This Open Letter From a Millennial is making the rounds. And, as far as these things go, it's a damn good read. Especially when read in response to the recent high school graduation commencement by David McCulloch, a speech which has, thus far, garnered significantly more attention than this Letter has, a trend which will likely continue. I'll get to the speech in a bit.
Detractors of the Letter will likely say that there's some projection coming from the writer, "Sierra," toward her own parents. And that there's a tinge of rambling, barely focused frustration going on. To the first point: possibly--no one could prove it either way. To the second: yeah, maybe a little, but who can blame her? And in either event, is she wrong?
I don't go in much for blaming parents for the problems of their children. Even in cases where the parent clearly is to blame--which can be often--I feel that it's also a case of "nothing to be done now." We can blame everything around us and, however right we may be, it solves very few problems. But the least I think a generation can ask is a little sympathy and an understanding that no generation is perfect (some far from it); the thing about giving the "you're not special" speech or writing the "you're not special" article/book is that, to retain any high ground, you also have to admit that you yourself are not so special. Our problems may be our own to solve, but when you waltz onto a stage and belch your righteous hand-washing in our faces, it reminds us why we've always sensed an air of anger and resentment hanging about the world you're preparing to give us. As you rebelled against your own parents for not meeting the standards you set, now you blame us for not meeting other, slightly different standards. It's always some other generation and not an issue of human nature itself being annoying. Convenient, eh?
Sierra covers most of the big points, from the expectations that were so high that we were assumed to need a hand-holding that crippled us more than helped us, to a shifting of the playing fields that has left us with disadvantages only pre-WWII generations can rightly scoff at. Part of the reason I don't go in for generation-blaming is that once you start, you can do it forever, but if Sierra failed at anything (she didn't), it was leaving some more specific grievances off the table.
For starters: we get called the tech-generation, and not as a compliment to our relative savvy with technologies that are more and more defining our economies and societies, but as an insult--slurring our unceasing connection to and with video games/smart phones/Facebook/Twitter/whatever else older generations refuse to simply ignore. And this is fair, to a point. We do, in a frighteningly unquestioning manner, embrace means of communication and entertainment that can both enhance and undermine our abilities to function and interact with others. But it begs twin questions: who gave us these devices? And why? If a parent gives their child a video game system, the parent should assume the odds that the child may become addicted to a machine that provides instant gratification and reward for fairly little effort or slightly more reward for a lot (and I mean, a lot) of time and effort. That's called "entrapment." And so when our early attachment to these machines helps foster an attachment to electronic entertainment and connectivity more generally--and when similar devices continue to be pumped out through our formative years and beyond, by companies that our generation does not yet run--is it any wonder that we have such reliance on the machines?
Ours was the generation that inherited the fear engendered by the viewing habits of older generations. The A Current Affair-type programs that dominated early-mid 90s television coincided with our childhoods. The first major world events that I remember getting pounded into my head over and over again from middle school through high school are, in order: The Columbine Massacre and its aftermath in our schools, the Lewinsky scandal, the Y2K scare, the 2000 Election debacle, and 9/11. Every generation has its horrifying and stupefying episodes to endure and I don't want to take away from the generation that experienced My Lai, Kent State, and Watergate. But wouldn't it be more helpful to acknowledge that our baggage is as legitimate as your own, and guide us through shit like that (when you can't stop it happening) with the knowledge you've gained, rather than simply dismissing us?
Remember: we did not set up the lavish high school graduation ceremonies--ostensibly for our
benefit--during which self-important prigs like McCulloch tell us that we actually kinda suck. Even when not used for the purposes of insulting us, what kind of attitudes do you expect these farces to instill in us? To say nothing of the middle school, elementary school, and kindergarten graduations that I took part in growing up. If our
achievements are so banal, why throw the parties?
We then went to overpriced colleges (I'll let you off the hook for this one and not ask "who made them so overpriced in the first place?") that you told us were necessary. An amazing gambit, that. You tell us we need college, so we all go, and suddenly, with so many degrees floating about, it really is necessary! Those degrees are so necessary, in fact, that a mere bachelor's won't do it in some parts of the country anymore. We have to go back for advanced degrees, deepening our debt and, in many cases, keeping us away for that much longer from the jobs and real world experience that employers also crave.
We then graduate into a shitty economy that we, again, had no hand in making. We have to inherit a debt that previous generations are politically incapable of paying off; the entitlements and tax-cuts that they cannot sacrifice even a portion of become our burdens. We have to watch while Boomers refuse to retire, either because they can't or won't, and watch once reliable industries go abroad because we literally cannot lower our standard of living to the levels that China and India have done. I mean, we could try, but where would that leave us in your eyes? As the generation that let America slip to third world status because we had to eat?
And you wonder why we hide ourselves in video games and Internet message boards.
Much of my generation is intolerable and self-involved and in dire need of an attitude readjustment. You won't hear an argument from me there. The good news is, we're getting that readjustment. We get it every time we apply for fifty more jobs we're not going to get call backs for. We get it every time we receive another notice about overdue student loans. We get it every time our exceedingly patient parents can't quite stifle the eye roll when we have to ask to stay with them a while longer.
The bad news is that every time we try to pick ourselves back up, there's a small and irrationally bitter person like McCulloch, standing there, telling us how bad we are at getting up. You think speeches like that do a goddamned thing for inter-generational relations? Or encourages us to engage with you on your terms and your terms only? How did your generation respond when your own parents grumbled about your lack of respect and initiative? Are our values inherently less important than yours? If they aren't, if our concerns as inhabitants of the same rock are equally valid, then surely you can find a better way, as the older and more experienced generation, to encourage us to push ourselves through a harsh world that you had your own hand in shaping. Something that doesn't involve insulting us.
But if I'm wrong there, and you do believe that your generation's values are more worthy of addressing than ours, then, simply put: you ain't so fucking special yourselves.
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