There’s a lot said about my generation. That we’re lazy, stay at home with our parents forever, lack personal responsibility and values. These are all generalizations based on studies and college campuses, but what lies beneath is an extremely divided generation. I think a lot of this has to do with the control and forced manipulation of speech and behaviour that began as we were in school. Many were happy to say differently-abled or handy-capable instead of handicapped. They were fine with having contact sports removed, and contact schoolyard games banned from the playground. They grew up into the adults who wanted to change sports, police what can be said on college campuses. These are the people who define Millennials, but there was another group.
This other group grew up without helicopter parents. They played dangerously, said things like “You’re retarded” or “You’re gay” even though they had no malice towards these groups. They understood that a certain amount of conflict is necessary to be strong. They grew up watching Bum Fights and CKY, where people did outrageous things for money, and South Park, which wasn’t afraid of offending people to make serious critiques of our society. How did these two groups possibly grow up in the same era? The answer is censorship, and how it creates fragile people, and a fragile, polarized society.
When you decide that ideas should be censored, then you create a void that needs to be filled. In modern society, the censors are in the media. They craft a narrative that won’t lend credence to any right-wing narratives. This means playing down race when a minority kills another minority, or even worse, a white person. The opposite is true if the situation is reversed. Women and people of colour who do great things are saints of the woke, and cannot have their names tarnished, and the LGBTQ community can do no wrong. Meanwhile every small flaw of a white man is reported on, which to be fair, is their job. This subtle manipulation is easy to spot, and breeds mistrust in those taught to think critically. They want their media to provide a counterpoint to the popular narrative, and to accurately inform people. The group that watched South Park and understood it can see this problem, and speak out. The group that created safe spaces sees this as a sign of white supremacy and the patriarchy, because they have been taught that is the only logical reason someone would not want to join in on their censorship. They believe they are the saviours of western civilization, not the ones destroying it from the very foundations.
To return to the void created, what has filled that void? Podcasts, YouTube videos, alternative news groups. Some of these are great, and do a great job of being impartial and questioning. There are also those who question the narrative purely to push their own. This is nothing new really, but the amount of people pushed towards them has skyrocketed because of this censorship on campuses and in the media. Those searching for truth will not always find it, and they may make a lot of wrong turns along the path to it. The media’s choice to ignore inconvenient facts and opinions, instead of shining a light on them and exposing the problems, has created the demon they are desperately trying to dismantle by, ironically, trying to censor more. The left leaning government has also joined in, as they are happy to have everything reported in a light that favours their ideology. This has created a very real and dangerous victim culture, because you cannot be questioned if you’re a victim of the “right-wing”, you are powerful and brave, as I mentioned earlier, a saint.
This culture and counter-culture has created a generation deeply divided, much like that of the 60’s and 70’s. Ironically it’s the culture that is doing the most violent protesting now. It is still the same side, but they have already become the dominant culture. One would think the media would be questioning why this is, but that would be to question the greater good, which is not the truth anymore. The issue with the polarization this time, is that it’s between the left and the center. The right that they think they are still protesting against is mostly dead and gone, an angry minority. While they once protested for equal rights, it is now special treatment, and the media isn’t there to point this out, and this silence is validation to them. Ironically, the group that says “silence is violence” is the one who’s violence is being condoned by other’s silence.
Where do we go from here? Most can see the collapse of legacy media looming, and maybe as much as that is scary, it’s necessary. As much as openly partisan left-wing and right-wing media will rise to further power out of it, I think a strong centrist media of intellectual fearlessness will rise out of the ashes as well. Hold on everybody, it’s going to be a rough ride.