I eagerly await for this new moral consciousness that Brooks describes to reconcile its principals with the shocking zionophobia so prevalent in its practice.
2
David sees the world as generational, and so do some others. Boomers are blamed as a generation for the work of Reagan and his political progeny. They are responsible for most of the present ills in the country. They gave us huge tax cuts for the rich, the enormous inequity we have, the attack on unions and the minimum wage, the failure to protect workers' rights and voter rights and the environment, the crazy costs of college and the huge student debt and high interest rate on it, the encouragement of racism with their language that appeals to it, and the selfishness that is glorified. Republican's like David act as if Trump is an outlier in the recent history of the Republican Party. He's not. He is the natural result of Republican policies that have shaped the party for the past 40 years. They care only about having power to direct as much money as they can to their wealthy contributors. They all make huge tax cuts for the wealthy their first priority, followed by destroying any protections in law for the rest of Americans, be they protections for workers, the environment, or voters. Republicans are masters of propaganda to convince Americans to vote against their own interests. They actively work to prevent those they see as not supporting their policies from voting, through gerrymandering, voter suppression laws (okayed by their Republican Justices), and manipulation of voting procedures. They now even sanction Russian intervention and blatant obstruction of justice.
34
DB's observations relate to America, but they apply to other parts of the western world. During WWII, the English, and other Brits to some extent, embarked on a crusade to resist an existential threat. Those days are long gone. Now, they, and all westerners, are challenged by ownership of stuff. Trump's advisers were aware of his familial trait of racism and his horror of not being in the spotlight, and so they constructed a campaign based on his native traits: easy! Now, even his supporters must realize that he is rending the fabric of the Republic, and demonizing those who disagree with him. What's an ordinary person to think as all the pillars of their hopes are torn down and all he offers in return is more hate and a carny barker's slick lies? The unrest in the human heart is as old as humanity, the longing, the seeking, and the heartache. People have responded in different ways through the ages. A common feature was to answer a call: a crusade, a war, a religious revival, or a faux defense of something ephemeral such as whiteness. There is no cure for the sickness DB describes without some catharsis. God protect us!
7
It's implosion. The US is rotting from inside. Trump helps with the process through a salvaging of human morality.
2
Only the Boomers who supported the republicans since Reagan are to blame for the mess we are in. The Boomers rallying for climate change action, gun control action, supporting better education and a just society are alright with me. The current rat hatters took a turn to Mordor for money at the cost of all of us.
18
We can all start by not reading this anecdotal tripe. Woohoo!
10
Serving something larger than yourself? How 1970s. This is America in the 21st century. Being famous and winning are the only real values. That's why most of the rest of the world either hates us or considers us unenlightened pigs. "Greed is good. Greed works." A lot of people reading this cheered at that line.
6
Bill Keller did a lot of damage, Dave. You is that Marshall Project going? Sorry just does not cut the cake. Stop the death spiral.
Also, pick a school and stick with it. The thing with the G20 is we have wonderful minds from various school and walks of life but there needs to be a common goal. We can learn much from Joe Nocera and the app economy in the digital age of information.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/opinion/joe-nocera-the-tesla-cheerleader.html?
Contrary to your observations, Gen-Zers are not “ insufferable.
They have seen how the previous generations have left them with a society that is doing little or nothing about climate change, gun violence, mental health issues, environmental damage, the erosion of women’s reproductive rights, the discrimination from the highest office toward Muslims, the LGBTQ community, women and various others, worldwide migration issues, income inequality and the list goes on.
The results of our bad decisions, or non-decisions, is the diminished world which they will ultimately inherit.
And as a Baby Boomer, I’m ashamed.
Ashamed that these very young people are fighting like mad to preserve a habitable world void of all the screw-ups we made, the inactions we took, the denials we made, and our looking the other way when a problem didn’t affect our daily lives.
Ashamed that our Representatives and President refuse to do what’s best for the country and ultimately these young adults.
They have every right to be angry but they are not. They are showing respect, perseverance, intelligence and fortitude.
Do we stand back and criticize them, vote against the policies that will make their world a better place, embrace the status quo, and continue our march toward destruction and despair?
Or do we welcome their input, get out of the way, and leave it to them to lead us toward the world they will ultimately live in?
Because our generation has done a very good job of screwing things up.
8
E tu, Brooks? I think if I see another article trying to generalize about generations, I'll puke. Can you show me any scientific analysis that says there is anything other than common history that binds people into generations? Who started this repugnant concept and can we get them to take it back? Please, anyone, show me something that demonstrates an actual difference from one generation to another in ability to love, to think, to grow, to learn and to hate. Not a few random interviews, but actual systematic analysis. We are all influenced and probably changed by the events that unfold around us, but common reference points don't mean common responses to them. Of course we are all depressed. There is a monster in the White House trying to destroy our country and another in the Senate trying to make sure he gets it done. Meanwhile most of us are sick to death of beating our heads against a wall to eke out a living from the crumbs left over by the billionaires, and with their uncanny ability, regardless of generation, to commercialize, poison, trivialize every good thing there is in the world. That affects everyone, but the young always carry hope, and some of the old help if they can.
