Our Children Are Going to Be Shallow and Emotionless
Do we need our future generations to ignore details, emotions and lack empathy?
I had been confused for a long time. I like things in black and white. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand that our world is a colourful place but I am talking about human behaviour.
I believed in merit, perfection and accuracy, until recently. I came across the book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain. This book just put all the puzzle pieces in the right place. The more I read the book the more I understood what I was missing.
According to Susan,
The world changed from acknowledging deep thoughts, meticulous details, decency and shyness to revere exuberant behavior, shallow ideas put forth in a flamboyant manner, assertive speakers.
How it happened, is a long story which I will leave for another time.
Life gave me a chance to work from home. Initially, I resented the change but slowly I started seeing things which I was not a part of. My five-year-old daughter was also taking online classes for her Montessori. One day, I was busy in my work as usual, when my wife came to me infuriated with my daughter’s teacher. I calmed her down and asked her the details. It took a while before she could start making sense. The teacher of my daughter’s class announced weekly star students and my daughter was not among them.
I, at once thought that the matter is of least important and my wife is overreacting. Nonetheless, she was adamant that our daughter deserved that recognition any more than anyone else. “She (teacher) is biased and purposefully left our daughter out”, my wife said with tears in her eyes. I had no choice but to settle the matter. When we started discussing the event it dawned on me that this is the same pattern which I am observing at my workplace.
Now, I don’t want to brag but my daughter who is doing fairly good at school according to her teacher. The reason for not selecting our daughter for weekly stars given by her teacher was not only interesting but also depicts where we are taking our children.
According to her teacher, she was not confident enough. I have seen my daughter participating in class and answering any queries, thanks to the work from home situation, and she was doing good.
Lack of confidence, according to the school’s standard was that she is not verbose enough, she lacked enthusiasm, she was not engaging the teacher as many other children were.
The fact that she was one of those students who gave the most accurate answers, was given least importance and her assertive behaviour and verbosity, rather lack of it accounts for far more value.
Initially, this information outraged me but I saw a pattern in this. The loud brazen behaviour which I mentioned earlier is trickling down from the corporate world to schools, markets and so on. Maybe you will think that it has always been like this.
Well, I remember when I was growing, It wasn’t like that at all. Children who were quieter were regarded as decent and sober. The person who spoke less was considered intelligent (no connection with reality) in contrast to today’s world. Currently, dogmatic and gregarious behaviour is the confirmation of one’s intelligence (again no connection with reality).
When popular self-help gurus advocate in their best sellers and YouTube channels
It’s now what you say, it’s how you say.
What else is left to imagine? Correction of facts, the deepness of thoughts, quality of content is left behind and lost somewhere in this age of body language and video. I heard a song once which resonates precisely with this situation. Video killed the radio star by The Buggles. Yes, the video did kill the radio star and not only that but also the deep inspiring ideas which were meant to touch the soul, not just the eyes.
Don’t be surprised when next time you see a person praised for their way of speaking and not for their ideas.