This Decade of Disillusion

[Democrats_win]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/opinion/decade-millennials.html

Why and how the young rule our time.

By Bret Stephens

There are eras in history, like the 1950s, when older people set the cultural and moral terms for the young. And there are eras, like the 1960s, when it’s the other way around.

The current decade has been in the latter mold. Its true beginning was Dec. 17, 2010, when a 26-year-old street vendor in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire, setting off protests that quickly toppled governments across the region. Now it approaches its end with the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg named Time’s Person of the Year.

In between, the decade has been fundamentally shaped by the technological creations of the young, in the form of social media and mobile apps; by the mass migrations of the young, from Africa and the Middle East to Europe and from Latin America to the U.S.; by the diseases of the (mostly) young, notably addiction and mental illness; and by the moral convictions of the young, from the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements in the U.S. to mass demonstrations from Cairo to Hong Kong.

Why and how did the young dominate the decade? Let’s narrow the focus to America.

Demography first. What history usually thinks of as “the sixties” (beginning around 1964 with the Civil Rights Act and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) coincided, in the United States, with the coming-of-age of the baby boomers, roughly 75 million strong. Our current decade coincides with the coming-of-age of millennials, another generation of about 80 million. More people, more power — or at least more influence. By comparison, my generation, the underwhelming Generation X, numbers only 65 million.

Next, anger. History is often a series of reactions and counterreactions. We remember the nonconformism of the 60s as a response to the conformism of the 50s. This decade, too, has been a reaction to the last: to two wars that began in moral fervors and ended in strategic fizzles; and to a financial crisis whose victims numbered in the millions and for which nobody accepted blame.

Not surprisingly, this decade has been marked by the intense hostility of the young toward truisms that once governed our thinking. As they saw it, the liberal international order didn’t uphold the peace — it bled us dry. Capitalism didn’t make the country rich — it made the rich richer. Silicon Valley didn’t innovate technology — it mined our data. The Church didn’t save souls — it raped children. The cops didn’t serve and protect — they profiled and killed. The media didn’t tell the news — they spun it.

Continued at link

[malthaussen]

1. I disagree with his characterization of introspection as "shallowing."

It was no Millennial who advised us that the unexamined life is not worth living. But I'll agree with him on the disillusion, although I wonder if that is the best word.

Boomers (like your humble obedient) were disillusioned: having the illusions of the elders presented to us ad nauseum, yet finding again and again that actions did not conform to words. We were told to expect greatness, as a right or entitlement. At least, if we were white males, we were. Somehow, that greatness remained elusive for many of us, which probably led to any number of feelings of inadequacy on the part of those who didn't measure up.

Now, I don't think the first decade of this century was as full of bullshit illusions as the 50s and 60s were, so there is nothing to be "dis-" about. Instead, the rising generation is characterized by a post-ironic sensibility that happens to synergize very effectively with the post-truth culture. Boomers, OTOH, were characterized by a brand of idealism that was just begging to be used, abused, and conned. Although both generations are full of right-wing and religious fanatics (two separate, but overlapping subsets) who have their own set of ideas about the world, and whom I choose not to discuss at present. I haven't run into a truly idealistic Millennial: one who believes things will change because people are basically good. Rather, their idealism seems to be more along the lines of "We'll fix it despite you ignorant old fools," an attitude I can heartily get behind.

Another way to put it is that the Boomers were handed a world supposedly great and rich with promise, and told they would have it even better, whereas the Millennials are being handed one broken, exhausted, and on the verge of extinction, and told to make the best of it. And for the Boomers, there was a promise that the elders would help and encourage, whereas for the Millennials, the elders are trying their best to burn the house down on the way out. No illusions to break, there: just a hard reality much more tangible than the alleged threat of "The Bomb" which every Boomer seems to like to say loomed over his entire existence. I call bullshit on that, by the way: not me nor any of my contemporaries lived in daily fear of being blown away on a puff of nuclear dust, although the reality of potential eradication may have led to a more fatalistic attitude than otherwise. But it's hardly the clear and present danger the daily school shootings demonstrate for the rising generation. Hell, Charlie Whitman didn't even climb his bell tower until the 60s were half over.

The 60s and 70s, therefore, may reasonably be characterized as eras of disillusion (which is why Reagan won such thumping majorities), but the first two of the 21st century, not. There are no illusions left.

-- Mal