27
Ike warned against the military-industrial complex.
JFK said,"ask not what your country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your country"!
Johnson gave us Medicare and the Civil Rights Act
Nixon guaranteed that he was not a crook
Reagan said the government is the problem and supported breaking the law.
Bush told us to go shopping after 9/11 and took us to never ending war
Obama said "Yes we, (all of us) Can!
And now we have the man who advocates grabbing women's private parts, supports racists,loves dictatorship, and is supported by a party that encourages him to ignore the law and do whatever he wishes.
Is there a pattern here?
13
Moral relativism is nothing to be excited about, David. It points to more, not less, conflict.
Why we believe that youth will save us is bizarre. And upside down.
The young are partially formed human beings. My views on life, from 30 years ago, are not worth printing. And hold little of the value of what I now know.
We have lost belief in absolute truth, and the world is going to need to get its butt kicked for all this before returning to what those who wrote down the Bible were attempting to articulate.
It has been fun to insist that reason is perfect. Perhaps reason’s failure will encourage a return to sanity. And the pursuit of truth.
4
What comes after generation Z ?
2
Being outside of oneself is the milieu for satisfaction. It can be politics, becoming a museum docent, a scout leader, obsessive about the flora of upper Michigan....whatever. For my $ .02 the key to living a satisfying life lies in living outside oneself. Conversely the slings and arrows from our past that scar us can dominate our ever present and lead to despair that many of us never seem to get over. I know.
The answer is doable participation in the world around us. Don't think about it. Just do it.
6
At a certain age, we are all strident idealists. Then our idealism crashes on the hard rocks of reality. We become realistic (note well: realism is not cynicism. It is just a more sober version of idealism.) All generations go through this transformation. Boomers did as will generation Z. Bob Dylan elegantly expresses this transformation in My Back Pages with its ironic refrain: But then I was so much older then, I’m younger then that now.
5
People are much the same from generation to generation. The young people of today are probably less physically capable than their parents due to less exercise and greater consumption of processed food, and social habits are different due to technology. But the beast is essentially the same.
11
I don't think that Gen Z, X, or Boomers are actually that different, to be honest.
We now have social media, which makes people's obsessions and thoughts and motivations more transparent. I think if we'd had this in the 1960s, we'd see Boomers acting the way you say Gen Z are today (which we know from other history) and in 30 years, Gen Z are going to be some jaded buck-passers too.
Hey, Gen X already done knew that when you grow up your heart dies.
(But there will always be self-centered people and joiners and activists in every generation.)
6
I’m 67 and I have, after 33 years on Wall Street found joy in helping my newly adopted rural community raise funds to build a 6,000 sq ft Library. And we have done it ! It’s almost finished and it will be the heart of out community. And the kids ( everyone under 30 ) are now gearing up to add solar. Think Global, Act Local !
15
People are in despair because of income inequality, lack of access to health care, and working so much that they have lost sense of who they are when they aren't working. most people in the U.S. right now live on the edge, one medical bill away from homelessness. So finding meaning while living on the edge daily...is tough.
14
Wake up, David.
The despair described in the Pew research is that of people with increasingly fewer options to better their lot in life. They do not have the luxury of bettering the world because their vocation is working 2-3 jobs to put food on the table. Their vocation is making the hard choice between paying the overdue electric bill and taking a child to the doctor. Their vocation is playing whack-a-mole with their credit card bills each month.
There's a recent documentary called "One Nation Under Stress." It noted that "deaths from despair" in the U.S. - meaning suicide, drug overdose and liver disease (alcoholism) is skyrocketing and life expectancy plummeting. It's not hard to do the math here. Income inequality, lack of access to healthcare, education costs that are out of reach, and a reduction in the social safety net add up to despair.
David, why not write about this topic instead? Nothing against Gen Z - but I'm sure that once they too must face the challenges their parent's generation face, they too will choose to make their vocation putting food on the table, chasing health insurance, and paying the bills.
15
The problem with Gen Z is they are given everything without any effort on their part, sense of automatic entitlement and constant pampering.
If they have to work hard for everything and are not pampered, they will find "meaning" in a hurry.
The generation to save us from these perilous times will be the Millennials.
4
@paul But weren't the Millennials the pampered ones until recently? When all goes well, teens should have reasonably secure lives without the need for them to drop out of school and go work in a coal mine. The better-off kids from every generation have that. The worse-off do not.
But the question, regarding the better-off, is whether that leads them to all-out consumerism and hedonism, or whether they feel some sort of responsibility to others in return.
3
I'm Gen X, not Z, and I think I'm now on the first serious moral quest of my life. That quest is defeating Republicans... they're pretty much the obstacle in the way of everything else that would make this society better. Environmentalism, anti-poverty, everything else, it all depends on getting the likes of Trump and Mitch McConnell out of there. I'm happy to be on the front of the battering ram for that.
