Knowledge Without Roots... Culture Without Identity

Mirrors of the Soul

There was no question of knowledge in his eyes, but rather a tremor of meaning when it lagged behind.

He looked as if he knew everything, yet he was unable to grasp what belonged to him alone.

A young man at the beginning of his journey, surrounded by the clamor of a rushing world, carrying in his memory an uncountable number of names and events, and mastering the rapid transit between ideas, as if he never lingered on anything for long.

And when he was asked: Who are you?

He did not answer.

Not because the answer was elusive, but because the question was unfamiliar.

For some questions are not taught, nor memorized, but faced… And when they are faced, tranquility is shaken, and the void that speed had long concealed comes to light.

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We are facing a generation that has not suffered from a scarcity of knowledge, but from its flood. A generation that knows almost everything, yet does not know where it stands, nor to which intellectual ground it belongs.

Information flows over it without context, and concepts accumulate without roots, until culture has become akin to borrowed clothes; beautiful, quickly changing, but unable to warm the soul.

Here, the question arises before any judgment: Does an abundance of knowledge create awareness, or does awareness require something deeper than mere acquaintance?

In the age of speed, knowledge has transformed from a journey of understanding into a race of reception. The question is no longer: Why, but: What’s next? And inner formation is no longer a priority, as outward appearance has become the standard. Thus, a generation was born that collects ideas as it collects photos: without contemplation, without scrutiny, and without asking whether they truly resemble it.

The crisis of the self and awareness does not begin when a name is lost or language fades, but when a person loses their internal compass and meaning disappears from their view. When a young person embraces contradictory ideas simultaneously and defends them all with the same enthusiasm, this is not openness, but confusion. And when one changes convictions with every trending wave, this is not development, but the absence of an internal reference point.

The problem does not lie in being acquainted with the world’s cultures, but in the absence of a root that allows for interaction without dissolution. Culture that does not stem from the question: Who am I? quickly turns into epistemological fog, filling the head and emptying the heart.

This generation has learned how to speak, but it was not given enough time to contemplate. It learned how to express itself, but it was not trained to listen to itself. Between this and that, a silent gap emerged: wide knowledge, and a fragile identity.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this crisis is that it is not easily seen. Its owner appears confident, present, participating in every discussion. Yet this intense presence may conceal an inner void and a postponed question regarding meaning and certainty.

We do not need to judge this generation, nor to preach to it from moral towers. What we need is to restore dignity to the great questions: From where do I derive my values? What do I truly believe in, not just because everyone else believes in it? And which knowledge resembles me, not just which knowledge shines the most?

So that his personality does not dissolve into the crowd, wandering wherever everyone else goes without a destination.

Perhaps the solution begins when we slow down a little, and give young people a safe space for thinking, not just for reception. When we teach them that building personality and self does not happen in broad headlines, but in small details: in careful reading, in honest dialogue, and in the courage to face oneself.

And in the end, the question remains open, not as an accusation, but as an invitation:

Do we want a generation that knows everything, or a generation that knows itself?

The space is for thinking, not for forced choice, for the building of a human being is not through indoctrination, but through discovery, contemplation, and awareness.

A Kuwaiti writer