Moving Forward!

       There are many upsides and downsides to youth culture and to say that it is either wholly good or wholly bad would be a gross mistake as there are many sides to every story. However, once all is said and done I feel optimistic about the youth of today! The main reason for this is that thanks to the internet there is a growing sense of international connection instead of the false dichotomy and hate-brewing system that was the nationalism of the early 20^th century. What I just said may seem like some sort of radical statement but it really is quite reasonable and I’ll take you through the steps showing you why I think that contemporary youth are on the right track.

       First of all, I think it’s important to show where youth are coming from. In order to show that youth are going in the right direction, we have to know that they come from an era of heavy nationalistic propaganda. The Meriam-Webster dictionary defines nationalism as: “a feeling that people have of being loyal to and proud of their country often with the belief that it is better and more important than other countries”. The problem with nationalism can be seen in its very definition: along with the belief comes to idea that ones’ nation is greater than every other just because it’s your nation. Nationalism was such an issue, in fact, that it is considered the main underlying cause of World War 1 by countless sources, including Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington.

Source: British Library

       Coming out of the era of nationalism were the beat and hippie generations, who went in the polar opposite direction and rejected established social customs, as per Meriam-Webster’s definition of them. Although other hippie values such as peace and love were great, their undoing came at their lack of presence in established culture. This is a problem that youth today are working to overcome with the use of the internet.

Source: Hunter S. Thompson

       According to Sonia Livingstone, prof. of social psychology at LSE, youth are finding a lot of opportunities to express themselves online. As well, many positive social movements such as #Ferguson or #StopTheParade were organized completely online and received a lot of support from other nations such as England and Middle Eastern nations, which shows another way that youth are using the online world to overcome the lack of organization the generations coming before them had.

       In the end, contemporary youth are simply continuing the late 20^th century trend of identifying youth culture as separate from conventional culture, the important difference is their ability to connect with each other. This can be shown in 3 steps: succumbing to nationalism, separation from nationalism, and then organizing a change. Youth today are part of the third step and the future is exciting!

Source: Forbes