Disagree

by Steven Macpherson

Created on: May 16, 2009

The assertion that today's youth are not prepared to face the challenges awaiting their generation is to some extent an oxymoron. There never has been or will be a generation fully prepared to face the challenges of the future - yet face it, they must. It is true that a cultural maturation process, not always apparent to those of us with the responsibility of raising, instructing, and employing them, will have to take place. This does not, however, equate to an entrenched ineptness peculiar to this particular generation of youth.

The extent and focus of media attention on youth culture is always on those aspects that are in many ways most conflicting with the values of the previous generation. I am forever amazed at the antics of today's generation of entertainers and why anyone with a remote degree of intelligence would want to emulate them and revere them. I am only marginally comforted that my parents' generation felt the same things about my generation's propensity for drugs, sex and rock and roll. An important consideration here is that while some kids are screwing up many others are growing up in favour with man and with God. It's amazing how many young people once encountered by responsibility find the capacity to rise up to the occasion.

The greatest threat to the next generation is this generation's failure to smooth the path ahead. We have not solved the major issues facing the environment, social justice, world peace and fair trade. We are still a nation where freedom is defined more by the right to acquire wealth and personal power than by issues of justice and equal opportunity. Freedom, as it has always been in America and Canada, remains largely a rhetorical concept used to protect the rich, and co-opt the general population with the promise that they too can experience the allures of conspicuous consumption, if only they work a little harder and smarter. The righteousness of our society is still not defined by the esteem and enablement of its weakest members but by Darwinian rather than empathic principals in terms of a social construct.

The youth of today are more conscious than any other that we live in a global society. What for us is political correctness in terms of racial, ethnic and gender relationships is for them lived reality. Immigrants are not perceived as a threat to their security so much as an opportunity for immersion in multiculturalism. What for us is curiosity is for them a lifestyle. I am amazed at my seventeen year-old's ability to know where the best Jamaican patties can be found, the cheapest pad-Thai, and when he says to me let's do Persian. What's special about this is that he not only appreciates the food - he's gotten this information by interacting with other kids; often from those who actually represent the cultures the foods come from. They are aware of the issues that still confront racial and ethnic harmony but they are not afraid of the kind of social experimentation necessary to conquer the persisting ignorance that has often entrenched members of my generation in fear and prejudice.

Conspicuous consumption is still a temptation that waits to devour or distort any form of genuinely revolutionary social and cultural reform that may be aspired to in the future. Our generation will try to obstruct youth from carrying things too far according to our understandings. We will try to make them serve our agendas rather that discover their own paths. We will resist them and hopefully they will learn a few things from us. But, even more importantly, they will forge ahead in a manner that overcomes the obstacles that we have passed down to them. There may be much they will need to ignore that has been a sacred cow for us if there is to be any truly meaningful change.

I do not believe that today's youth are any less equipped than any other youth generation before them have been to face the challenges of the future. The mess they have to cleanup as a legacy from their parents may be more profound but so is their potential for making real and necessary change.

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