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Musings from a Millennial: Jan 2019

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Musings from a Millennial: January and Two-Faced Jibes
by Meghan Peterson, PhD

Janus, the mythic god of the ancient Romans, is traditionally depicted in profile with his head facing backward and forward. January, the root of which stems from Janus, is appropriately a month in which not-so-ancient peoples mark the beginning of a new year as they reflect on an old one.

While the focus for many may be on this dual approach of retrospection and prospection (inspired by the two-sided motif of Janus), I began thinking about duality on another front: hypocrisy, the idea of being two-faced, the notion of saying one thing and doing another.

More formally, Merriam-Webster defines hypocrisy as a “a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.”

The millennial generation is becoming rather adept at the whole hypocrisy business, perhaps most visibly in the viral (and virulent) #MeToo campaign. For those who may not be familiar with it, #MeToo was a social media-based endeavor which encouraged victims of sexual assault and abuse to come forward publicly, stand in the face of their victimizers and call out the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault. Specifically, the social media hashtag surfaced following sexual assault allegations against Hollywood film production mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2017.

While taking a stand against sexual crimes is courageous and commendable, there is something bizarre about the ways in which we as millennials take to our highly curated Facebook pages or Twitter feeds to decry wrongs – real as well as perceived.

This is not the site wherein the millennial-brand of hypocrisy lies, however. Nor does it lie in the jarring temptation that millennials demonstrate when they discard the iconic American ideal of due process and ancillary constitutional principles which comprise it, such as habeas corpus and presumption of innocence; fair trials and justice – all in a well-meaning effort to re-establish defense of the self, of self-protection, self-preservation, of personal boundaries. Yet, this quest to defend personal “safe spaces,” one’s physical sanctuary and the right to self-protection runs counter to the millennial-led onslaught against the concept of defending the legal borders of the United States.

On closer inspection, the #MeToo platform dissolves into hypocrisy: millennials demand self-valuation and self-respect while they simultaneously de-value the integrity of their nation’s sovereignty. In profile, the one side of the millennial Janus pleads for personal safety, fortress and justice. The other side screams for open borders at the risk of both safety and illegality.

If they are to be principled and consistent, the #MeToo millennials ought to work for the protection of their nation, as much as the protection of their precious selves and safe spaces. Otherwise, millennials devolve into yet another batch of hypocrites whose two-faced behaviors render them socially annoying at best, destructive at worst.

*Peterson is Composition Editor of Haddam News.

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1 COMMENT

  1. I expect more from a person with PhD after her name. This letter is mostly name calling and belittlement.

    The fact that Democrats or millennials oppose your position on border security doesn’t mean they have abandoned the security of their nation or that they are hypocrites. Your logic is simply flawed.

    The hypocrite is the man leading the fight for a wall: holding 800,000 workers hostage to his narcissistic demand for a wall; endangering the country by fur-lowing FBI, FDA workers, air traffic controllers and airport security to name a few; imprisoning infants and children to get his way. 2nd after him is Mitch McConnell who won’t let the shutdown come to a democratic vote.

    I would say a much stronger danger to our nation and its democratic values is the coordinated Republican effort to deny minority and Democratic voters the right to vote.

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