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.

Boomers were greatly affected by the Vietnam War. It tore America apart and really opened the door to the Commie invasion that was lurking outside the door. Boomers were split into two groups, the radical commies, and the patriotic, religious, children of the Greatest Generation. The American left and right.

We have been slow walking to where we are today, but the 60’s was when we hit the gas pedal.

Thanks for your thoughtful post.

52,000+ of our best and brightest died in Nam. Others ran to the Ivory Tower or Canada. Those that survived in all three groups separated themselves into the two major factions of today.

We are already a broken country, stemming from those who believe in America , and the secessionist-separatist sanctuary areas. We are splintering.

For almost all of my life, the left has dominated decisions and policies. However, this present Administration presents us with the ethics of my youth, for the most part. Wresting control and power comes along as the rush of a refreshing water from a breaking dam; so much is revealed, like sunken treasure revealed by the unexpected.

Thank you for this thread. It gives me much to think about.

Right.
Group identity dynamics is a marketing phenomenon, particularly political marketing. It is stupid to fall for it, and people are plenty stupid enough.

When it comes to the 60s the media mostly has people thinking about the kids, music, fashions, protests, rather than the actual grownups running everything.

The 60s was when NOW, the ACLU, the Warren (1891) Supreme Court, JFK (1917)/LBJ (1908), MLK, Bobby (1925), Malcolm X (1925), the 50 and 60 year old college presidents, the Democrat Congress, the Democratic Senate, liberals from the 1910s and 1920s, and a whole, whole lot of them from the 1800s were actually making the foundational changes to America, it wasn’t about teen music, teen girls, and bell bottoms at demonstrations.

That is what ended us, it was no longer about us and our national identity, it meant the end of normal ‘political cycles’ of a stable, homogenous population, it was the end of the American people and the American nation, the geography and letter heads are still there, but now we are just a churning mass of disparate nasty people from all over the world fighting over the lingering wealth and infrastructure of the past to get what they can out of it, or in many cases divert it all into entirely hostile operations against what remains of our core peoples.

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