On Youth, Power & The Need For Caution

Dear Kenomola,

There is a certain arrogance associated with youth. We believe that we know better, (not necessarily more) than the older generation. We express it in our exasperated eye rolls and sighs.
It is evident in our impatience with the dated ways of our elders. We show it in some of our expressions too,

‘We did not inherit the silence of our mothers.’

I used to take pride in this statement until last week. It made me feel warm to know that women are speaking out now, more than ever before. But that statement isn’t a true reflection of things, and this article was the eye-opener for me.
We need only look back at our history to see reflections of women who were stalwarts. Documented evidence that the strength of our speech or the revolt of our actions is nothing new. Our mothers and their mothers, and indeed, all the women, known and unknown whose travails and dalliances culminated in us, were not silent.

The advancements we are proud of did not come solely from us. They are products of the struggles of those before us.

We are not radically different or better than our parents or their parents. We are just as flawed as they are/were. We are just as human. Indeed, in some ways, it is safe to say that we are regressing.

One of these ways is in the emergence of virtual jungle justice, a.k.a cancel culture. At some point, you’ve probably been part of the move to cancel someone. Honestly, a good number of these ‘cancellations’ seem to have justifiable premises. The crimes are heinous enough.

But, there is a reason why we set up systems. There is a reason why we have the legal system that we should put in more effort into refining. Institutions exist to serve us, to protect us from the worst versions of ourselves. They are not perfect, because we are not. So, we must keep refining these systems.

What happens though when there is a vacuum where a system should be? Nature abhors emptiness, and so, spaces must be filled.

Young people all over share a mutual distrust/disgust for established systems. We grew up believing in them and watched them fail us. We watched heroes of these systems become villains. In some cases, these systems did not even exist, and with the advent of social media, we were able to wield a new kind of power.
A power that gave us the ability to administer justice that was sorely needed. That power is the ability to cancel. The ability to taint the digital identity of a person permanently. Uncle Ben in Spiderman (The best Spiderman anyway, Tobey Maguire) said,

‘With great power comes great responsibility.’

Hence, we must wield this power with care. Social media is intoxicating, it is the stuff that revolutions are made of. We have moved from refusing to give up our seats on a bus, from the idea of a land where all men are truly equal, to a world where words that appear on our screens can spark riots, virtual and physical.

Words have always been powerful. Words will always be powerful.

When we venture to type on our screens, to incite and invoke the powers of cancel culture, the very least we owe ourselves is the veracity of our claims.

Our truth must be the truth, not our idea of it.

Also, we owe ourselves justice and kindness. The most progressive prisons in the world have turned to the proper rehabilitation of the inmates. Religion is onto something in preaching love, forgiveness, and redemption while talking about justice and judgment. It may seem paradoxical, but it works.

When we install ourselves as systems in the absence of a working one, we take on the full responsibility of an institution. We are responsible for the false positives- the innocent that are unjustly convicted, in our administration of justice. The false negatives- the guilty that escape, and all the other failures of the system.
If you are bold enough to label someone something, it behoves you to verify your claims. Also, the accused must have a free and fair hearing. There is nothing fair about social media neither is it free (there is no freedom of expression or allowance to disagree with the status quo). Stop making yourself into a system. You are not objective enough or trained enough.

I said we were regressing earlier because we are returning to age-old traditions of stoning the accused and condemning them. We are reverting to jungle justice, albeit a digital one.

There is something arrogant about youth. The supercilious belief that we know better and we are better. Yet, we share the same failings of those before us.

We struggle with being kind, with being honest, and with giving and receiving wholesome love.

There are very few new problems, just the same old challenges wearing new masks.

Avarice, gluttony, lust, intolerance, anger, envy, pride, oppression are at the core of our struggles.

I don’t think the list is exhaustive anyway, but, I rest my case here