An affliction has been plaguing college students of the millennial generation and is beginning to spiral out of control: political correctness. This new way of thinking has been under development over the past few years since more students who are attending college were born in the second half of the 1990s, and therefore grew up predominately in the 2000s, which we all know to have rapidly developed social technology and, as a result, social influence.
While I will fight for the mind and ideals of the millennial generation on any given day, something has to change with our predispositions to not only be politically correct, but to also be in a constant "safe space." The president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University recently posted an open letter on the university's website, titled "This is Not a Day Care. It's a University," in which he expresses his views on the "narcissistic" and "self-absorbed" nature of the typical "politically correct" college student.
His obvious frustration was expressed in this letter and peaked when a student came up to him after a "university chapel service" (OWU is a Christian university) and complained about how the sermon literally offended him because it made him "feel bad" about not giving enough love. Which, as the president said, was the purpose of the service in the first place -- to lead to personal growth, etc.
The rest of the letter further explained how our generation has become too sensitive, and that we are way too quick to call someone a "hater." We play the victim card simply because someone does not agree with our views if they are not politically correct and follow some sort of social code that has somehow resulted from the evolution of modern American society.
To throw my unpopular opinion out there, I completely agree with this guy.
We do have an issue with being way too quick to not only play the victim card, but also to judge someone in the name of fighting prejudice, stereotypes, and other social misconducts.
We have become so wrapped up in being these completely moral citizens so much that we have contradicted ourselves to be arguably worse people than previous generations before us. All of this in the name of somehow being more open-minded and socially accepting than in the past few decades. This has turned our generation into a joke in the eyes of our parents and our parents' parents, and honestly, it's sad.
It's sad because the millennial generation is so much more than what we are perceived to be, and in the name of doing what is right, we have slapped ourselves in the face by being too politically correct -- and for anyone in disbelief, there definitely is such a thing as being overly politically correct.
Criticizing others for having different views or morals than you is just wrong. Not everyone is raised the same way, and therefore develop into totally different adults. But more importantly than that, it is definitely not OK to play the victim card if someone has a completely innocent disagreement with your beliefs because that is a simple act of human nature and leads to a more diverse society at home and across the world.
We don't seem to know how to take constructive criticism in a way that would make us better people, as constructive criticism is meant to do! I include myself in this because I know that I, too, tend to sometimes have issues with having this mind set, but that has to stop for all of us.
If we are going to develop into a society that is more accepting than those before us, we can't keep demoralizing those that might not have the same values and views as us. We cant keep being seen as such a joke to our elders, and we need to pick a time to grow up and just be great members of society by not being "bigots" in defending ourselves against those we choose to call "bigots."
