The newspaper reported that about 45 percent of young Singaporeans surveyed between the ages of 15 and 24 said that they would consider divorce if things soured and the same number said they considered premarital sex as par for the course. These people who fall under the Generation Y label, after the monicker used by Western marketing pundits, seek instant gratification like their Western counterparts but differ in an important area – they have strong family ties.

Which is all well and good. But while such findings are always interesting for brand managers, the advertising industry, armchair behaviourial scientists (like this writer) and the like, the survey in question merely re-visits an area that has been reconnoitered before but does little to plumb the depths of our youth.

So our youngsters increasingly advocate sex before saying “I do” and look for instant gratification. Isn’t that the general trend in all western and rapidly westernizing nations like Singapore? This is not an overnight phenomenon. And anyway, what is one to expect when our youth are fed an endless diet of soul-less pap from Hollywood? Even the pop-culture of Korea and Japan that is the latest rage among a certain vernacular-inclined sub-sect of our youth is liberally infused with the latest “cool” fads in Hollywood pop-culture.

What makes more interesting reading and merits deeper discussion is the survey’s finding about the spiritual side of these young people. Buried within the newspaper report was this interesting nugget: “They are more enthusiastic about feeding their soul. Nearly half of those surveyed attend religious services at least once a month, while four in five take time out to ponder the meaning of life.”

Just when the general worldwide perception is growing of Generation Y as hopelessly self-interested and materialistic, it comes as a pleasant surprise – nay, an epiphany - that a significant number of Singaporean youth is inclined towards things “spiritual”.

This aspect of our youth has seldom been publicised before and will probably never merit more than a cursory mention – after all, you can’t sell soap based on people’s spiritual leanings – but it shows that Generation Y is no worse than its parents’ generation and others before them.

Indeed, every generation has its detractors and doomsayers. Had the survey results been released in the swinging ‘60s, no one would have questioned the veracity of the findings. Likewise for Generation X in the 1980s. And I’m sure the findings would have been spot on for the youth of ancient Rome too, especially at the height of its economic and political power, much like the United States today.

This begs the question: How much of the attitude of the Generation Ys and Xs, etc is the result of a nation’s political, social and economic condition? I would say everything. It is the processes of modernisation which have fractured both urban and rural (our old kampongs) communities and put keloids where passion should be in the minds of our youth. In our new towns there’s an increasing number of unsupervised children, lonely old people and over-indulged or over-disciplined teens with no purpose in life.

Then there’s the media. How can we blame Generation Y when from all sides they are bombarded with messages that propagate the culture of consumerism, violence and callousness to suffering.

Could it be this experience of being exposed to innumerable daily media exhortations to buy more and more material goods without any reminders to share with the less blessed what society apparently values most - things, more and more of them – that makes Generation Y so disconnected from “nobler” altruistic issues? Could it be the unchanging political landscape, the protracted economic depression (since 1997) and hopelessness that anyone will listen to them, that makes our youth so self-centred?

Shut out from most avenues of meaningful political and artistic self-expression, they turn to the one place where they know they are their own masters – the soul and worship. At least here there is no over-zealous authority telling them how far they can go and how to do things. In the geography of the spirit they are free.

We should be thankful that it is the meaning of life through the fires of holy worship that they ponder, our Generation Y and not through the haze of a drug fest. We should encourage and nurture this for the greater good.

Research shows that children become more altruistic when their guiding adults attribute the children's kind behaviour to their fundamental goodness. How much have we done as parents, teachers and policy-making adults to allow our youth to believe in their fundamental goodness, the pristine soul within them?

All our emphasis has been on material achievement – from school grades to the five Cs: Cash, Car, Condominum, Credit Card and Club. Maybe, now with this knowledge of our youth, it is time to try a more radical, fundamental approach?

Maybe, now is the time to put the kampong back in the city and help our Generation Y in their search for spirituality even as we put some soul back into our materialistically over-burdened lives.

The views of the writer do not neccessarily represent the views of Lycos Asia.

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