Maybe We Get Out of the Way (VANITY)

Generational power dynamics are why we’re in this position. I’m a late Gen-Xer. By some accounting, I’m an early Gen Y/Millenial. I refuse to be lumped into that group of individuals, personally, but that’s not why I’m writing this. Growing up, our parents pressed us to reach for our dreams. I think every good parent would want that for their kids, but I believe every generation’s motivations for that message are different. The Greatest Generation wanted their kids to not repeat the mistakes of the world at the turn of the 20th century. So many died for freedom, and the Boomers were given everything to thrive and innovate and turn our nation, and the world, into a powerful vehicle for prosperity. They led the way for the ascension of the automobile, flight, space exploration, and modern computing. Arguably every convenience we have today was built on the backs and from the minds of children born from a war torn world.

Generation X started in a period of excess but was thrust into more conflict and eventual malaise. All of the celebratory gifts generated in 20 years of greatness gave birth to a sort of laziness; this idea that we had everything and were want for nothing. Two parent households, two, three, four kids, dad was the breadwinner, mom was always the homemaker, a chicken in every pot, as the saying used to go. Every family had at least one car and owned a home. The idea of American exceptionalism was birthed long ago by our founders, raised in turmoil, and generationally handed off to a grateful lineage. But something broke.

By the time Generation Y came into existence, divorce rates were rising quickly. Society, led by middle-aged Boomers, was promoting this idea that women should be empowered to go to work, become doctors, lawyers, breadwinners. My own single mother was forced to, at one point, work three jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table while raising two boys to work hard, study, and do better so that we didn’t have to raise our kids in a world where that was necessary. The ideals of the Boomers: two kids, a house, white picket fence, etc. were still very much alive, but they were twisted in this strange way. That house and white picket fence, we were told, required two working parents. If you look at cultural shifts, what happened from the 1980s to the year 2000 was stark. Music went from experimental, fun, and hopeful to dark, moody, and formulaic. Movies were original, stories were thoughtful and inspiring, and TV was wholesome. Then movies became boring, boilerplate; stories stale; and TV raunchy. Kids would come home to empty houses, entertained by television and video games, and raised in a world where excess was promoted but required hard work to achieve. We had everything, but we didn’t know the cost of sustaining that. Then came the Internet.

By the early 2000s, we were living in a world that, by modern standards, was bizarrely serene. It was almost like a weird dream if we compare it to today. The Internet was becoming something that everyone had to have. Kids were still kids. Teens were still teens. Young adults were flocking to colleges and universities to become the next generation of doctors, lawyers, breadwinners. Then came 9/11. Imagine a world where you could have everything, be anything, communicate with anyone at any time, and suddenly the entire mirage of excess is torn apart in an instant. The innocence of excess violently ripped apart live on TV. Generation Z was born into a world wherein they’d never know the innocence of our past. They were thrust into a sort of police state where they’d never know the joy of welcoming home a family member at an airport gate, climbing trees until the streetlights came on, or feeling safe in a school that was open all day, come whoever may.

Meanwhile, on the world stage, we watched as newscasters brought us images from far off lands being bombed. Men dying on battlefields. Markets rapidly tanking. Home prices skyrocketing. We were trying, grasping for an American dream that, while still accessible, was becoming this sort of idyllic dream state in which we only briefly lived. The new normal felt like we just had to grind to get what we wanted, and when we did, the fulfillment was hollow and lacked substance. But, we had Internet. We had social media. We could talk to old friends, see how everyone else was doing. A marketplace of ideas was taking shape wherein we could live in that old dream, albeit fleeting, during the interstitial periods of drudgery we called work. Generation Z watched as both parents toiled long hours to keep things afloat while the entire market around them shifted in a way that made it increasingly difficult to maintain any level of normalcy. They weren’t latchkey kids like the 80s and 90s kids knew it. They were sent to school for 8 hours and spent most of their formative years physically alone with their Internet friends on social media and in social video games. Climbing trees, riding bikes, scraped knees, and dirty faces replaced with likes, memes, viral videos, and Cheetos-stained fingers on computer mice.

