Culture of Entitlement in America - Essay Example

An entitlement is an unlimited privilege to a given profitable benefit. The culture of entitlement entails having the assurance of an automatic gain or form of treatment that comes with possessing certain qualifications. Research has it that this culture is more prevalent among men and women of the present day generation than those of the past generations.

It is quickly gaining ground and could even be more established in the years to come. Many people have in the earlier generations pursued the dream of America through commitment and inventiveness. They achieved success through strife and serious enthusiasm for their courses. In case they became successful, they counted themselves to be very lucky (Arguelles Web). The trend and mentality are quite different today. Most students today tend to think that they have an entitlement to success, and they do not have to work for it. Students in the present generation tend to focus on what society should give to them instead of concentrating on how they can make society better. Their sense of ability and skills is kind of inflated in comparison with that of the students of the older generations.

One Jean Twenge, a popular American Psychologist with her team, has in the past gathered information on the subject of entitlement. She notes that in the last four decades, there was an interesting increase in the number of young people who take themselves to be ‘above average’ in certain fields. Such fields include; academic potential; their motivation to success, arithmetic prowess as well as self-confidence. Upon evaluating some of the traits that are taken to be more individualistic, the statistics either lowered or remained constant for the same period. Such traits may include; spirituality, personal cooperativeness, and getting to know others (Arguelles Web). The opinions of these people (mostly students) and their actual potential have been found to be incongruent. The situation is known as ‘ambition inflation.’ It means they talk or think big about themselves but perform miserably on the actual delivery. They demand all the privilege, recognition, fame, and success but are not willing to work for the same. With high self-esteem, most parents name their kids uniquely from the rest of the family members (McKibben Web). They are encouraging them to have a celebrity mentality and feelings of outrageousness. As the kids grow, this celebrity culture encourages the feeling of entitlement, which comes with selfishness and dependency.

Social media also has promoted disconnects between the virtual and real worlds. More students are today being swallowed by virtual connections and virtual links instead of living in the actual world. The widespread emergence of the credit bubble has even rendered the state of affairs to be worse. Under the credit bubble system, many children have lots of debts in the form of student loans debts, and there are constant calls for the government to pardon these debts (McKibben Web). Many bodies are even agitating strongly for this as a right of these students. The culture of entitlement is therefore propagated by the three emerging issues in America. Read More