Change is something that the young people of every modern generation have thrived on for decades. We can all recall stories of the Vietnam protests in the 1960s, as well as the cause for equality between blacks and whites in the United States. But why is it that we, as young people, become so involved in efforts for positive change? Why do we seek the satisfaction of changing a world for the better, though we haven’t even experienced a quarter of our lives, let alone being aware of what lies beyond the boundaries of our high school or our suburb.
Change itself is something we need to experience for ourselves. It cannot be taught, nor preached, nor entirely understood. It can only be experienced, experienced through the involvement of young people in socially aware causes. Causes that bring all sides of human life as well as environmental issues into a great big melting pot of ideas just ready for young people to immerse themselves in.
Some young people have already involved themselves in socially aware causes from the moment they hit high school, they noticed the bulletin boards clogged with different organizations and societies just looking for new members. Nevertheless, some young people didn’t care. It is these people who need to be shown that change is something anyone from anywhere can be a part of.
In the case of creating positive change, ignorance is not, and cannot ever be said to be bliss. Young people need to be made aware that they will not be young forever, nor will they be as happy as they may be at the time.
It is here that id like to invite you into a little vision an ordinary man called Robert Zubrin once had. He envisioned a new world, where we could improve on our successes and erase our failures on Earth by colonizing another world. Terraforming it to our needs and creating a modern-day Utopia for all of humankind, free of prejudice and intolerance, a realistic vision he built on hope, aimed at instilling knowledge and the sense of adventure that once conquered the hearts and minds of the explorers of the past. Robert Zubrin is the founder of the Mars Society.
I myself am a member. Though, Im not going to make this article into a recruiting drive for the Mars Society, nor am I to include any information about the efforts we’re making to get to Mars. I would like you to suppose you were involved in a movement for a Utopia on Earth; I would like you to suppose you were the founder.
What would be your first step after you’ve created it? You’ve got your website, you’ve got your membership forms, you’ve got your office workforce. The public is there for the persuading, the only thing that stands between you and your new Utopia, is the publics tolerance for what you believe in, and their tolerance for changing the ways of the past.
This is what stands between you and your dream, you have your loyal few that have joined your cause. They’ve seen it the way you first envisioned it, but now you’ve got to make sacrifices, compromises. You’ve had to face the exact same problem you knew was dragging you down in the first place. The Media.
The media has always been through the conflicts of the 20th and 21st century. Without Media, and its successful utilization of mass-communication, which in this case – includes the newspaper a lot of the conflicts of the modern age would not have happened as quickly, and as indecisively as they did. For example, would the actions of the British after Hitler invaded Poland have been as modest had they known for sure that Hitler was indeed invading Poland, and not just the section of the country willing to be taken by the Germans?
Perhaps it may not have been, we will never know for sure. Nevertheless, the media plays the most important role in bringing your cause to the people. The media has control over how an events looks to the rest of the world, how an idea is presented to the public, how a persons character, and the substance of a persons opinions are judged. The media is the judge, jury and executioner. There is no limit to their power.
As many would know, young people are very rarely portrayed positively through the media. Like normal, it is the minority of young people, the violent, the oppressed, the gang-loving members of our age that create the havoc that plagues our lives. While for some of us we can see through it, for the average teenager they become lost in a world that doesn’t think highly of them. They can isolate themselves among peer groups, try and escape through drug use and a world of crime, and more importantly – a life with no meaning.
Some young people discover what being a bringer of change can do to a personality, to a lifestyle. Others however, never even get the chance.
When considering what your own ‘Utopia Organisation’ is going to have to do to get your own message across, remember there are young people just waiting to have meaning injected into their lives, waiting to have a sense of true belonging, and a place where they can express their feelings, learn from others, and most important – learn the value of respect and tolerance.
Young people are often seen as not caring about where the world is going. I don’t believe this to be true; they are powerless, out of control. Seeking an escape hatch or the nearest lifeboat.
Sometimes, the lifeboat isn’t as approving of the greater good than some would like. An escape could also be a prison, so to speak.
Young people need to be informed, involved and inspired.
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