I saw a meme on Facebook, a young person who claimed that the Millennials and Gen Z, having been denied the usual markers of adulthood such as home ownership and a steady job, have replaced these markers with an internal marker: emotional maturity.
This person went on to say that in the eyes of the younger generations very few of their elders now qualify as adults.
When I peeled myself off the floor I wrote the following in response:
I would have to know a lot more about the person who wrote this. They seem a bit arrogant to me. How do I know that they have "emotional maturity"? Just on their say so?
I have a problem with making gross generalizations about entire large populations. It is not a mark of emotional maturity, which requires nuance.
The countless generations who used making a living and securing a home as the markers of adulthood were acting from survival on a tough planet.
And plenty of them DID have emotional maturity. It is a survival trait.
But they did not have the time nor the energy to dwell on such things. They were too busy providing for the children.
Denying jobs and homes to the generations after X to fill the maw of the capitalists is a crime against millions of young people. Failing to educate them is a crime against them and against our social fabric.
But it does not give them a corner on "emotional maturity".
And I have tangled with a number of Millennials and Gen Z who definitely did not have emotional maturity. They throw tantrums. That is how I can tell.
The most vocal members of these two generations have more hate and disgust for generations that came before them than I have seen since the 1960s.
The worst part is that they are aiming all that vitriol at the wrong target. The rich members of the Millennial and Gen Z generations are still “growing up” with the old markers. THEY are getting premium educations. THEY are getting cushy jobs. THEY are getting married and buying homes.
The lack suffered by the rest of these two generations is a result of the class war. Fomenting intergenerational conflict is just another division tactic like all the rhetoric on identity politics. Because if we ever figured it out we might win.
That is the worst thing about this meme. It divides us, and in a particularly nasty and arrogant way.
Very soon the relative comfort which gave rise to this aberration is going to collapse. The polycrisis is just beginning. Climate collapse, ecocide, scarcity…It will be clear that survival is the only thing that matters.
Or, perhaps, we never left that state of being and this era has been nothing but a mirage.
I will always lament the lack of nuance in today's world. I'm glad places like this are here where we can actually speak our piece with one another and peel back the layers a bit, but I also feel like we are up against an inevitable tide of dumbification. Everything shorter sells more ads.
As an "elder", I am quite dismayed by young Americans, and also very fearful for their future. For all the excesses of the 60's, it was a hopeful, and idealistic time, from which many social, cultural, artistic and technological advances came, which are very much taken for granted now. I personally find young people inhibited by a huge sense of entitlement, and victimhood, that does not serve them well in navigating adulthood and the future that looms precariously before them. Recently I read a book that is worth looking at on this subject: THE DUMBEST GENERATION: How the Digiatl Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein. He believes that social media in particular keeps youth, and American culture, adolescent.