Entitlement: A Social Disease of the New Millennium

In recent years, there has been increasing evidence of entitlement as a phenomenon in society. In the sixties, a questioning of social values and a search for Self gave rise to the “I am Me” generation; the current one is a “Give Me” generation. It appears that the increased freedom of the sixties and seventies brought more fear on the part of the individual: people seem to have recoiled from freedom and closed up in their anxiety. With rapid technological development, society has been providing for the individual; in this era of easy access to goods, people have come to expect to be provided for.

What was a privilege in the fifties has become a right in the Millennium. With this entitlement, there is less cooperation, less consideration of others, more “me” and less “us.” Such an attitude explains stopping one’s car in the middle of a busy street to chat with a pedestrian, and the pollution that comes from thoughtlessly disposing of waste products (on the individual and national levels). The spiritual values that could arise from genuine dialogue with others do not develop. Hence, in this era there is more materialism (as a substitute for spiritual values, and to provide a security that is lacking in an isolated world. So, too, in such an isolated environment there is more fear, less security, less risk taking, and less creativity.

There is less personal felt meaning and more socio-cultural obligation. There is a return to conservative, authoritarian religion, with more morality and less situational ethics. We have people who are pattering themselves on cultural expectation; the result is less individual and personal ethics. As a society, we have moved away from being autonomous, individuated, curious, and responsive persons; instead we have become a group of dependent, individualizing, obligation-bound, self-righteous followers. More than ever before, potent forces threaten to restrict personal development and individuation.

NOTE: (Individiduation); Individuals who gradually relinquish entitlement become more responsible and feel more sense of themselves, as they are initiating rather than looking for others to begins things.