”What about me?”, “what’s in it for me?”, “what are my rights?”, “how does it affect me?”, “Why should I care?”. I hear these statements all the time from the latest generations.
We’ve come so far (too far) from “ask not what your country can do for you…”
Why is that? Is it because, as many would argue, that my parents’ generation (the Baby-Boomers) were the first generation to really do well financially? My Grandparents’ generation suffered through the depression, not to mention the Second World War, when the entire nation, not just individuals, was really set back on its haunches by the sheer effort of supporting our troops through six long years. My parents’ generation enjoyed a previously unknown level of affluence emphasised by rapidly developing technology. Even so we have things so much easier now. For example my parents experienced home loan rates that would challenge many current credit cards (>17%).
The current generation, it could be argued, have life given to them on a platter. I’m not talking just about how the majority of parents can afford to give their children more toys in a year than their grandparents had in their entire childhood. I’m also talking about how the Australian welfare system means that people don’t have to work to get by. How as a result of HECS everyone can seek a Tertiary education if they so desire (and have the grades). And yet people treat these benefits as a right, not as a luxury paid for by their fellow citizens.
I shake my head at the long term unemployed who complain about lack of work, but are still fussy about the kind of work they’ll do, and then turn around and complain that unemployment benefits are too low. Think about this: if you are unemployed, everyone who works for a living is paying for your benefits. When you go into a store and are served by an employee, part of the money you give them came out of their pocket.
Maybe that’s part of it. We need to start personalizing the things we take for granted. Instead of thinking of financial benefits as “getting it back off the government”, maybe we need to think of all the other people who have contributed to that resource. Maybe instead of complaining about our taxes, we should be aware of all the things that money is meant to achieve, things we often benefit from ourselves. Things like roads to drive on and the fact we can actually get water, electricity and sanitation services on our own properties. Our taxes mean that there is someone to answer when we dial 000. We can be taken to hospital and receive treatment and not end up with insurmountable debt (unlike some other countries where you can be turned away if you don’t hold the right memberships). Even the fact that unemployment benefits even exist is a result of our taxes.
With the growth of the Internet, information sharing has developed to the point where we treat knowledge as our right, not as a privilege afforded those who study and who seek it out. This has resulted in a demystification of information and a reduction in the perceived standing of educators.
We exercise the right to protest everything, so much so that protesting has become the first choice, not the last choice. We come to the table with demands, but no suggestions how to make them achievable.
We see ourselves as the most important element of our entire world. This has reduced the amount of respect we show others, even those in positions of influence and authority we have begun to accept no authority beyond our own.
We’ve lost our community-mindedness. We no longer look for ways to improve things, to serve our fellow man. Businesses, especially large business (the ones who should be setting the example) are driven to increase profits, not to increase business. When was the last time we heard of a major corporation accepting a reduction in profits in order to reinvest in the development of the company (or rewarding their workers). If they did, it didn’t make the news.
Too many people sit too comfortably under the security provided by too few (and getting too upset when they’re made feel uncomfortable, as if their comfort is their right, rather than their responsibility). All of the “rights” we enjoy have been secured by the actions of our forebears. The protection of our way of life is secured, not by those who take most advantage of it, but by those who give up many of those rights so that the rest of us can exercise them.
How many people realise how close we came to all speaking Dutch, Portuguese, German or Japanese? The dutch didn’t like the look of the place, the Pope had told the Portuguese to keep their hands off, and in regards to the last two, it was almost in spite of our allies, not because of them.
Every time I go to the Australian War Memorial I see Australians from my own generation standing there amazed at the stories of the bombing of Darwin, wide-eyed at the Japanese midget sub caught in Sydney harbour.
When it comes to the Germans and the Japanese the people who went and stood in harms way did so voluntarily. Many even had to circumvent the rules in order to go. Nowadays it seems that the answer to “the call” would be “how dare you ask me?”.
Society has lost the concept of living for something greater than ourselves. For most of the current generations, “I” is the greatest and most important thing in their world. We no longer contribute to society, we benefit from society. It’s not about what we can give, it’s about making the most of what we can get. Then it’s about getting more for the same input. It was recently reported that the majority of Australians pay no net tax. That is, they get the same or more in benefits than what they pay in tax. This percentage is slowly increasing. This means in effect that the financial burden of running Australia is resting on a steadily decreasing portion of the population.
We can’t blame the current generation for where we’ve ended up. Unfortunately many that should have been the guardians of society have failed them and failed them very publicly. Some leaders have fallen spectacularly. Some organisations that used to be held in high esteem lost the respect of society and therefore lost their influence. The political machine has cared more about its own strength and sustainment than the wellbeing of the country and its constituents.
We have created an unsustainable society. Unsustainable economically, socially, and what’s worse, morally unsustainable as our actions are measured, not against a higher standard recognised by the community, but against our own comfort and pleasures.
It makes me wonder what the future holds. Will the pendulum ever swing back? Or will we truly reach a point of no return, where society becomes unrecognisable next to the ideals held by those who shaped this nation?
I know I have posted a lot of negativity. I suppose there has to be a counter-argument. There has to be a set of answers to these problems. The thing is I’m not sure society at the moment is willing to look for those answers, or to even pay heed to them if they were presented.
We can, however, influence our own surroundings. We can start to think of the broader consequences of our actions. I don’t just mean the economic or ecological consequences, bit the societal consequences.
When we seek our own benefit, society often suffers, but when society benefits, usually we end up benefitting too. That also applies to how we interact with each other.
Rather than writing off the latest generations, we should be engaging and educating them. Most, I have found, are willing to listen and more than willing to try, if you can show you genuinely care about helping them make an effective contribution to society. They are not self-absorbed because they want to be, they are self-absorbed because no one has shown them how to be anything else. Winning their confidence is hard as most are coming form a position of high disillusionment.
Instead of complaining about things, we need to act. Even if it’s just a letter to our local member, or to the president of a company, or to local council. Do we really have right to complain if we decline all opportunities to affect the situation?
Is making change easy? No. It’s uncomfortable. It can be embarrassing. It can be difficult. Our best intentions can appear to backfire. If you do something, yes you may fail. If you do not do anything, you’ve failed already.
Most importantly, we need to be modelling the kind of behaviour that society needs. We need to go back to trying to be model citizens and positive contributors to society, even if that’s not the kind of attitude that society thinks it wants.
Do I have all the answers? No I don’t. I know someone who does. Or rather, i know someone who is the solution, and who modelled the behaviour we should all take. But it’s not very politic to mention that these days.
byronsteele 