One thread woven through this entire narrative I’ve deliberately left out until now: the presence of faith in society. The Boomers were generally churchgoing people. They worshipped every Sunday and on Holy days of obligation. They knew each other from church, volunteered to help their communities, and led relatively virtuous lives. Generation X was usually dragged to church, but I don’t get the impression that it was as important for them as previous generations. As a churchgoing Catholic myself, I knew far too many friends who didn’t go to church every week or some who were just agnostic. Generation Y, I feel, was much the same if not moreso pressed away by social pressures and an increasing hostility to Christianity thanks to a cultural nihilism that was starting to become acceptable. 9/11 seemed to ignite a sort of crusader culture among military-aged men to protect what we had, but that cultural nihilism proved too strong for an increasingly milquetoast form of Christianity that promoted inclusiveness over doctrine. The foundational ideals of Christianity that bolstered and fertilized American greatness were cracking to the emerging tree roots of secular humanism born from a narcissistic competitiveness driven by a need to be seen and recognized on social media platforms in order to feel “liked.” Faith was seen as weak and unnecessary in an always-on world where one could simply get their fix by posting some hot take on an Internet message board or a Tweet or just tap that dopamine button in the brain by watching pornography that was increasingly easy to find and access.

As I am watching the world unravel in front of me today, things that used to spur me into action now give me pause. Perhaps it’s the value of experience and maturity, or maybe it’s something else. I’m feeling increasingly disconnected from the youth, or at least from their culture, but I think that’s every adult’s rite of passage. “Kids today don’t know how good they have it,” as I’ve heard bellowed by elders in the past; but honestly, kids today don’t have it good. They’re underwater culturally. They’re living a hostile world, bombarded by overloaded stimulation everywhere they go. They don’t know the peace of playing outside with their friends until dusk. They don’t know the stability of a two parent household with a homemaker mom. They don’t know faith in a higher power. Take a moment and think about that. Our entire American culture was built on an idea that God was in whom we trusted. It’s written on our currency and engraved on the walls of our institutions, but it’s passé. Trite. Meaningless to an entire generation, if not several.

Generation Alpha, however, is awakening. In my travels, I’m meeting young men with an ardent and outward expression of faith in Jesus Christ. These are men born into the cultural nihilism of post-9/11 America wherein they were told that their maleness was toxic. They were whipped by social stigmas. They were cast down and made to feel guilty for behaviors they never exhibited. They watched as men they once lionized were torn down. Cultural statues ripped from their pedestals for simply being what was socio-culturally considered masculine. Being strong, outspoken, driven, and faithful was considered illiberal and disgusting. These young men were thrown into digital social cages where they were starved for soul nourishment and told to just go through the motions or even worse: drugged into stupors to become good little drones. When you cage a dog, prod it, starve it, make it afraid of the world outside of its cage, you make a fearful animal ready to lash out and bite any hand that tries to feed it. Is it any wonder now how we got to where we are?

Meanwhile, as it was always considered the good duty of the elders to pass down the torch to the next generation, resigned to understanding that they’d done their best to raise them to carry it, modern society seems full of blowhard elders, many of them Boomers, who are recalcitrant to do so. You know who they are. They bloviate from the halls of government, reprimanding the youth while they revel in their power. We are watching as our cultural elders are calling down their orders from on high while entire generations are passed over for their turn to steer the boat of society and governance. Maybe it’s time we get out of the way?

We are now 45 years removed from the last really substantive power handoff. While we are watching a power struggle unfold every day live on the Internet, the forces of good and evil are fighting a very real war for succession. Two generations (X and Y) were passed over in succession, and Generation Z, now rearing Generation Alpha, is seemingly split down the center in their loyalties to historically-accepted definitions of good and evil. We are on a proverbial precipice here. On the one side, we have generational understanding of faith-based good. On the other side we have neo-cultural secular humanist counterculture trying to normalize what the other side has traditionally defined as evil. Generation Z is tired of being cast down. They are raising a generation of kids to revere God. They are standing up to evil in a very real and meaningful way, and, as recent events have shown, they are paying the price for that bravery in blood. Generation Alpha is seeing all of this unfold in real time right before their eyes. They don’t have to have a traditional Judeo-Christian ethic to recognize evil when they see it. It helps, but evil, despite all of its allure in tapping that dopamine button, always overplays its hand.

The succession of the generational torch continues whether we want it to or not. We can choose to hand it off to a generation of nihilistic post-modern humanists, or we can invest in the burgeoning youth, rising in faith in a higher power, ready to steer the ship back towards what made America a global powerhouse. The people in power are from a generation now stale in their messaging, trying to cajole the masses like a serpent in the garden. The subsequent generations were passed over in succession in order for them to continue to maintain and wield that power over us. At some point, we, as a society, have to accept that it’s only by wresting control of that torch and immediately handing it to a generation ready for that role will we deliver ourselves from evil. I think this new generation is ready, and with our guidance, not control but guidance, they will lead us into a new faith-based society ready to tackle and destroy evil in all of its forms.

