly happened.  Given the details of the story, how did the area in which the story is set become the way it is? In other words, how--and why--have young people come to have the power that they do?
2. Dystopian stories often traffic in this idea: we didn't deserve this, but we asked for it anyway. In what ways does the story work with this idea?
3. Read section IV here.  What cultural anxieties are revealed? (N.B. There's more going on than just the environmental stuff.) 
4. Based on the same section, what "virtues" have been lost in the world of the story? What virtues seem to still be present?
5. Explain what you think the last line of the story means.
6. Mackay is from South Africa, does the story seem specific to that part of the world, or it it more universal than local? Explain your thinking.