Hell, I came of age in the mid 70’s. Talk about lousy economic times especially with Mr. Peanut running things and telling us on a daily basis how horrible everything was.
We were going to freeze to death, run out of oil, starve, whole industries virtually closing down, strikes, nuclear winter, national malaise, super high inflation, decimated military.
These kids have no idea.
Today I think its more the “social justice”, PC insanity and emotionalism causing a lot of our problems. Also a huge cross section of young adults suffering from a sense of entitlement.
The sad part is no history being taught. History supplies perspective, grounds you and enables you keep it together during your own hard times.
To many today, history started when they were born. No respect is given to it.
Helicopter parenting and participation trophies.
Great post. You describe so many of my fellow millennials very well when you state that “history started when they were born.” That attitude is to be expected of kids and many teenagers, but millennials are now 20s-mid 30s and show no sign of understanding the bigger picture.
One of the few things which kept me sane and optimistic in Mr. Peanut's days was the radio program from Ronald Reagan which came on just as I was driving my old beat up car from one job to the other.
I am with you there! Yet I don’t remember being miserable nor pessimistiCc about the future, even with Carter’s “misery index.” I don’t remember my peers being miserable or pessimistic, either.
It may be because we weren’t that far removed from the realities of life.
The “history started when they were born” crowd can’t even comprehend a black and white TV with no remote control and an antenna in the back yard or a telephone attached to the wall and shared with not only the whole family, but on a line shared with neighbors. They certainly can’t remember not having even those things (I remember my family getting our first telephone and our first TV).
I think that information overload also contributes to our problems. Our news came from an evening TV broadcast, a daily or weekly newspaper, and maybe a news magazine. Now “news” from anywhere on Earth is available 4/7/365 and contributes to pessimism.
That, and our “celebrity culture” which makes fancy New York apartments and Malibu beach homes and a party-all-the-time life seem like the norm so that more ordinary lives seem deprived.
It seems that without having real problems people are having to invent them, thus social justice, PC, and the like.