The Apathetic Decade
By most accounts, the last decade was the perfect time to grow up. Those of us who were born in the ‘80s or ‘90s were young enough to experience a childhood blessed with the Internet. And it shows. We intuitively grasp technology, are good at multitasking, relatively well-informed and couldn’t have it any other way. Sure, future employers might frown upon our deteriorating spelling skills brought about by the wonders of text messaging, but rest assured, Microsoft Word’s Spell Check has that covered.
Technology, however, is not only one way to define the child of the 2000’s. There is also the relative peace, freedom and prosperity that embodies our post-war, post-martial law environment, the only one that we’ve ever known. Our grandparents fought against foreign rule, and our parents against a dictatorial one. We had none of that. As a testament to the privilege of our time, in place of real armed conflict, we were raised on virtual ones through unhealthy servings of Counter-Strike (or at least I was).
It seemed like such a happy decade. The combination of worldwide technological advances coupled with the chance to enjoy the freedoms for which those before us had fought has created a generation raised in enviable circumstances. Yet these circumstances also have their faults. This generation has been accused of Internet-inspired decadence and complacency. We are castigated for misplaced priorities and choosing to waste the best years of our life straddling both Facebook and YouTube. And although the Internet has made us well-informed, we are thought to be relatively conservative, at least compared to the activists that came before us, or just outright apathetic. Such beliefs can only be seen as generalizations at best. That is, if they are at all true. Regardless, if we really are a generation of apathetic, uninspired youth, there must be other reasons why.
Welcome to the 2000’s, a generally unexciting decade. It is a time of peace and prosperity marked by the end of the Cold War and the triumph of capitalism and democracy around the world. And while it’s closer to paradise than anything the 20th century had to offer, if we are to be brutally honest, it is also incredibly boring — at least in the sense that, amid all this progress, there isn’t much that a teenager like myself can fight for, no grand struggle to be a part of, nothing to get really, really angry about.
Teenagers need something to feel indignant about, like a rebel in search of a cause. But the 2000’s didn’t really give us much of those. These were happy times. Whatever few ink blots there were couldn’t really measure up to those of the past. The resistance against America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never gained the momentum of those against Vietnam. And while George Bush reached the same pits of unpopularity as America’s most dubious president, Richard Nixon, even Bush’s harshest critics recognized that, unlike Nixon, Bush was neither scheming nor devious. Just confused.
Even our very own president — who has inspired a cynicism towards government that has defined the world in which Filipinos of this generation have grown up — falls somewhat short. No matter how much anger she provokes, I’d imagine that couldn’t measure up to the indignation inspired a generation earlier by having our country placed under complete martial law.
Such fights for freedom have been romanticized in the books that this generation pores over as our only means of understanding what to us is merely history. And it is that same fight that has, for ages, captured the imagination of the youth. No less than the fight against imperialism began with the youth. Che Guevara was 31 when he was pictured with that iconic gaze that embodies the revolutionary spirit, young and idealistic. Our very country was built by the youth. Rizal died aged 35, Emilio Jacinto likewise at 23 and Aguinaldo was sworn in as president at 29, an age not unusual for Katipuneros. Yet those were wildly different times. In the first decade of the 2000’s, the great, romantic struggle did not exist; a great apathy took shape among the youth and the decade lost its soul.
You noticed it in the decade’s pop music, which in a way can be related to its politics. For if conflict and turmoil have inspired great artists in the past, like with the flourishing of the arts after the First World War, I couldn’t help but feel that, in the 2000’s, the opposite was true. The result? The decade’s best-selling album was a greatest hits compilation of songs by The Beatles, and the biggest newsmaking artist (still) was Michael Jackson.
It would be a disservice to the past decade however to pretend that the lack of something along the lines of an assault on freedom meant no great challenges remained. That is far from true. It was disheartening to see the decade come to a close with what could turn out to be its greatest failure. “Could” is being generous. Most say it already is. But it doesn’t have to be. Now the burden has been passed to yet another conference for which world leaders will once again hop onto their private jets in all likelihood to return without a binding deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. That is, unless we rid the apathy that has defined the last decade.
Past generations defeated imperialism and eliminated fascism, fought for freedom and won. The challenge for our generation then is not a fight for democracy but the environment. No one said it was going to be easy, but at the very least we know that this generation of rebels has finally found its cause.
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For comments and suggestions, e-mail me at levistel@gmail.com.
