Generational survival: Can our young people survive our generation?

BY STEVEN KASZAB

The young people of the day are often criticized for not voting or participating in our electoral and public service efforts. Called bubble wrapped by some, those who attend schools of higher learning face challenges presented to them such as: professors who are not objective but espouse various ideologies of the left or right. Professorial prejudices often place the young student in academic limbo, encouraged to choose their professors preferred political outlook.

Raised to be democratically inclined, our youth often witness the actions of our establishments, which can appear to be very undemocratic. Terms like “Do as we say, not as we do,” hypocritical actions by the administration and police often lead our youth an openness towards misguided ideologies and movements of purported social change.

Our youth are encouraged to insert themselves into local, national and international politics, only to be witness to the horrible events, misinformation and the manipulative nature of global media who present their own interpretation of said events. Media is in fact a business manipulated by corporate and politically friendly owners. So, how can our youth truly believe what is in fact real, truthful, honest and objectively presented?

Our youth will often develop a sense of “Stockholm Syndrome” like attitudes, actions and desires. Desire to change a society that is obviously unacceptable but have an attitude to accept no other message except that which is given by their governments and institutions.

Our youth find the idea of voting in a system that remains the same, changes nothing and has players who all look and act alike to be a waste of time and effort. There will always be bad guys, taxes, raising prices, and diminishing opportunities. One’s outlook can be deflated, filled with nervous tension and even fatalism. War, addiction, premature deaths, abortion, women rights, democracy while supporting and doing business with dictatorships.

To be young, means to create, grow and aspire to positive things. Our national and global experience is seen as the opposite of that approach. There is simply: too much going on, too many people being harmed, too little opportunity, too much misinformation, too much greed to allow our young to develop in a well-balanced, mentally positive manner.

Mental health concerns for not only the youth, but our own as adults challenge us to change our ways, assist each other with an: empathetic, charitable manner, open minds and hearts.

Our young people are our treasure and future hope. If they are screwed up, so too are our future expectations and future goals. We have to continue to work on getting it right.