Monday 8 April 2013

Generation Different-Wavelength-Altogether


It is no secret that we are experiencing a massive generational gap. Young people today have different opinions from previous generations on a multitude of things – such as marriage, homosexuality, health, cohabitation. They also have a completely different way of viewing the world, which is too often through social-media goggles.

It’s not to say that all their viewpoints are bad. There are also more people who support once uncommon notions like conservation, house-husbands, women who juggle career and family, freedom of speech. But a lot of widespread opinions seem rather detrimental to me.

Take the recent Golden Globes, where host Seth MacFarlane performed an original piece citing actresses and the movies in which they exposed their chests. Long-term actresses, such as Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Fonda and Geena Davis, were quick to voice their indignation. This wasn’t the case for younger actresses, who like Jennifer Lawrence, were just amused. They don’t seem concerned that the song was disrespectful to women, which scares me because it suggests that they’d let even worse things go.

But even more shocking, is a recent sexual assault case in Torrington, Connecticut. Two 18-year old males were arrested, charged with the statutory rape of two 13-year-old girls. And instead of the expected outcry at such a crime, young people took to Twitter with a passion to not only defend the accused, but also to condemn the victims! I am actually at a loss for a way to explain this. There’s nothing to say - it is plain heartlessness, and wrong.

The media harps on about a generational shift in regards to same-sex marriage, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The opinions of young people seem to lack a general thinking through. They have an outlook that mimics the majority, judgments that don’t consider consequences, assessments based on the sentiment of the moment or on an excessive tolerance, and often a tendency to indifference.

Read more at Mercator.Net.

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