There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. - Maya Angelou
Young people are disaffected with the education system, the time they live in, and the world at large.
That’s not to say that there aren’t young hopefuls. High schools, in my experience, are rife with young idealists and dreamers. They are seized with frustration at the injustices of the world, and feel empowered to change “the system.”
But then, there are as many cynics as there are idealists. They are, after all, both sides of the same coin of frustration. These are the kids who grow up quickly. They don’t believe in the education system that they’re confined to, and they don’t believe in the value of the traditional paths that lead out of it. They see through the charade of teachers who don’t want to teach, and a curriculum that is painfully outdated. They’re looking for a way out, around, and through — quickly.
The other day, I met a freshly-minted high school graduate. He hadn’t applied to any universities, and had instead gotten into a Canadian college for business management. His plan, at the express order of his parents’, was to transfer into a reputed university in second year.
A quick aside: I don’t believe that university is better than college, or that higher education is in all cases the best choice for everyone. I also don’t believe that a person can be truly successful, or maximize their potential, if they follow a path that someone else has chosen for them. I would never advise someone to go down any road unless they have truly thought it out for themselves, self-agentically decided upon it, and were determined to invest themselves in it.
I asked him what he thought about going to university, and whether transferring schools was his dad’s plan or his own. What do you think? He asked with a wry smile.
Did he have any interest in university? I don’t really care, either way.
What was he passionate about doing? Anything where I can make money. That’s all.
Why hadn’t he applied to university at all? I didn’t think my grades were high enough. And then: They actually were. I just didn’t check.
As we talked, it emerged that he had “slacked” all through high school, putting in minimal effort. He had gotten pretty good grades, nevertheless: a solid 87% average. He said all of this with a touch of smugness. When asked what his favourite subject in high school was: nothing. When asked why he disliked school:
It’s all bullshit.
I understand where he’s coming from. When you’re younger, you live a 9:00–3:30 job that you didn’t choose, getting judged against evaluations that you don’t agree with. School is the content of your life. Being a student is your only identifier. You have to take so many courses, and not just the ones you like and find useful. Every year, you’ll inevitably find yourself in a class taught by a teacher who doesn’t seem to care about his craft at all; who teaches the same way, you suspect, that he has since the 1970s. Grading is arbitrary; whether you put in a lot of effort or a little, the outcome doesn’t seem to vary all that much. The content of the courses and the yearly requirements seem to bear little resemblance to what you might actually need in a career later on in life. And you do all of this as a citizen of a small, artificial microcosmic society which exercises its own rules about who is in charge, who is popular, and how you must dress, act, and talk.
It seems smarter, more efficient, and more practical, to give up faith in the system. Why invest in something that is worthless, why care about something that doesn’t actually identify who you are as a person?
However, I believe that this is the wrong reaction.
Let me be clear. There’s nothing wrong in thinking critically about the social structure that you’re embedded in. After all, all social institutions are societal constructs, meant to serve a purpose but not necessarily mapping onto that purpose well. However, I take issue when an individual becomes not only critical and self-reflexive, but cynical.
A cynic is someone who is skeptical about the purported aims of people and institutions, believing that people are at base self-motivated, and appearances deceptive. A cynic, particularly a young one, has gone straight from limited knowledge to renouncing all possibility of attaining knowledge; someone who has gone straight to doing nothing useful at all. A cynic is afraid; he would rather deny the usefulness of any cause rather than get hurt by its inauthenticity or failure.
This mindset, however, is so incredibly limiting. There are flaws in the educational system, to be sure. At the same time, you need to give it the benefit of the doubt because your experience is so limited. You don’t know, for example, that the core of what you learn in high school — both in and out of class — does actually form the foundation for your adult life. That your investment in an assignment, while meaningless in and of itself, is an education in how to apply yourself to achieving any goal at all. It’s this experience that you’ll draw upon, one day, when you set your sights on something that is actually worth doing.
Most importantly, if you see a problem, you should be energized to fix it. Just about everything in society is flawed. These flaws — legal, political, social — are waiting for you, the next generation, to change and fix them. You can’t do that if you give up hope in anything having intrinsic value, in anything being worth the effort. You can’t do that if you don’t believe things can get better. If you let yourself fall through the gaps of the system too early on, you’re limiting your future capacity to participate not only in this world, but also in your own life.
It’s easy to be cynical. That requires no effort. It’s much more courageous to participate and have faith that you can control and change the outcome of what you work for.
Of course, don’t go through life blindly. By all means, do not invest in anything just because you’re expected to, or told to. The world is harsh, and it is often dishonest. Exercise your right to think for yourself, to think critically and to examine every decision for yourself. If you find that a path or a cause is dishonest or ineffective, leave it and find something different. Be a productive skeptic, rather than an unproductive cynic. Be light on your feet; criticize, learn, adjust. Practice this faculty. Get used to it. Then keep trying.
Make your decision about whether or not you want to engage with life, to wrestle with the reigns of your existence, difficult as it may be. Take a gamble; the risks of repudiation are great, but so are the potential rewards. Once you’ve decided to try, commit yourself. Nothing of significance, however small, can be done without the investment of your whole heart. Nothing monumental can be effected without an army of smaller efforts. Believe that the world can change.
After all, it does, every day.
