Hail, Caesar!!

Considering the article states that the jump in self-importance was first noted in the 1980s, I’m going to go ahead and say that social media is definitely not to blame.  The participants would have been children of the hippie generation - love children whose parents fought for personal freedom against the Man and his constrictive mold of what a productive citizen should be.  In this case, a cooperative enterprise of repression begot individual rebellion.  Most of my friends that have children have said to me at some point, “I am not going to raise my kids the way my parents raised me.”  To me, this is also indicative of a cultivation of a desperate need to set one’s offspring apart from the apparent negativism of past collectivist culture.

Research has stated that there has been a constant increase in measures of self-importance, and I do believe social media compounds this remarkable shift of ego.  Instant gratification is a strong pull, and in this way I believe it has supplanted the time it takes to refine a depth of self and has exacerbated a pre-existing condition (or heightened sense of self-importance).  Researchers also posit that schools are the main source of “positive feelings and specialness” – no doubt because of the ridiculous number of graduations children now face, No Child Left Behind, and countless other policies public education has been forced to endorse.  We must remind ourselves that schools are subject to federal ruling, which in turn is subject to public opinion or current relative attitude.

One thing I find quite interesting is with the increase in personal self-worth, there seems to be a sharp decrease in personal accountability (which just screams entitlement).  Scapegoats take the brunt of responsibility when it comes to an individual owning up to his actions that may result in negative consequences for the majority.  If a collective moral compass is a root cause of dissension, why is the next generation not taking greater liability for their individual moral compasses?  I believe that an inflated sense of self-worth is a delusion that many people get lost in so that they don’t get lost in the sea of others.  Large groups of human beings must be constructed around a social hierarchy, as one person’s self-importance alone does not a happy majority make.  Reversing this principle, a single facet of a problem (i.e. technology) should not be to blame for a multi-generational dissent into narcissism.