"the Boomers were given everything to thrive and innovate and turn our nation, and the world, into a powerful vehicle for prosperity. They led the way for the ascension of the automobile, flight, space exploration, and modern computing. Arguably every convenience we have today was built on the backs and from the minds of children born from a war torn world."

Baby Boomers did all of that?...Are you sure?

For starters, how many of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were born after 1945? How many of the NASA flight directors, engineers and systems engineers? How many of the Big Three’s most prolific automotive stylists and designers? The Beatles weren’t Baby Boomers and neither was Elvis or Chuck Berry. To be fair, Baby Boomers are the world’s greatest consumers. They even pay their grandkids’ bills!

I was born in 1955. Technically, a “boomer” but they call those of us born 1954 and after “Jonesers”. (look it up). I don’t recall any of those older boomers doing any of that innovative stuff. I just remember seeing on tv the idiot hippies protesting, spitting on our soldiers (like my aunt’s brother) returning from Vietnam, and heard about the bra burning and “flowers in the hair” crap. Even at 12 or 13 years old I despised them. The useless weirdos we see protesting today remind me of those hippies. /spit!

Well, there was a difference. in 1969 if you had a peace sign on the rear window of your van or a Country Joe & the Fish T shirt you could get laid 3 times a day by the willing members of the hippie free love squad.

Today you get spit on or at least given the finger from both sides. I mourn for the young white males of today.

I too was born in rural Iowa in the 50’s, it was like a Rockwell painting. I recall Catholic nuns teaching in public schools (and the Ten Commandments in every classroom) dressed exactly like in church - and the same nuns tutored you in Catechism if you fell behind in an area, it was never about religion. “Hooked on Phonics” by 2nd grade and proper American Government by 5th grade. Today the schools from kindergarten to colleges are run by largely by communists, those innocent times are over for good. My conservative roots came from that time like others across the country.

One other important giant piece of our degrading society is political in nature, the “uniparty” being a reflection of our society => corrupt, redistribution of wealth and citizens putting back in power the same politicians that gave us over a couple generations soon to be $40,000,000,000,000 in debt.

""""how many of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were born after 1945?"""""

Most of those guys were children when Wyatt Earp was alive.

Here are the NOW feminist founders in 1966, they are similar in age to the astronauts, some older.

Rather than take a righteous stand against evil, America allowed it to gain a foothold through the decades. We are now seeing the poisonous fruits. Evil difficult to root out once it’s reached this level of establishment, but it can be done. It’s going to take humility, the will for revival and the merciful grace of God and His power to overcome and heal. I see the younger people rising up in His Name. Yes, we need to step aside and support them, joining them in petition to God to save us.

10 million of them served in the military, that is a lot of them, which helps explain how Nixon got 52% of their votes and why the highest support for the Vietnam war was from that age group.

The media distorts things and images, and even memories.

I’m beginning to think of all this focus on generation categories as nothing more than a modern age form of astrology. You were born between years X to Y, therefore you believe and do Z, no exceptions. Like astrology it can be a form of light-hearted fun, but some people, seem to take it too seriously. Because I’m also technically a Boomer (1960), people will ask me about Woodstock. I don’t know, I was only 8 years old.

>> Technically, a “boomer” but they call those of us born 1954 and after “Jonesers”. (look it up)... I just remember seeing on tv the idiot hippies protesting, spitting on our soldiers (like my aunt’s brother) returning from Vietnam, and heard about the bra burning and “flowers in the hair” crap. Even at 12 or 13 years old I despised them.

Thanks for the insight... I *did* look it up. My older brother and I are Jonesers according to the Wiki. Our favorite song at around 11 and 13 was Barry Sadler’s “Green Beret”.

Thanks for taking the time to share this. I hope you feel better, physically and spiritually.

>> Generation Alpha, however, is awakening. In my travels, I’m meeting young men with an ardent and outward expression of faith in Jesus Christ. These are men born into the cultural nihilism of post-9/11 America wherein they were told that their maleness was toxic. They were whipped by social stigmas. They were cast down and made to feel guilty for behaviors they never exhibited. They watched as men they once lionized were torn down. Cultural statues ripped from their pedestals for simply being what was socio-culturally considered masculine. Being strong, outspoken, driven, and faithful was considered illiberal and disgusting. These young men were thrown into digital social cages where they were starved for soul nourishment and told to just go through the motions or even worse: drugged into stupors to become good little drones. When you cage a dog, prod it, starve it, make it afraid of the world outside of its cage, you make a fearful animal ready to lash out and bite any hand that tries to feed it. Is it any wonder now how we got to where we are?
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I am looking forward to the biggest Christian revival America has ever seen. The harvest is ripening.

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