Stand up for more than your own interests

This generation is about as disconnected as it gets. Years of stressing the importance of the individual politically and socially, as well as advancements in technology, have led to a whole country of people who have very little in common. America's youth has no war, no religion and no cause that has been as influential as those that influenced their parents.

This is not to say as a generation we are disinterested in politics or we do not care about the country. It's just that we've been trained to separate ourselves from large groups. We have social media sites that allow us to advertise ourselves as unlike any other person. Through movies, music, favorite quotations, etc. we are encouraged to display what makes us unlike any other person. We distance ourselves from anything that makes us part of a whole.

However, doing this directly confronts a much more basic instinct that we have as human beings, the desire to feel a part of something larger than yourself. There's a reason you hear grandparents' stories about how everyone was dying to fight for their country, and now many fewer people express that desire today. It's because the individual is more important. While many people, myself included, benefit from this perspective and appreciate everything we have gained from it, there's still this underlying instinct to stand with a large group of people and be something more than just you. I think that along with this sense of individualism comes profound loneliness: a generation desperately seeking other people beyond the glare of a computer screen.

This brings me to the Occupy movement. There's a vague notion that it's about the 99 percent, but that's about as specific as you can get. You can take any small or large grievance and stand with fellow Americans and have your voice heard. You hear a lot of people complaining that there isn't a defined cause, and I don't think that's true. Many people have different personal grievances, but one singular idea has come through: "We are the 99 percent." No matter what people dislike, or want changed, the basic idea is clear. People feel they have lost control, that their government doesn't have to answer to the people anymore.

It seems to me, government, Wall Street, the 1 percent are banking on individualism. I think people in power are counting on people being too wrapped up in their own lives, Facebooks and Twitters to notice or care about what's going on in their country. I know a lot of people in college who consider themselves very liberal, who talk about how everyone's an idiot in politics. America's screwed, they say. Europe is better, they're all idiots, and patriotic people are stupid.

Well, it's that kind of mentality that keeps people from recognizing that whether they like it or not, their future is tied into what those idiots do. People say, "No one's going to listen." They definitely aren't going to listen if there's nothing to listen to.

There's nothing wrong with individualism, but it shouldn't be used against us. No matter what your Facebook info page says, I don't care if you're listed as "apathetic" under your political views, you're still an American. You benefit from the Americans before you who gave a shit. You owe it to them, and you owe it to yourself to care. Everyone thinks that we're a selfish generation who only cares about Robert Pattinson and what they're singing on "Glee" this week. They think we won't do anything. Prove them wrong.

Editor's note: Chelsea Robinson is a sophomore at Ohio University studying video production. She hails from Plain City, Ohio.