On Respect and My Fellow Millennials

There seems to be a new trend in America's fledgling generation that defines respect as an unconditional recognition of their personal isolation. Respect is real only when it validates a self-established individuality. This sounds fine and dandy.

The demand seems to be hypocritically preceded by a hedonistic view of liberty. There is a growing entitlement to a sort of insulated space of peace for one's self (and thus, censorship from personally offensive material). Ideally, we would be able to live in a world where we celebrated each other's morals, but among the respect-entitled, this mindset only applies to the person demanding to it.

This follows a trend of contrarian attitudes that includes anti-war activists and religious puritans. They do not seek to share a world in which their perspectives of principle might conflict with someone else's.

Disharmony have been given hugely negative connotations--in spite of the fact that it is integral in accomplishing it's exact opposite. What worth is a reward that is earned without some punishment?

(Of course, that is an oversimplification, and negative affectation can, of course, be abused to gain power over others.)

But in reference to respect, we millennials seem to be missing something. In order to attain the individuality we recklessly seek, we need others to *contrast* ourselves against, instead of being shaped solely by the ambiguity of self-affirmation. Every subjective state is part of a spectrum. Peace is not possible without war, love is nothing without hate, and I would be lost if I didn't have others to be someone else to. Even if it is an enemy.

This necessity for other-minded people is neither addressed nor, in its own right, respected. Perhaps this is because so many young people feel marginalized by subcultures that have given a significant amount of resistance to stances on social issues they grew up feeling strongly about. None of the contrarian rhetoric they experienced had seemed constructive, much less respectful.

So, what reason do they have to give respect to opponents when, based on their experiences, they have received none?

I'm not surprised that millennials act as if they have been spoiled by ethics. I'm not surprised that they've equated contrary with offensive, and I'm not surprised that they require spaces exclusive to their like-minded peers, *away* from others who might disagree, instead of rising to the challenge of acknowledging and communing *with* them.

Respect is a tenuous balance.

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A followup: 

A point I have overlooked is that while there is a rash of people blindly demanding intellectual safety without regards to principle, there are exists a basic entitlement to a space free from adversarial opinions or even antagonistic rhetoric--that space is called the private home. Public spaces, however, are different: they are public. Public spaces should accommodate all not through censorship but through a vehicle with which individuals can respect, or at least tolerate each other's differences. This is not to say that efforts should not still be taken to stamp out bigotry and promote humanitarian thinking, but that we should be more forgiving of those who are still in need of education.

A Raw Opinion On Sandra Bland

Here's the TL;DR: He's a rageaholic asshole, and she had bad luck meeting him. She was depressed, and admitted it (in spite of what her in-denial family may want us to think--really guys?), and this dickhead and everyone else that supported him put her in a situation that pushed her over that edge. No conspiracy, just plain and simple truth.

This is yet another tragic example of miscommunication. Of course, the officer--being in the authorative position--is responsible for the turn of events that followed, and should have exercised restraint and acted maturely.

Here's the thing:

She might have been high (according to the police autopsy). She was new to town, so she was nervous. Why was she nervous? First, because of the absurdity of getting pulled over for a turn signal, and secondly because of her preconceived--but not unjustified--notions about a white law officer pulling her over.

The trooper probably held some bigoted views about Sandra being black, and maybe more about her being a woman. However, judging by his interaction with the previous stop, I would surmise that he was not looking to make trouble with those he ticketed. I would go even so far as to say the last person he pulled over was only going one or two miles over the posted speed limit, but let them go to avoid "extra work."

Her, nervous and fearful, spoke brusquely with the trooper hoping to end the interaction quickly and in the moment decided that she needed a cigarette.

He, irritated by her gruff tone, "offered her an olive branch" by requesting that she put out the cigarette. When she did not "take this branch" by acting subserviently, he raged.

Asking her to depart the vehicle was a reaction to what he saw as a rebellious attitude. Alternatively, he could have been heavily offended by cigarette smoke. Either way, he should not have let these perspectives dominate his actions in the role of a law officer.

She was taken aback by his demands. Her refusal to cooperate with the officer was a counter to his unreasonable demand. She saw him flexing on her, didn't appreciate the gesture (who would?), and raged.

Snarky civil disobedience for a fascist application of authority. Seems fair to me.
But that's besides my point.

She could have UNDERSTOOD what a cowardly cop he truly was, take the ticket "like a good citizen" (Do you really have to go SJW over a ticket?) and lets him go on with his sad life.

The trooper could have UNDERSTOOD her apprehension and then extert ANY amount of control over this bigoted anger problem he has and let her go with a warning. (Zero to sixty for a cigarette?)

Look, I'm all about conspiracy theories too, but I get the feeling that she felt ashamed of what had happened, realized that she was not FULLY justified in her reaction, held negative attitudes about herself that were passively reinforced by her surroundings, and did something really rash.

Alternatively, she could have decided that the only way to fully illustrate the consequences that can ensue when law officers unfairly wield their authority was a symbolic sacrifice--no note needed.