It's not my livelihood, though. I've got an unrelated job. And it's not even my hobby. Playing guitar is that. It's not my religion, or my social life. It's something I didn't even know was a thing before, and I think it's important to make room for it.
17
David—you really need to stop projecting your own devolution onto your fellow Boomers. In their heyday, Boomers embodied the most visionary antiestablishment political and cultural energy in the second half of the twentieth century.
Your perspective makes little sense, for most representatives of Gen-Z are addicted to their iPhones, texting and twittering away, heedless of the larger world around them. They are generally very ignorant of history—prior to their birthdates—and have an unhealthy relationship to popular culture. Many of the Gen-Zers I encounter in stores know very little about anything nor do they evince any desire to acquire the requisite knowledge that would enable then to discharge their duties more effectively and contribute to society.
If you broaden your perspective to include the international scene, you will find examples of climate change activists who are very serious and committed, and you cannot overlook what is happening in places like Hong Kong and Sudan, where the citizenry is fighting corrupt, autocratic governments for all they are worth.
17
The problem with Mr. Brooks is that he came of age during the 1950s where his mentor William Buckley prevailed. Mr. Buckley was a man for his times and so is Mr. Brooks a man for that time. The world is a different place. The GI bill gave young people a chance for higher education and a better life. Today higher education comes with unreasonable debt. Boomers who started off idealistic now worry that their social security and medicare will be plucked from them by the rapacious republican party or that their children will be ravaged by climate change. Sadly under the Bush administrations and now Trump these existential fears have become worse. Young people know these fears too. When you're in Brooks tax bracket and writing books these fears are mitigated.
9
FWIW, Mr. Brooks wasn’t born until 1961.
Amen. There is a direct line from the privileged nasally intoned intellectual cantering of the 1950’s NR crowd to the entitled mummery of the Trump crowd that Brooks so despairs of today. Maybe if he stopped writing and touring and worked as and off the salary of a retail cashier for a year he might better understand the despair of many.
3
It sound as though these kids are being educated and embracing it. I wonder about the others....
I am 61 with 3 kids ages 19-21. We are well off and know that we are blessed as a family. The 3 kids are bio kids adopted from Romania.
Having said that, many in our kid's generation know that they will never be financially on the same level as their parents (unless they get inheritance,) and thus at least some have turned towards more socially responsible activities-- that pay much less.
In other words, unlike the Boomers who saw that they could earn the golden ring through hard work and some luck, these Gen X's/ Z's know that the golden ring is probably unattainable, and thus are ok with spending their time pursuing other jobs or ventures that are less financially rewarding and perhaps more socially redeeming.
4
I have the answer and generational sorting isn’t really important. What is important? I've been reading Stephen Hawking’s last book which was almost finished before his death. It is a warning siren that if we do not quickly overcome whatever this is and govern through reason and science we will not be around much longer. He confirms that a very aggressive response to the current climate threat is necessary and urgent. It’s not a partisan filter, it’s hard, empirical, science and data. He points out that humans have not acted in their self-interest over the majority of history. Humanity has a very limited time horizon before the window closes. Extremely anti-scientific leadership runs across much of The America’s and The Euro zone. It is a naked plea for humans to come back to reasoned governance so that we can try to survive what is to come. He often cites Brexit as an example of the breakdown because he was British and grew up in the ashes of WW2. I think Trump and Bolsonaro are more pertinent examples. Given that he's buried next to Newton and was as brilliant than Einstein, I find his warning compelling. To survive we must perform a resection of religious extremism from the body politic. It’s a necessary though insufficient precondition to human survival in the relatively near time. We are already past the tipping point and if we put ourselves back in the dark ages we will certainly succumb to climactic Armageddon or the next bolide impact, are probable
5
No.
4
I believe that the hollowness at the core of being of so many is due more than anything else to the universalizing of the "idolatry of the free market" , a sickness in which capitalism becomes a zero-sum game and money is just the means of keeping score. That is the heart of whatever passes for a corporate philosophy and that moral corruption has now not only invaded society at large, but is a cancerous growth eating out the center of our governing values, not to mention our actual government. What else but greed and power-lust can explain the rot that befouls our institutions both private and public, in which an abstract concept of "monetary value" (in reality nothing more than ones and zeroes in a computer memory somewhere in the Caymans or Panama) trumps (pun intended) all considerations of ehics, honor, compassion, indeed humanity?
6
“The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair.”
These are our options, Mr. Brooks? Is there no third way?
2
@Hephaestis
I agree.
But, even if those were our only 2 choices, I would pick "loneliness and quiet despair" every time over getting burned at the stake by a zealot.
"Loneliness and quiet despair" are MY choices.
Getting burned in an auto-da-fe, is the choice of some violent nutcase.
You don't make my choices, David.
You still haven't learned that, have you.
2
@Hephaestis, there are thousands.
2
I'm a boomer too and there is plenty to gripe about, but like all parents over the years I'm convinced my kids and their kids will make things better. So sue me.
There IS one matter that this generation could work on: pop music.
