When we are born, we are thrown our first ethical dilemma: a paradoxical conflict in which we must contemplate society’s ambivalence for whether tears are praiseworthy or shortcoming. For the first time, and potentially the only time in our lives, our tears will be celebrated. As our bodies enter this unsettling, unfamiliar environment, we are led by our instincts – our desire to breathe and fear to live. Amid the chaos, we are taught perhaps the most valuable principle of our lives: resilience. During infancy, we excel in the field of resilience; we learn to get back up on our chubby, twelve-inch legs when navigating the intricacies of the art of walking, and we dare not hold grudges toward our siblings who play with us a little too rough. However, as time goes on, many of us lose this essential quality. The root of our demise may stem from a lack of interpersonal trust, or perhaps the oversimplification of our entire existence.
As of present, Gen Z is enduringly maligned as lacking self-efficacy, grit, toughness, a growth-mindset, and adaptability. Studies have shown that Gen Zers have turned normal challenges of growing up into insurmountable obstacles: a testament to said lack of resilience. While such accusations are largely comparative and outdated, I would argue that there is truth behind the claim. But, in allowing the claim to ring true, we must delve into the causes: (1) a craving for stability, (2) a lack of “safe spaces,” and (3), arguably the most influential, the effects of essentialization. I have spent the past 4 months of my life studying in Johannesburg, South Africa at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership aiming to unpack these exact flaws and understand how our post(ish)-pandemic environment has shaped my actions and ways of thinking.
You see, Gen Zers are coming of age facing challenges unprecedented to other generations. During perhaps the most critical period of our lives – mid-adolescence – we have been fed a pandemic paired with significant social injustice upheaval. In the thick of loneliness and tension, it is no wonder that we, as a generation, crave stability and cower at challenge and change. For a long time I was a victim to my own elasticity--I allowed overly pessimistic views of the world to dictate my behavior and comments. At one school meeting during my time in South Africa, we were given a quiz testing our perception of the world’s condition; my failing score and continued underestimation of society evidenced my lingering pessimism from these times. I perpetuated this avoidance of agency by choosing to remain invulnerable during conversation; I was apprehensive that funneling in new ideas and challenging the status-quo would be sacrilegious – against the gilded values of my generation. I imagined my peers condemning my ideas as undermining the flaws of society and felt that there would be no way to recover. A lack of resilience from both parties ultimately contributed to crafting our conversation space – a space which appeared to me as a savage battle ground.
I see our greatest generational flaw as peer encouragement, whether intentional or not, to remove “safe spaces.” In the same fashion in which we desire breath – a desire predicated on space for our lungs to expand and contract – we desire a space for our beliefs to expand, contract, and transform. However, our yearning is impeded on by our generational lack of adaptability. In earlier periods of my life, I “fear[ed] to live” because no matter where I let my beliefs traverse I felt criticized. In parallel to Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, I was the inmate under constant surveillance of Gen Z's tower of “rights” and “wrongs.” As Michel Foucault discussed in his book Discipline and Punish, the inmate was always conscious of being visible – just as I was conscious that each word I spoke aloud could be twisted and held against me. In the past few months, I have witnessed my fair share of volatile spaces – be it a conversation on cultural appropriation in my semester program’s residential common space, or a debate on conservatism and preservationism in US history class, it appears to me that precedents of confidentiality are too often nonchalantly breezed over.
On March 20, 2021 I was accepted into a program in which I expected to engage in growth discourse: vigilant, respectful conversations that enticed empathy. Yet, on varying occasions, I was met with judgment – evidently, our generational flaw was everyone. I was deeply disappointed when I noticed that multifaceted topics were boiled down to hasty generalizations and turned conversations counter-productive. Taking from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” some, including myself in a number of moments, confine their ideology to one dwelling – an echo-chamber actively blinding their vision to others’ ideas. During our discussion on cultural appropriation, I believe many of us were in our own caves. Later reactions to the conversation revealed a lack of interpersonal trust – however, in all the moments that I’ve contemplated the situation I see limited malicious intent. Although an oxymoron, I see these particular reactions as simply flawed benevolent judgment. Judgment in which participants admirably held with their values, but in doing so failed to analyze the complexities of the topic.
More often than not, racial or ethnic identity is brought into these critical conversations. Gen Zers appear exceedingly fixated on the theory of identity politics – a political approach wherein people of a particular gender, religion, race, or social background develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. However, because of my biracial heritage – half white, half Asian – I am often ostracized by modern values of identity politics. For the speaker's benefit, my identity can be oversimplified or used to justify their calculus. In this particular conversation, it seemed as though my white genes excused me from racial discrimination and my opinion as a person-of-color was invalid. To pigeonhole me to one aspect of my identity is to undermine the alienation, the discrimination, and the celebration of my other half.
We, as a generation, often fail to see the many facets of an argument or even a person. In my opinion, cancel culture is at the very heart of this dilemma. Said behavior, although benevolently intended, for we are the progressive generation, brings anxiety to discourse. Last month I held conversation with a Muslim from Egypt over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – an issue which, in theme, is often oversimplified and misguided by media. Despite negative comments made toward my religion, Judaism, and fear of being “canceled,” I chose to understand, listen, and, in the spirit of resilience, recover from difficult moments. Audrey Lorde in “The Transformation of Silence Into Action” writes that we must speak our truth “even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” I encourage just that. To foster truly productive conversation, find resilience amid the flaw and change the environment of your next discussion.