Gen Z Wants to Rebel — But This Is What It Misses
Questioner: Pranam Acharya Ji. My question is regarding a social media page called “Cockroach Janta Party,” and it's gaining so many followers in just two or three days. All the unemployed people are following this page as a revolution against the government. My question is: is this really going to change the system or really going to do something?
Acharya Prashant: I have not done that. So, how can I explain whether or not it's a good thing to do? Had that been the way, I would have been already working on it. But you look fascinated. It's fine.
Getting to the root of the rot is what can address the problem. Reactions hardly succeed. In fact, reactions arise from the same framework that the problem is. Superficiality is the problem. What if the reaction is also superficial? Would the reaction become a solution? Otherwise, it's fine. You can solve all problems creating Insta pages. We do have a big Insta page. Did that solve your problem?
It is not revolutions that the ego is afraid of. The ego happily steps into revolutions. The ego is afraid of reality, not revolution. And when the ego says somebody outside is the problem, that too might be an attempt to focus its attention away from its own self. And societies love that. We are not talking of particular individuals here. It's a social phenomenon, right? Societies love that because all individuals love that. It's not about one person.
Everything is in a mess, blame somebody out there, up there, so that you don't have to look at yourself. What does this (making a V sign with the hand) stand for? Victory. For the ego, this stands for victim. And that is victory. I am the victim.
The moment you can declare your victimhood, you are already victorious. That's the ego. “Oh, somebody else has done all the bad things in life. Somebody else is responsible for unemployment, for poverty, for civic mess, for a sinking economy, for overpopulation, for pollution, corruption.” Who is responsible? “Somebody else is responsible.”
The common man is responsible, but you don't want to show the mirror to the common man. The common man hates looking at the mirror. What the common man rather wants is stories, narratives that show him as the victim, not the perpetrator, not the offender, but the victim. Somebody else is the offender. I'm the victim.
I understand. One feels suffocated and one wants to react. And I'm sensitive to that. I can sense that the youth is disgruntled, disaffected, and the youth is looking for an outlet. But how can you solve a problem if you do not know the situation? Can you?
There is something wrong with the mechanics of this fan, and it's creating noise. It's creating noise. What's immediately disturbing you is the noise. So, with the gun, you want to shoot down the noise. What are you shooting at? The noise. And the noise seems to be coming from everywhere. So, you are firing in all directions randomly.
However, you will not look at the fan because you have never bothered to study electromagnetics or mechanics. And even the example is insufficient because the fan is located comfortably outside of you. In the context of the question, the fan, the machine that's acting so noisy, is actually situated within. But the noise appears to be coming from?
Listener: Outside.
Acharya Prashant: It's reflected noise. It's arising from here, getting reflected from there, and returning to you. And you're shooting randomly in all directions, thinking that the culprit is out there somewhere.
The common man is the culprit. He needs reality before revolution. He needs mirrors before marches.
But tell him to march and he'll be eager, right? Going there to join the mega march. Show him the mirror and he'll balk.
None of us like the way things are in our home, in our country, on the entire planet. Nobody likes it. Nobody at all. The problem is that you experience the problem without knowing it. There is a certain dislike you experience, but you do not understand the inner situation that is so dislikeable. You don't understand that.
More importantly, you do not understand that the one who is disliking the situation is the originator of the situation. And when it is pointed at, you resent. Because acceptance would be a responsibility. If you accept that you are the originator, then you'll have to be responsible. You'd rather be rebellious than responsible. Right?
Given two boxes, which one do you take, rebellion or responsibility? You take rebellion. Especially Gen Z: “I am rebellious.” No, responsible isn't cool enough, or is it? Rebellious is cool. So, “I'm rebellious.”
You don't like the government. Who voted the government to power? You don't like the climate. You don't like the pollution. Who is the polluter?
And that does not mean that I'm shifting the blame or putting all responsibility on a certain individual. No, that's not what I'm saying. Instead, what I'm saying is that the responsibility lies with the blind collective ego. No, I'm not saying one person is responsible. I'm not saying that by the common man, I mean one particular common man. I mean the shared collective ego we all participate in. And if you don't like what you see, you'll have to address this collective ego. And this collective ego is what I call Lok Dharma. Getting it?
You can bring down one system, one institution, you will get another brand-new system, a very fresh institution, from the same center. Same center. And you will pat your back and congratulate yourself: “I have succeeded. The world has changed, society has changed, or we brought down the government.”
You can do that, and that has happened. Even in India's vicinity, that has happened. In many other countries, that has happened. And historically, that has been happening over centuries. That doesn't change much.
You know, there have been countries where the youth toppled the dictator and established democracy. And then there were elections, and the people voted the dictator to power through a democratic process. Because the people were not changed, only the system was changed.
Iran, 1979. Women were so eager to throw the Shah away, and they were at the forefront. The regime changes, the Islamists come to power, and women are pushed inside the veil. What has changed?
The Russians had the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and not too long after that, they got the bloodiest dictator history has seen, Stalin.
Systems, institutions, revolutions, rebellions mean nothing without change of popular consciousness.
Look who's been democratically voted to power in the US and many other countries. They're all products of democracy. They're such horrible products of democracy. In fact, democracy is a double-edged sword.
If the voter is not conscious enough, the voter will invite manipulation. The voter will say, “Come, corrupt me even more so that I vote the most undeserving person to power.” Democracy then becomes an instrument that further corrupts the voter. Inner education is the answer, but it's such a boring answer. Gen Z doesn't like that answer, does it? Education. “We don't need no education. Teacher, leave them kids alone. We don't need no education.”
Education is the answer, not of the kind we have at our schools and colleges. Education of the self. That is the only answer and the only revolution. Without that revolution, all these uprisings are just social entertainment, another episode of meaningless political drama.
The curtain falls, the curtain rises. The characters and the costumes change. The theme of the play remains the same. But you can be consoled for a while, and you will return home happy and entertained that night, only to be woken up the next morning to discover that everything remains the same because you have remained the same.