We had it all: The Temptations, Beatles, Stones, The Who, The Supremes, Jimi, Janis, The Doors, Simon and Garfinkel, the Grateful Dead, Aretha, Johnny Cash, Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Santana, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, etc, etc, etc. All colors, all ages, all music all the time.
78
@Peretz David It does surprise me how often I encounter young people who listen to my music instead of theirs. I don't recall being a huge fan of Al Jolson, which would be more or less the equivalent.
9
@Peretz D said:
"There IS one matter that this generation could work on: pop music."
That's what happens when music education is removed from schools.
12
@Peretz David tune into Little Stevie’s Underground Garage or Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure on Sirius... songs that will rock and sooth your alienated soul.
1
I have never understood what happened to my generation, the Boomers. We started out as the generation that was determined to change the world into a better place, then morphed into self-centered yuppies with a conviction that we owned the world. From there we morphed into whiny seniors with an enlarged sense of entitlement and an attitude of whatever today’s problems are, (a) we had nothing to do with creating them, and (b), even if we DID create or severely exacerbate them, it’s not our problem to deal with them.
Generalizing about a generation always tars the minority who behave differently (in this case better) with the same brush and there is a sizable number of us who have retained our ideals and act more like your description of Gen Z, but it’s telling that I, who aspires to those same noble ideals of making the world a better place, immediately personalized my response - “I’M NOT LIKE THAT!”
64
@George Shaeffer, that's because we do what we can as individuals. And wealth and power often have their way over ordinary people. It wasn't because serfs were evil that kings ruled, after all. Collective reprisals and blame harm the innocent with the guilty, and that's why it's wrong. An excuse for those who chose evil and false burden on those who fought it. In short: do the best you can and stand on that.
10
@George Shaeffer What happened to the boomers? Ronald Reagan. And figuring out that having communes was HARD.
11
Not sure I know what "boomer quietism and moral miniaturization" is supposed to mean, but I'll point out that it was the boomer generation that first fought against the draft and meaningless wars, that got interested in and popularized such things as alternative healing methods, esoteric spiritual practices, organic and responsibly sourced agriculture, etc. Ultimately, the only way through the malaise that so many experience is through self-transcendence. One avenue that helps achieve this is service to others. This is hardly a new concept only recently realized by Gen Z!
7
“Everything feels personalized and miniaturized. The upper registers of moral life — fighting for freedom, struggling to end poverty — have been amputated for many.”
And everything old is new, David Brooks. This is what happened in the ‘60’s, an era and movement characterized by the conscious rising of mainly younger activists, borne out of the post war yearning for “normalcy” in the 40’s and 50’s. Looking back, the division in the country was as deep as it is now. Only the leaders somehow, at least the ones who made a difference, were able to be bigger than life and gave us the progress so despised now by the political party you call home.
I think you should visit with some of those who still, though now old, have been themselves the registers of moral life as you say, fighting for freedom and to end poverty, You’ll find sadness over the degradation of society at the hands of current leaders, but you’ll also find the moral life still present and determination to continue the work that must always be done for the vulnerable. There is common purpose among people who represent a cross section of demographics. It’s there in plain sight.
9
The first half of my life was based on hope, an idealism of enlightenment ideals, belief in others at large, and a belief that we simply had to execute -- not invent -- the known paths toward happiness, human dignity, and spreading peace.
As the generations roll by, I have largely lost all that. I wish I could be "personalized and miniaturized" -- all wrapped up in self, as it were -- but I can't escape my ideals. Even though, I fear they always were nothing but pipe dreams.
5
@pjc
Ah, but our pipe dreams truly are our strength.
1
"Schulz accurately notes that Thoreau’s most famous sentence, 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,' is at once insufferable and absurd." Have you changed your mind since 2015? It's insufferable. It's absurd. It's true.
Is wrongheaded passion better than quiet hollowness? Last century, millions died trying to bring the dream of a better world, a world of equality and justice and peace and fellowship, to realization. How did that work out? I'm tired of hearing, "No one wants the socialization of industry." What is the lineage of many of these leftist ideas?
Are you now going over to team Klein-Krugman (being Ezra and Paul)? No matter how misguided activists might be, no matter how harmful their antics, their actions are diminished in comparison with the injustices they're fighting for. This, at least, is the opinion of Ezra Klein. And this opinion is nonsense.
Let us suppose a total moron were to one day win the Democratic nomination and the presidency. I would be shocked if Krugman doesn't become the left-wing equivalent of a once-sane Donald Trump supporter. What else could he do? Klein and Krugman share an identity has a Thought Leader of the noble Left fighting the wicked Right.
Progressives seem always disappointed. And they always will be, because you cannot achieve their desired ends via the means they prefer. Has it been capitalist innovation or government programs that have improved material life? And is economics more important than culture?
1
If not them, who?
1
The students you speak so highly of are the same that have no sense of western civilization, the US Constitution, federalism or free speech. They think Antifa is a legitimate organization. What is really scary is educated people like you can be so fooled by this shallowness.
