Information Era and Young People

UNESCO recognizes the Mexican tradition of  ``Día de los Muertos'', as part of humanity's cultural heritage.

I have been telling this to my students here in Guerrero. They listen, and think that their cultural traditions are not so quaint after all. They had a four day break, and some went to their towns where they remembered people that are not with us anymore. This is a millennial tradition.

You can read a history of this celebration here.

Recently high schools in Mexico have started organizing these activities on school grounds. Now we also have Halloween in Mexico, and Grim Fandango is based on this cultural tradition also.

Mexican and Mexican American children then, are getting a taste of these millennial practices.

Children do it here, because our parents taught us, and they learned from their own parents in a long chain to the past.

What is so special about the current emphasis on Information?

Culture which started with grains, leads to this remembrance of ancestors. Without basic needs satisfied, religious practices do not appear. Therefore for close to 10,000 years humans have been developing ever more sophisticated means of communication. Several million people in the Western World, get connected at the end of October, and beginning of November, when supposedly the doors are open for direct interaction between these two realms, the realm of the dead, and the one of the living. Food is left for the dead to take during this time of opportunity.  Other people are also welcome to share the food, delicious expensive food.

Nowadays we get in contact with people that are not in the same room with us. With modern Information Technology devices, it is like if they are there. The NewScientist reports:

``Holography has just gained a fourth dimension, bringing the prospect of Star Wars-style holographic telepresence into the real world.''

Our minds are getting more and more tuned to this odd ``thing'' called Information.

Are we seeing the dead, or are we seeing a hologram?

Could it be that our ancestors saw the departed, and couldn't teach us how to do it?

Be it as it may. We are in the Information Era, and Young People could teach us the way to the laws of this thing we call Information.