Education, Choice and Expectations

Have just finished the first 2 chapters in a new book I bought today (while waiting for ZR at Kino's) called "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less" by Barry Schwarz.

And it got me thinking about a few things that I've been pondering, for quite a while, on my own. Some of the thoughts in this book, is helping me refine some of these reflections.

I've been thinking about my generation. Malaysia's baby boom generation - identified as those born between the years 1967 to 1978 - and those that come after that. And the reasons why some trends have become so prevalent, within this generation.

This is a generation that has MORE of everything. Education, Information, wealth, knowledge, exposure to the outside world through print and electronic media, freedom, choice and expectations. They have more of everything - more than previous generations were ever, fortunate enough to experience.

And yet there are more divorces, more crass materialism, more obsessions with beauty, more suicides, more sexual violence, freedom, promiscuity and diseases, more social problems, more abortions, more underage sex, more extra-marital affairs, more smoking and more alcoholic beverages consumption (by both Muslims and non-Muslims) than ever, in Malaysia.

There used to be a time when moral and cultural norms kept Malaysians within a certain confined moral existence. It was restrictive - people did not question what they were following, because their parents, their leaders, their culture and their religion, ordered them to follow.

There used to be a time, when the whole kampung was your extended family and everyone else's elders are your "parents" too - especially on keeping the young on the straight and narrow.

Now we live in cities. Some of us don't live with our parents, even when we're single and in the same city. Some of us, don't know our neighbours, much less their elders. Some have never stepped into the neighbourhood mosque and met the Imam there. Some Malays hardly speak Malay anymore and most Chinese can't speak or write proper Mandarin, anymore.

This generation likes its space, its individuality. Its freedom not to be bound by the norms of yesterday. Today's generation is more educated than yesterday's generation. Nothing is accepted willy-nilly anymore. The strength of the cultural and religious norms don't hem you in, anymore. You resist societal pressure to conform, whether openly or you rebel in discreet.

This generation knows it has a choice. Education gives them the right to believe that they can be anything they want. That they don't have to fall under any particular labels, roles or character - man, husband, leader, father, woman, wife, mother, married, chaste, loyal.

This generation chooses what it wants to be. As Dato' Seri Musa Hitam used to say: "You can't give people an education and expect them not to think".

I'm not sure "thinking" is the correct word, though.

But this generation is for sure - rejecting. Rejecting anything that stops them from being themselves, that stops them from being happy, that stops them from celebrating their individualities.

Rejecting limits, rejecting bullshit by politicians, rejecting nationalism - after all they are global citizens - they can be happy anywhere around the world, can't they? Rejecting the thought that economic growth is not continuous in Malaysia.

Rejecting religion and anything that reeks of being judgmental. Rejecting race and conformity stereotypes. Rejecting anything that limits choice and freedom.

And this generation EXPECTS to be happy. They don't think they are blessed if they get it - they consider it a birthright, a compulsory element, a must-have, the point of all things. For everyone. Anyone that's not happy - is just really a party-pooper, a drag.

And happiness is non-negotiable, for many today. Whatever the price, whatever norms they break, regardless of how many families they shatter. They've learned the all-important word and person - ME. The individual must be limitless, in his pursuit of happiness - let not God or Man stand in his way.

So much education, even of the wrong types. So much choice, to choose from. So many expectations to fulfill.

No chains. Free from restrictions. Free from dogma - except the right to be happy. That's the ultimate truth, not dogma. Or so they think.

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Reminds me of a passage from Kahlil Gibran:

"The woman of yesterday was a happy wife,
but the woman of today is a miserable mistress.

In the past, she walked blindly in the light,
but no she walks open-eyed in the dark.

She was beautiful in her ignorance,
virtuous in her simplicity,
and strong in her weakness.

Today, she has become ugly in her ingenuity,
superficial and heartless in her knowledge"

And in another part of the same story, Gibran wrote:

"This strange generation exists between sleeping and waking".


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What's my point?

It's the irony of it all. For a generation that has managed to break free of the chains of yesterday's generation - poverty, illiteracy, tyranny, colonization, sexual chauvinism, royal oppression, tradition, etc. - it seems to be trapped in a cell with invisible bars, of its own making.

This generation has no wish to escape this cell. It only knows what it doesn't want. It doesn't necessarily know where its going and whether that destination is a good place.

And whether those expectations are reasonable - how does one measure, if one has no conception of a life, with limits? And blurring lines of right and wrong?

What this generation is asking for, is the individual right and choice - to be lost. In their own world and expectations.

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Perhaps, this generation is more educated. But it lacks wisdom - for knowledge is meaningless, without knowing the value of moral restraint.