6
@Dady Some folks have the notion that there's only one way to interpret the constitution (theirs).
Some of the same folks seem to think free speech matters a whole lot when bigots need defending, but not so much when the President calls the free press the "enemy of the people" and threatens news organizations he doesn't like with antitrust prosecutions.
5
@Dady
Sounds like President Trump and his kids.
1
WELL, according to the latest estimates, there's two trillion galaxies. If each has 30 billion stars, that's about 1 star for every 5,000 atoms in your body. Do you matter? no, not really. Will what you do affect much of anything? No.
That said, there's plenty to be had, on our minuscule scale. Enjoy the day. Garden. Help your elderly neighbor change their tire. Personal acts of goodness to friends, family, those in need push most people's happy button. Work at the homeless shelter.
Forget about those universal absolutes, but don't give up on, say, ending kiddie koncentration kamps.
Myself? I wouldn't waste time on religion, unless you REALLY believe that praying for someone will make them better. Instead, offer to help them mow the grass.
116
@Andrew
Or you can pray for someone and cut their grass.
2
@Andrew
Sounds like a good way to pass the time until we become food for the worms.
2
@Andrew - All that is asked of us is that we Pay Attention!
1
"The upper registers of moral life — fighting for freedom, struggling to end poverty — have been amputated for many. The awfulness of the larger society is a given."
That sounds like a pretty accurate description of neoconservatism (the only kind of conservatism that most Americans would recognize). Instead of believing that humanity is flawed and fallible and therefore change is best undertaken in small steps, neoconservatives believe that humanity is irredeemably misguided and corrupt and the only sensible response is to do unto others before they do unto you. That's the best explanation I've seen for how we got where we are.
1
David -- get a grip. The Pew Survey covered the entire spectrum of people -- you interviewed generation z (whatever that is, zonked?) who were motivated and achieving high school students.
All you are doing here is simply reciting anecdotes from a highly selected sample, not random, and subject to your own subjective interpretation.
Come on.
9
@Ralphie
Thanks, Ralphie.
David really cherry-picked on this one.
One example (my cherry-pick):
On 'meaning':
Family: 69%
Career: 34%
Money: 23%
Spirituality and faith: 20%......etc.
You'd hardly catch on that religion was so far down from his opinion piece.
Click on the link and get the whole PEW Survey.
2
In responding to prior columns, I've cautioned against the "cohortization" of trends and norms--thinking, as I do, that this amateur sociology is speculative at best, and perhaps just wrong. I repeat that caution in response to this piece.
But for the sake of argument, let's extend the thought just a little--in reverse. There is a generational cohort called "The Greatest Generation," and I think that's generally thought to comprise the age group that endured the stressful years of the Great Depression, then fought and won World War II--and then gave birth to two following cohorts: The "Lost Generation" of the late 40s and 50s, and the "Baby Boom" of the 50s and 60s.
Both the Lost Generation and "Boomers" are found wanting due to perceived deficits in morality, belief, idealism, and to materialistic attitudes. Is it fair to characterize these age groups as having these attitudes and characteristics, and is the (implicit) assumption correct that they somehow chose those attitudes and characteristics among others available to them?
And who birthed and raised The Lost? The Boomers? Wasn't it "The Greatest Generation" that did that? And what, historically, did The Greatest bequeath to their progeny? The echoes of war....the Cold War....the nuclear threat...the unsolved problems of racial and economic inequality...the animosity toward other cultures and other ideologies, unaltered by creative problem-solving?
"Generational cohort analysis" has its shortcomings...
7
@Robert, sure does. I read a comment recently by a young person about how the Greatest Generation fought for Civil Rights against the Boomers, and how the Boomers elected Reagan, too. Had them absolutely backward. And loathes real people based on that. The politics of division have been disabling our people from being able to stand together, and may cause us to decimate each other while the bosses and their pals rake in the last chips that remain.
5
Brooks now thinks that all the damage that the boomers had done will be saved by Gen Z....not until the boomers die off and give up control. We are currently living (and have been since Reagan but it became less under Obama for obvious reasons) under a tyranny of boomers. Boomers, come get ur boy McConnell and take Trump why you're at it. Also, sometime Gen X would like to know when they count and not just to be your care taker
5
@Aimee A., be sure to include your grandmother in that. Most of us are just people like you, and most were not able to dictate to the wealth and power class what they'd do. I don't think anyone has kept Gen X from acting as they wish--they're pushing 50, you know, and if they're ready to step up, hurry, please. But having taken care of your parents, our parents, and sometimes more, we'll try not to call on you for care. We know you aren't into that, obviously.
3
Virtue has become a performance, not an act. If you are loud and angry and hateful, you are making the world better in too many people's eyes. Jordan Peterson says that real virtue comes from being responsible - to your family & community - more than telling other what they have wrong.
