We are being raised as an entitled generation. Society tells
us to question authority and we are rewarded for speaking out our mind. We
receive reinforcement for having (and fighting for) an opinion. World issue?
Better have a stand on that particular new uproar in a nation that is a few
thousand miles away and (to be honest) have nothing to do with you. Religion?
Either follow one or deny its existence, and go debate about how everyone else
is wrong to adhere to something against your stand. Politics? Support one, diss
the other, or believe that you are too pure to get involved. Homosexuality? Even
if it doesn’t affect you, you still have to have a stand no? Next we’re going
to have people having moral debates about whether it is socially acceptable for
adults to be in love with kids (and there is actually a debate already).
Opinions are everywhere. Social media seems to have
spearheaded this generation of one-sided people. Facebook asks “What’s on your
mind?” and Twitter does the same by asking “What’s happening?” And there is
nothing entirely wrong with having an opinion, right? After all, we are ALL
entitled to OUR own opinion. That is the message we have been told since we
were young. We are living in a world that is increasingly personal. We have
personal mobile phones instead of sharing a communal house phone and we drive
five-seater cars solo. We mess with the
status quo because being radical is rewarded. We draw inspiration from
famous people. From Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler, we see that history
remembers the bold and different – the men and women of rock solid opinion. We
embolden diversity and frown upon the boring and stagnant. We tell people to
follow their wacky dreams and we ignore those who conform to a boring office
job.
In so doing, we raise a generation that yearns for
attention. We raise a generation that grows up to believe that to be heard, you
have to say something that sounds philosophical, controversial, or meaningful.
We ask thought-provoking questions not for the answers but for the sake of
feeling smarter. We share deep thoughts not for the progress of knowledge but
for the number of “likes” it receives. We start debates (more like arguments)
on these deep thoughts that become a battle of who can type the longest comment
or who can outlast the other. We attack people’s opinions with scrutiny, but we
miss the cracks in ours.
Why?
Because we want to be
heard. We are eager for the world to listen to us. So eager in fact, that
we have no time or patience to listen to other people’s eager cries to be
heard. I say ‘we’ because, by default, I belong to this generation. I do yearn
for my voice to be heard, my statuses to be liked and to finally feel that the world cares about ME. I was raised by the
society that said having an opinion mattered and knowing how to defend it to
your dying breath is honorable.
But the question is: What will become of this?
I am not going to propose a three-step solution. There isn't
one that I am aware of. But what I can tell you is that this is not going to
get any better. We have lost something in this generation and with that loss
came a quiet shift from a caring society to an opinionated one. We have lost the ability to listen. We
have lost the ability to accommodate another person’s opinion with our own. We
have lost the ability to treasure knowledge and learn from an opposing view. We
have closed our minds in times when we could have learnt the most. We hear
noise coming out of our antagonist’s lips and we shrug them away. Why? Because…
We are never wrong.
We are entitled.
Our opinions are of great value.
And this is my opinion.
