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A longtime resident of the Eastern San Francisco Bay Area, Daniel Chen is a junior at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is majoring in Political Science and minoring in Public...
Where do young people come down on questions of faith, values, and public life? How do they relate their values to public policy issues including education, economic inequality, and the environment? These questions, critically important for the 2012 election, are at the center of a campus conversation being organized by the Berkley Center and Georgetown University. This blog features an ongoing conversation about these issues between students selected as Millennial Values Fellows through a national competition. You can read and comment on their blogs here.
To learn more about the project, visit the Campus Conversation on Values page.
OTHER POSTS
Millennials on Social Media and Politics
November 15, 2012
Millennials on Social Issues and Diversity
November 12, 2012
Hira Baig (Rice) on Why the Presidential Election Matters to Millennials
November 7, 2012
Millennials on Religion and Interfaith Work
November 7, 2012
Ryan Price (Drake) on E Pluribus Duo
November 6, 2012
Mohammad Usman (DePauw) on Unpredictable Millennials
November 5, 2012
Millennials on Affirmative Action Policy
November 3, 2012
Seth Warner (Vassar) on What Happens as the "God Gap" Widens
November 2, 2012
Josina De Raadt (Dordt) on How Social Media Is Like Wii Bowling
October 31, 2012
Zachary Yentzer (Arizona State) on the Next Greatest Generation
October 29, 2012
Brice Ezell (George Fox) on Post-Racial America? Race, Millennials, and the 2012 Election
October 25, 2012
Tyler Bishop (Vanderbilt) on a Future of Hashtags #whatitmeansforus
October 23, 2012
Brice Ezell (George Fox) on How the People Can Heal a “Divided,” Partisan Nation
October 4, 2012
Hira Baig (Rice) on Religion and American Democracy
October 4, 2012
Tyler Bishop (Vanderbilt) on How It’s All About Relatability: Voter Turnout
October 3, 2012
Josina De Raadt (Dordt) on Mistaking Politics for a Hollywood Blockbuster
October 2, 2012
Mohammad Usman (DePauw) on the Internet Solution
October 1, 2012
>> more
AT THE CENTER
EVENTS (5)
PUBLICATIONS (3)
Diverse, Disillusioned, and Divided: Millennial Values and Voter Engagement in the 2012 Election
October 4, 2012
October 4, 2012
LETTERS (2)
RELATED RESOURCES: MILLENNIAL
Daniel Chen (UC Berkeley) on the Millennial Generation
March 23, 2012
I have great hopes for my generation. Our ability to access information is unparalleled and our means of communication have expanded. We have mastered the technology needed to thrive in a globalized world, and not only that, we care about shaping the important issues of our day. With greater means come greater responsibilities, and as a whole, we desire to use our gifts to leave our workplaces, communities, and world better off than how we first found them. It is certainly no hard sell to claim that the millennial generation is different.
Nonetheless, the technological revolutions that helped increase our awareness for important issues have also generated negative repercussions. With so much information in the world, we aim for summaries and sound bites, selectively filtering ideas that don’t fit our worldviews. With greater opportunities to decide what we want to see and hear, we often choose the path of self-censorship; we congregate with only those whom we agree with, who don’t rock our boats. While we claim to value tolerance, we demonize those who hold conflicting perspectives. This cognitive dissonance is not biased in any way; it cuts across Republican and Democrats, religious and secular, minority and majority. In essence, we simultaneously see more but know less.
As a Cal student, this issue moved to the forefront this past semester. As UC Berkeley Republicans protested affirmative action by putting on a bake sale where the price of goods was based on the buyer’s ethnicity, the campus erupted in outrage. Students stormed Sproul Plaza, physically threatening College Republicans. Campus groups sought to silence those involved without adequately addressing the fundamental issues at stake. At the very place that championed the Free Speech Movement, Berkeley’s collective effort to limit coherent dialogue possessed an especially bitter irony.
Instead, with better means to analyze crucial issues, the entire millennial generation, myself included, must work harder to build the rapport necessary to openly, critically, and respectfully examine different perspectives. This doesn’t require us to wander around aimlessly, devoid of personal values or beliefs, for as G.K. Chesterton once said, “The purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close on something solid.” What civil dialogue then requires is an ability to listen to one another, especially to those with whom we disagree. Tolerance means nothing if there is nothing to tolerate. True diversity remains illusory if we demand total conformity.
Nonetheless, the technological revolutions that helped increase our awareness for important issues have also generated negative repercussions. With so much information in the world, we aim for summaries and sound bites, selectively filtering ideas that don’t fit our worldviews. With greater opportunities to decide what we want to see and hear, we often choose the path of self-censorship; we congregate with only those whom we agree with, who don’t rock our boats. While we claim to value tolerance, we demonize those who hold conflicting perspectives. This cognitive dissonance is not biased in any way; it cuts across Republican and Democrats, religious and secular, minority and majority. In essence, we simultaneously see more but know less.
As a Cal student, this issue moved to the forefront this past semester. As UC Berkeley Republicans protested affirmative action by putting on a bake sale where the price of goods was based on the buyer’s ethnicity, the campus erupted in outrage. Students stormed Sproul Plaza, physically threatening College Republicans. Campus groups sought to silence those involved without adequately addressing the fundamental issues at stake. At the very place that championed the Free Speech Movement, Berkeley’s collective effort to limit coherent dialogue possessed an especially bitter irony.
Instead, with better means to analyze crucial issues, the entire millennial generation, myself included, must work harder to build the rapport necessary to openly, critically, and respectfully examine different perspectives. This doesn’t require us to wander around aimlessly, devoid of personal values or beliefs, for as G.K. Chesterton once said, “The purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close on something solid.” What civil dialogue then requires is an ability to listen to one another, especially to those with whom we disagree. Tolerance means nothing if there is nothing to tolerate. True diversity remains illusory if we demand total conformity.