3
Perhaps it's just my age, but it does seem as though the larger society is worse than ever in myriad ways. One simple example: I politely posted on a neighborhood app requesting that neighbors stop shooting off fireworks (in a subdivision!) after 11 p.m. At least one person has interpreted that as "complaining," publicly shaming me. In the past, if we disagreed with something like this, we'd just keep our mouths shut. After all, it doesn't harm anyone for another person to ask for consideration.
3
Despair will not go away until the GOP and Trump go away. There is nothing good to look forward to as long as these disgusting greedy human beings are in charge and thanks to vote rigging, it looks to be that way for a very long time. The conservatives are backed by corporate money and the courts. Democracy in this country is cooked. Maybe we need to legalize euthanasia on demand in all the states? That's the compassionate thing to do.
6
The young will be living in a society marked by despair because our country has been taken over by a corrupt GOP that YOU have supported, Mr. Brooks. They will not have freedom. They will have only what the GOP wants them to have, which doesn't include free elections. YOU are responsible, Mr. Brooks. YOU.
12
What about the generation coming up after Gen-Z? I heard a story that 8 years olds are being taught how to monetize their hobbies. If that doesn't make you want to vomit and give up, I don't know what will.
8
Americans born after 1980 will help save the world. Unlike Americans born between about 1920 and 1980, their brains are largely undamaged by exposure to environmental lead.
3
Young people are idealistic and involved because almost nothing is impossible to the young. Many boomers were idealistic back in the day; some still are. Life has a way of wiping away idealism, of forcing you to see that many of your ideals aren't achievable for any number of reasons. The miracle is that the young continue to see causes they feel they can fight and win. May that never change--if it does, we're in real trouble.
5
If you ever feel lost in your own country, not sure what's going on in America, fear not; David Brooks will be there to tell you all about the pulse of the nation. He'll likely just have returned from a book tour and thus be armed with truths you've been craving without even knowing it. If he hasn't just returned from a book tour, he'll still have plenty of truths for you, because he will draw on all of the other book tours he's been on, as well as on surveys from Pew, etc., and of course on his innate understanding of what makes us tick. He understands. He does.
11
@Steve Schneider After all, if he needs the opinion of the young he can just look across the breakfast table.
I would live in deep despair and utter hopelessness about the future of our country if it were not for Gen-Z and Millennials. I am a boomer and totally ashamed of many of my contemporaries who are Trump cult members. Thankfully those a bit older than me are dying off for they are Bush/Cheney/Trump enablers. It is sad to say Gen-X isn’t a lot better as evidenced by their utter lack of activism and efforts to improve social justice. But Gen-Z gives me hope. They see the U.S. for what it has become under Republican control and have solutions. I just hope they turn out in droves in 2020!
5
Listening to the "generation experts", there are only two generations: the evil boomers, who could've fixed everything and didn't, and must die to allow the Age of Aquarius to come forth, and the Millennials, who are probably really good and possibly about to save the world. No one between 25 and 65 has lived or at least been expected to do anything of note. It's absolutely stupid wrong. We are of all kinds, and responsible for what we have done and do. Heroes and villains abound--and if you want to save the world, you'll do best to be kind and support others in it. Whoever they may be.
7
Another Machiavellian ploy by David Brooks. Get them suspicious and contemptuous of each other and set them to fighting. Then the powerful can steal from both of them and they'll be too busy to notice.
Trump's got you beat with technique, though.
7
Seems to me the really empty generation, spiritually, was Gen X. The Generation Z-ers who are Teen Vogue's market, who care more about whether their significant other is "woke" than with what gender they identify, who now get mislabeled as Millennials by clueless Boomers... They're not rebelling against the moral meaninglessness of their Boomer parents. They don't even mostly have Boomer parents. Their parents are Gen-Xers, people who at their age were listening to Curt Cobain muse on the merits of suicide.
3
@Alex. When people figure out that everybody in every generation is different and has their own nature--I know that's not what slogan-makers say--they are closer to finding how life really works, and their own personal responsibility in it. Liberating and challenging--your age does not determine who you are. No one thing about you can; you're much more than that,and so am I. A little step on the path to enlightenment.
3
As a Christian pastor I was shocked to see the Pew survey David cites reporting that only seven percent find meaning in their lives by helping others. As one whose job is to remind my parishioners that their being is defined by their doing (unto others), it's especially discouraging to find altruism at such a low ebb in the wider secular culture.
2
@Richard no, altruism is at a low ebb in "prosperity Christianity" too. It's even less popular since Trump and the GOP damned those unworthy "others."
I'm a boomer, and I saw the waves of my fellow college graduates go into "Finance" or Law rather than teaching, engineering, manufacturing or other productive disciplines. My generation was revolutionary for a short while but then totally sold out, focused on keeping up with the Jones', lost contacts with family and community. Not all, but a lot. Immigrants of all ages notice this right away in our country.
I pray that the next generations can repair our damage and save us all - in politics, the environment and spiritually.
2
David, you need to get out and talk to "boomer" and old radicals. There are more than a few of us. You won't find us in many universities and, if it's a lunch interview, you might have to pick up the tab. Many of us are broke.
