I read the following article recently (“OK boomer” isn’t just about the past. It’s about our apocalyptic future; URL: https://www.vox.com/2019/11/19/20963757/what-is-ok-boomer-meme-about-meaning-gen-z-millennials?utm_source=pocket-newtab). It makes some really salient points about the current situation regarding Baby Boomers (now in their 50s, 60s, early 70s). Of course, it also discusses the “rage” presented by Generation Z (now single digits through early 20s) and the world they have inherited. But it misses several major points that I believe need to be made.
Do young folks have a reason to be upset about the current condition of the world (socially, economically, biologically, etc.)? You bet! Should they have a voice in changing all this? Yes—but, with one major caveat. We need to recognize they are youngers. What do I mean by that you ask? Several things.
First and foremost, they do not have the life experiences that someone in their 50s, 60s, and early 70s have. This means that they do not necessarily understand the full complexity of the problems they and, more importantly, others are facing.
Further, they tend to be enmeshed in the worldview they have been taught. This means they approach problems with the same worldview that created them. Youngers are idealists (I know, I was one), and often demand the same solution for very different scenarios, which is simply another force trying to homogenize a heterogeneous world.
Also, they are often looking for solutions that better their lives—which is exactly what the olders (i.e., elderly people who are not functioning as elders) did. Both groups want what works for them (now).
Second, youngers generally do not distinguish between facts and experiences. In other words, things they witness on YouTube, read in a textbook, or are told by their professors are taken as solid fact, placed in the same category as someone’s personal experience. Of course, how many times have we read something only to find out it isn’t true, or have been told something that does not square at all with our first-hand experiences?
Remember, we now live in a time of “alternate facts”, where each faction has its own data that support their conclusions. However, when you lack in experiences, you must make up the difference with facts, facts that the youngers don’t yet know to be true. While olders do have issues that need to be discussed as well, they do, at least, have real-world, first-hand experiences to draw from. (In no way am I trying to state that olders don’t have serious obligations they are not meeting; bear with me).
Third, given that younger people tend to be idealists, they see the world more as endpoints on a scale (e.g., right or wrong, black or white, true or false), and often don’t take the time to recognize nuance in a situation. More to the point, if someone agrees with them 99%, it isn’t always enough. How many social justice arguments have been pushed by younger people where they end up destroying relationships with their own allies because there isn’t 100% agreement? Social justice is a good example to highlight because it was a movement taken over by youngers.
While the raw energy youngers bring has value in motivating people, the false dichotomies they view the world through also have created division and have pushed people to defend themselves (when a more moderate voice would have, perhaps, brought them to reason).
Youngers are willing to use shame and ridicule, two things that never work to help someone see the error of their ways. The entire slogan “OK BOOMERS” speaks to this exactly. How many memes with a younger in front of mirror taking a picture with their smart phone has this been attached to? Does the younger realize how this entire scene contradicts much of what they hope can be accomplished? Apparently not.
Youngers need to recognize that they are as much a part of the problem as are the olders. How would a meme that states “GET OVER YOURSELF YOUNGER” be received?
We could continue, but the situation we currently have is one where youngers are demanding change (that’s crucial and needed—thank you, youngers, for voicing that). But, what should be occurring is that the older generation steps up, acts like elders, recognizes how they have contributed to and been complacent about the degradation of this world, and starts making decisions that don’t just benefit themselves, but also the younger and unborn generations of humans and other-than-human persons. Because they are apparently not able to make decisions that benefit the collective (only the wealthy individuals), youngers are taking over. Unfortunately, this is another step in the growth of the individual ego.
When, in the history of Homo sapiens did the youngest generation tell the older generation to shut up and move out of the way?
Well, that’s what’s happening now, and I would argue it isn’t working (at all). What we end up with is a culture focused on how to create a wardrobe that doesn’t conform to a gender. That’s their business, but is that really what the world needs right now? With the polar ice caps melting and pollution emanating from uncountable sources, the American younger wants to make a statement to the world with their designer clothes and which smartphone case they use.
Without a lifetime to understand the depth of some issues, especially when you’ve never gone without any material item in your life, there seems to be no ability to prioritize what impacts the world (vs. what impacts the individual). Frankly, no one is cooperating because everyone is convinced (by their ego) that their problems (and their solutions) are the only problems with merit. Recognizing we actually live in the Egocene will help us understand the obstacles we have to face.
Of course, we need also to ask the olders to recognize the situation they have helped build. Whether they want to admit it or not, their perpetual drive for comfort, convenience, pleasure, and social status has caused this society to continue doing terrible things.
We are the most resource-demanding and wasteful society that exists on the planet—and our social conditioning has led us to believe it is our birthright to consume and discard without so much as a “thank you” for the lives we impact (human and non-human). Our political system is a scam, one that allows legal bribes by corporations and for politicians to be more focused on their party than the people they are supposed to represent. Our natural world is under massive assault from people who can’t think ten years ahead (let alone a generation). Some are quite racist or sexist and wear these traits like a badge of honor. They feel that they have worked their whole life and that they should now enjoy everything they can afford.
Written another way, they don’t want to accept any responsibility for changing the direction we are collectively headed, their last years are for them. But their enjoyment (or more accurately, the way they are enjoying life) is making it harder and harder for younger generations to live a healthy and rewarding existence. The older generation birthed people into a world that needed their leadership—but instead of stepping up, most stepped aside and focused on their just rewards. This may be difficult for some to read, but it is an accurate accounting of how most elderly people have passed through this industrial existence.
Elders have always functioned to provide exactly what the younger generation needs. That is one of their most important roles—to guide the younger generation in a manner that benefits all equally. When hard times came and food was scarce, it was the tribal elders who knew about the famine foods that youngers had never yet eaten. When complex social issues arose within the community, the elders helped find resolution through tools they had developed over generations. Elders assured that fairness and equality existed. And people trusted them because the elders did not make decisions that benefited them disproportionately.
Rather, they were about the collective (i.e., the people and the land), not the individual at the expense of the collective. They understood that living a life that steals from their grandchildren was dishonorable and it disrespected their ancestors who had also lived not for themselves but for everyone.
To close this writing, I am aware that some elderly people will take offense to not being regarded as elders. However, keeping in mind that elders provide the younger and unborn generations what they need to live a healthy and rewarding life, how is being an expert in an industrial lifeway (the same one that is contributing to the world’s sixth major extinction event) helpful in the long run? It isn’t, except to demonstrate what not to do.
We don’t need experts in being dependent on an ecocidal and socially irresponsible, industrial machine. We need elders who show a different way of being, ones who role model how to disengage from an insane society and re-connect with life on this planet. We need people who will present a worldview that quenches the ego and fosters deep reverence for the collective and the land (not individual and products made from the land).