The new lost generation

Ever since I got into a long discussion with a former boss of mine about how different generations work together (baby boomers, Gen X., millenials, ect.) I’ve paid close attention to the character traits of my own. Today, in the wake of Bin Laden’s death, I’m less proud and more concerned than I’ve ever been before. Let’s start from the start.

I was born in 1982. Whatever that makes me, that’s the vantage point I’ve been coming from. Lets call me a Gen Y. Since I was born, I, like my 80’s brothers, have been saturated with stances on emotion. If it wasn’t Care Bears teaching me to hug people, then it was G.I. Joe’s moral teaching at the end of the episode, or the near constant maxims that we ought to be “color blind” and respect diversity.

Those are all things I can ostensibly get behind, but it was literally beat over our heads. What I’ve seen first hand since then is a rebellion against that by a good majority of people my age. It was tissue rejection. I think subconsciously, many of us got to a point where we couldn’t handle, or didn’t want to ride the emotional roller coaster that is constantly checking in with our feelings. Can’t we just have some rules, go with those, and assume assholes exist? Not everything needs to be met with a chat to see where the other person is coming from.

Of course, some folks still think a warm spring days is a valid reason to cry. But I was proud in my position that my generation had rejected such ridiculous and illogical positions. It was apparent in every aspect of our culture. Our humor was more deadpan than previous generations. We laughed at the highly illogical (I still say Will Ferral films are nothing more than Mad Libs for adults.) Our generation, regardless of your politics, elected a man (Obama) who everyone feels is too a-emotional. Say what you will about him, but I think my generation wants that in a President more than going back to the red meat, wedge-issues of yesteryear. We also elected the Tea Party. The first real wave of libertarians; a group unafraid to slash the pentagon. A group more concerned with the budget than the abortion clinic.

Many a politician tried to put a band-aid on old divisive issues. Ours grew a callous. It was the first thing I ever really came to respect about my class. I graduated high school in 2001. Our generation went to fight a war after that, either with guns in the middle east, or with picket signs here at home. We now fight a horrible economic metldown and wonder what our children will have when they near 30. In the words of Jack Kennedy “the tourch has been passed to a new generation, born into war, tempered by a hard, and bitter peace.”

But today I’ve seen the ugly underbelly of the political coin that is the reject of emotion. It is disinterest and, to some degree, a lack of realization. I’ve always thought emotions were something to discuss with close friends or family, but never for public display. I take very few things seriously because I don’t think we need to sink into the quagmire of emotional diatribes. In short: I never saw a value in them. But now I’m starting to think theres a logical disconnect that comes with an a-emotional posture.

Some of my more liberal friends (I’m guessing here) have come out as wholly disinterested in what Bin Laden’s capture means for America, Democracy, and the globe. Its either no longer important, too little far too late, or it doesn’t simply justify the cost we’ve incurred over time. I’m not suggesting any of those positions are inherently wrong, but it does make me wonder what outcome they believe should have happened.

I’ve written before that academics need to be aware of reviewing a custom, or function (like government), deciding that its too flawed to bother discussing, and instead move on to create a new system that would never really apply to the real world in the first place. I read that in “Ideology” about Communism. Again, no ones suggesting my friends are communists (I’m not anyway), but its on par. The war didn’t go as planned, the results didn’t go as planned, and Bin Laden’s capture wasn’t even close. So rather than review our next step as a nation, we wholly reject it as all part of the same syndrome and wipe our hands clean. But as I’ve said before, change never comes from the outside. To simply wipe our hands clean is to leave the same old to its own devices. Making change means getting dirty.

My concerns come from a generation I thought would approach things from a sort of Brahmin cool. An interest in results nothing else. And not that Brooklyn-accented, job interview kind of results (“you know what I’m sayin? I mean I’m gunna show up and make moves and make this company profit cause that’s what I’m about”) but results that were born from a matter of facts. How could a generation reared on electronics not become a cyborg nation?

Unfortunately, they have. And rather than getting down to binary code and making changes, they’ve settled on “does not compute”, bugged out, and shutdown. What this means for a growing number of Gen Y’s and millennials is that we’re going to start arriving at a disenfranchised American voter. A whole 2 decades of, what will essentially look like 1996. What low turn out means in a Democracy is that only the hyper-engaged go to the polls. Only the hyper-partisan have a say. This is good for no one. What one can forsee happening is corruption arriving on the level of Harding and the Tea Pot Dome Scandal; A new oligarchy to breed new robber barons and corporate kickbacks. Corruption will drive toward you, even as a disinterested party and strike at the very moral fabric of your being. And then, like some spiritual singularity, as history often repeats itself, we’ll arrive back at wedge-issue politics. Screaming in the streets, Chicago in ’68. New summers of mercy, and more “the personal is political” that so damned the political system from 1964 until 1988.

I weep for a generation who has yet to fail me, but will undoubtedly unless course correction is made. I had dreams of a new class of Henry Cabot Lodge’s, Tom Reeds, and Abraham Lincolns. Instead we’re circulating back to the same old William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, and Glen Beck rhetoric. It’s a sad day for me, and a sadder future for the next generation.

EDIT: May 8th- Interesting article thats germane. http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/02_young_leaders_singer.aspx