10
The more important question is, what are those of us in a position to do so doing to encourage growth in the younger generations. I’ve had the good fortune of spending quality time working in many other advanced countries, and most of them are doing what America did in the 1950s and 1960s: creating opportunity. Not opportunity for a few to make billions, as we are, but opportunity for the massses to live a comfortable and meaningful life.
Decent housing, excellent universal and affordable education, good health care, good public transportation, cultural resources. These things don’t come cheap, but they are the building blocks of a decent society.
Maybe someday the Confederacy will finally lay down its arms and we will all come to believe that the American Dream should be shared by all, not just those suffering from genetic melanin deficiency.
9
If one spends time thinking everyone is against me so nothing I ever do will be worth much you can guess the outcome. Blame others, or blame events, then just do nothing about the result. What a bad business model.
Just get off your backside, do something, get out there and pursue life somehow. It becomes a habit. I’m not going to wait for something positive, I’m going to track it down.
9
For the love of God and country, your columns should be about penetrating the echo chamber of Trump support and kernaling COMMON sense so America can be one people!
2
Older generation: "Kids today are lazy, spoiled, and entitled."
Younger generation: "Old people today are craven, cowardly sellouts who turn a blind eye to the wrongs of society."
A conflict going back to the beginning of time. Even boomers thought the same about their Greatest Generation parents, at least for a while.
11
The world population is at 7.7 billion, double what it was in 1972, and its growth shows no sign of abating.
We cannot compensate for the additional 80 million each year with conservation, cleaner living -- fossil fuel reduction, etc. Climate change is inexorable so long as we keep multiplying.
The population reached its tipping point -- the point at which a process can no longer be halted – at least half a century ago. No matter what kind of amelioration is proposed: If you, the individual "you", brought more than one child into the world: You are personally responsible for the death of mankind, indeed, of all animal life on the Earth.
Pogo said it in the 1970's: "We have met the enemy and he is us." Walt Kelly had Vietnam in mind, but it applies to today's situation. Actually, worse: "We are the enemy, and we are committing suicide."
It's all over, folks.
3
@Austin Liberal
This is simply not true. While the world population is still growing and expected to hit 11.2 billion by the end of the century (according to the UN), birth rates are declining in almost every single country on our planet and the world population will soon start to naturally shrink.
When you look at who has caused the most ecological harm to Earth, it has been and will continue to be the privileged few who have grown accustomed to flying, driving SUVs, eating meat, and buying new products incessantly. People in developed countries need to stop pointing the finger at impoverished mothers in Sub Saharan Africa or South East Asia and take responsibility for the emissions and environmental impact of their families and their country.
Earth has more than enough resources to feed, shelter, hydrate, educate and empower every person on the planet if we fight for a more egalitarian future.
However, if we continue to eat meat with every single meal, subsidize fossil fuel companies, disenfranchise people of color, allow corporations to avoid federal taxes, and back a military that burns over 12 million gallons of gasoline a day then you're right...
it will be all over.
2
@Austin Liberal
This is simply not true. While the world population is still growing and expected to hit 11.2 billion by the end of the century (according to the UN), birth rates are declining in almost every single country on our planet and the world population will soon start to naturally shrink.
When you look at who has caused the most ecological harm to Earth, it has been and will continue to be the privileged few who have grown accustomed to flying, driving SUVs, eating meat, and buying new products incessantly. People in developed countries need to stop pointing the finger at impoverished mothers in Sub Saharan Africa or South East Asia and take responsibility for the emissions and environmental impact of our families and their country.
Earth has more than enough resources to feed, shelter, hydrate, educate and empower every person on the planet if we fight for a more egalitarian future.
However, if we continue to eat meat with every single meal, subsidize fossil fuel companies, disenfranchise people of color, allow corporations to avoid federal taxes, and back a military that burns over 12 million gallons of gasoline a day then you're right...
it will be all over.
@simon Dream on. It is all over!
1
Thank God for Millennials and Gen Z. Without them we might not have desegregated schools and neighborhoods, elected a black president, taken a few steps forward in the quest for a Great Society, permitted most of the population to vote after decades of open repression, and taken the first steps in destigmatizing LBGTQ folk.
5
@J lawrence Thank God for boomers. Without them, we might have never had Reagan, Bush, Trump, and the rest of the GOP sell out the country and butcher the middle class. We might not have started an 18-year-long war in the middle east. We might have actually made changes to save the planet that they won't be alive to experience. We might have expanded upon LGBTQ rights even more. We might have not let the radical Christian right take over countless state governments. Oh, to dream.
1
The miniaturized morality Mr. Brooks points out is actually the gospel of Reagan-era conservatism. We should not forget that the boomer generation was the one dedicated to civil rights, who rejected the sterile religiosity of their parents and searched for spiritual authenticity, who tried to rebuild society around a less material and more humane set of values, who put their bodies on the line against the military industrial complex. Their idealism was firmly targeted by the conservative movement, which successfully destroyed it by monetizing the worst excesses of Boomer hedonism and repurposing them in the service of narcissistic individualism. If Gen-Zers believe as Brooks says, more power to them. But this myth that the Boomer generation was nothing but a bunch of selfish wastrels is not supported by history. It is a myth that was created by conservatives to permanently destroy the kind of idealism the 60s generation stood for.
