Filter

Posted on by Sara Wong

Sitting in my Space and Race, Body and Diversity, and Political Theory courses this semester, I found myself constantly filtering my thoughts as a means to find the ‘right’ words. It’s hard, for the same reasons why Socrates response to Thrasymachus and Glycoth on justice and happiness, the Harvard Implicate Biased test, and Rattansi’s “New Racisms?” have all been selected and pulled forth for discussions. The common denominator created is a platform for my millennial peers to understand the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ As discussions progress, inevitably the political climate surfaces and my peers, for the majority, are infuriated. I hear the words morality, equality, and ignorance get thrown up in the air; questioning if morality is the solution to justice, if the ones who vote for the other side are ignorant – all while referencing social media outlets, pulling headline verbiage for arguments, all without hesitation.

It’s a strange time where information is more dominant, more valuable, and yet is a more immediately obtainable currency than decades of billable nine-to-five hours. The pure possibility of immediate information has given my millennial peers, including I, an awareness towards issues such as depression, body image, equality, our position in society right now, the inextricability of luxury or questions of sustainability. These issues are understood and approached vastly different from generations before us. To some extent, Eli Pariser’s “filter bubble” phenomenon then becomes increasingly relevant to the way our collective consciousness is now interacting with objective knowledge (if there can be such a thing). Before the internet democratized information for the masses, there was a more manageable pool of universal “truths” filtering from the top. However, the most revolutionary ideas and attitudes will remain unrealized and nebulous without hard work. In that regard, there really is no overnight secret to success – if at all

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