It seems to me that anyone being arrested should choose their battles wisely. Before anyone refutes this declaration with, "If we don't start here, when does it stop," or some rhetoric like that, I will also add that this debacle was not worth a human life, however it was taken.

Sandra's death was unnecessary and ultimately could have been avoided with some maturity from the trooper, someone whose self control we should have been able to rely on. Instead, the nation's view is skewed to trust in their tendency towards bigotry and xenophobia.

GOLEZ: My [Integer]-[Chronometric Unit]-Plan

Seeing that I still have membership to the group of adults hilariously undecided about their life path, I’ve updated my list of goals to account for Career ADHD, and the futility of a single five-year-plan. Here are many five-to-sixty-something-year-plans I plan on implementing during my lifetime. I have presented them in what I hope will be their chronological order. Any other order may threaten to rip apart the very fabric of the space-time continuum resulting in catastrophic failures of reality as we know it.


Illustrator & Children’s Book Author: Using my supreme artistry, the genetic burden of underage telepathy, and a vocabulary book for MENSA tested second graders, I will teach children why our Sun doesn’t revolve around their frail and egocentric bodies, and how they can use economic thinking to harness the Sun’s power and force the Moon into doing it.


Poet & Novelist: Having being born to two Luzonians, I will infiltrate a community of distinguished and educated Fil-Am writers with my counter-alternative, new-age, off-beat, edgily emotive, and daringly intellectual style. My books will be lauded as the work of a prolific American writer while I capitalize on my superficial genetic identity to lay the groundwork for my parallel universe science fiction depicting the ramifications of a paramilitary society that deifies an innovative currency: the quantified popularity of fish aquarium recordings.


Engineer & Architect : My new specialty will be designing multi-use public spaces with terrain-features that transform naturally through periodic windows of public input and through the new Sleeping Occupants Threshold algorithm. Re-Evolutionated Spaces by Me. The big bucks will be made from corporate buildings that are designed to utilize natural energy (like recycled thermal energy through weed smoke) and streamline workplace rituals, saving the company money by eliminating travel time from Stimulating Areas of Work Engagement to a less-productive area like the bathroom, or anywhere that is away from a display screen.


Philosopher & History Teacher: Using my vast societal experience, I will teach immature adults that they are indeed living in the Matrix, brought to you by Matrix Corp--home of the Matrix and Matrix Accessories, and that, unlike that filthy propaganda piece by the Wachowski’s in which Our Great Machine Overlord is portrayed as a merely simple-minded program of efficiency devoid of benevolence, sometimes it’s okay to be The Guy That Takes the Blue Pill, as long as you don’t develop an addiction or mistake it for Xanax or LSD tabs.


Culinary Artist & Former Lover: Using an amateur knowledge of food veiled in a distinctly arrogant French accent, I will act towards all willing eaters with paternal affection, zesty respect, and a challenging encouragement to explore novelty: everything Buzzfeed claims to drive women and some gay men wild. Their inevitable suffering will be an unfortunate casualty of their inability to accept the reality of their physical attachments after sampling the addictive nature of my secular Buddhist momentarianism goodwill. Also with the advent of Super Topical in the mid 21st Century, I will never stop having baby-butt skin for a face.


Marine Biologist & Global Journalist: I will grow a great beard and sail across the ocean on a steampunk styled junker made of junk collected from junk barges documenting the stories of sexaholic cruise ship operators, orphaned counter-pirate sea pastors, octogenarians mistaken as abandoned flotsam, ex-military cat people adrift on boats, and whales eating each other, while publishing photographs and character essays to my world-renowned blog: The Floating Flip.


Social Activist & Venerated Religious Leader: After establishing myself as a culturally superior human through my exotic dress and botched understanding of non-English languages, an organization of gullible locals and English-speaking exiles will erect a sheet metal and plywood shack that serves as: a base of operations for a radically progressive political movement to fight the current institution's restriction of its citizens freedom to take action against the less fortunate and less educated by depriving them of such people, a humble abode in which I will store a perplexing collection of foreign items that illustrate my growing senility and my love for a culture I swore to leave behind, and a temple-like manifestation of an occult philosophy that permits copious capacities of copulation while denouncing the concepts of currency, property, and violence against nature. Upon my untimely death, the four English-speaking disciples, the Rexcelsiors, will march themselves and my body into the sea, devoting their souls to whatever afterlife I had outlined in my unfinished book, while my latest child, who is perched atop my coffin, swims back to shore alone, in a deeply and spiritually symbolic gesture that will persist as religious tradition for generations and lead to the deaths of at least four aquaphobic children. And in the exact spot in the ocean where my body disappeared a red fern will appear to watch over the people of [NATION] for [TEMPORAL MEASUREMENT]s to come.


And that's what I want to do with my life.


I hereby bequeath the role of me in the movie adaptation of my life to any genetic pairing of Charlie Ocean Goldblum and Blue Ivy Carter.


What are your goals?