21
Why is this all the fault of Boomers? I graduated from college in the early 1980s. I knew who I was, a Black woman, but wasn't especially hung up on labels. All I wanted to do was be me.
The World wouldn't let me.
Maybe that's a foreign notion for a White man. By now, it shouldn't be.
7
Contra Mr. Brooks, Gen Z isn’t so much rebelling against the “privatization of morality” as it’s trying to apply different terminology to substantially the same impulses. It’s a form of putting old wine in new bottles and sticking on new labels
7
One of the benefits from the AA program is that one cannot keep what was freely given. In order to succeed, all that is earned is freely given but must be given away in order to keep it.
A fellowship who share and the first word of the first step "WE".
I can't, WE can.
And so many of our major problems are going to require realism and training, virtues absolutely not valued by the millenials or Gen-Z When you need to face up to the fact that this world can't feed 9 billion people, you need researcher and developer of the first Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, not those who talk about reducing the protein level of all mankind; they won't agree to do it. When you talk about providing enough energy to keep an economy going, you have to recognize that solar panels and wind turbines are not going to run a first world economy; you have to figure out how to live with natural gas and nuclear. When climate change puts populations on the move, you need people ready to set up refugee camps, not people who bleat at Europe that they must "take in their fair share" (ban ki-Moon of the UN; no, Europe didn't agree). Budgets are not fanciful barriers to good intentions; if we continue to spend more money than is taken in, eventually, faith will be lost in the American economy. If the millenials and Gen-Z continue to disparage actual expertise, enthusiastically demanding the lowering of all academic standards in the name of diversity, then they will be irrelevant to solving our problems when the crunch comes. Another possibility, of course, is that when they feel pressured by reality, they'll make a sharp and unpleasant rightwards turn. That is exactly what's going on in Eastern Europe.
1
Will Gen-Z save the world? They'll have to or it won't get saved. But at a certain point, the drive for "self-improvement" that characterized the Boomers and Gen-X becomes indistinguishable from plain old selfishness. The malaise so many people are suffering from today is that lack of connection to something larger than the self.
2
hey dave, love isn't a moral issue? to give is to love and to love is the basis of morality. there's no disconnect. scarcity mitigates the ability to give, to love, to practice morality.
Good article. How odd, though, is the disconnect, Mr. Brooks, when folks like you - who brought us the conservative era from 1980 till now, and this social malaise and institutional collapse that have been the fruits of it - rail against all things more left, from which these folks you now admire are coming. These young people have moved to the left socially, personally, and politically, because they have realized something very important that so many in older generations have forgotten.
We can do good things with our governmental institutions that can enrich our lives and our communities and the world, because the government is us and we can use it to help ourselves. If generations before us did just that, then why aren't we ?
All those who speak of the supposedly big move left for the democrats and of the evils of "socialism", while ignoring the neo-fascist tendencies of the right and the lack of a moral center there, have forgotten our own history and are careless of our future direction, holding their ears and eyes shut, lest they see the successes of others, and are shamed by them, as they should be.
We led the world once because we cared to lead. No ham handed political rhetoric could keep us from it. These kids see the world as it is and want to do better with it, and there's only one way to do that: together.
8
The Pew Research center survey concluded that"A shocking number of respondents described lives of quiet despair". In the 1800's Henry David Thoreau said "most men live lives of quiet desperation". The more things change,the more they remain the same!
9
My daughter just graduated from college (Jesuit) and is going for her masters in social work. I was amazed at how many of her fellow grads are taking jobs in Teach for America and similar programs that provide very low pay for 2 years of using their talents to help others. I do think this generation has a broader view of "self" than just financial success and material pleasure. Technology has given them exposure to injustice and inequality in ways my generation did not have. The outrage my daughter and her friends feel about the humanitarian crisis at the southern boarder is palpable.
Of course, my generation has the means to provide the financial support that allows these young people to delay joining the real world and the "rat race" for at least a couple of years. I see it as a good investment in the future.
5
I think this could all be described in more concrete terms than "spiritual crisis," without denying the value of that term.
People don't have time or peace of mind to develop meaningful pursuits and relationships when their basic economic anxieties become overwhelming. Economic polarization, economic precarity, and the hollowing of the middle class under republican economic ideology have created this situation.
The right-wing led culture war and Fox News has created a culture of contempt, of shamelessness and refusal to compromise, of fury and even domestic terrorism. While trumpeting "family values" they've worked tirelessly to undermine civility, empathy, honesty, and fairness.
So if the young activists are challenging anything, it's the bigoted hypocrisy of people peddling cruelty under the banner of "morality." Our spiritual crisis is that our institutions of spirituality have been corrupted by the Republican Party and hateful evangelicals.
5
The Boomer Generation can be excoriated for "quietism" only now that the Leading Edge Boomers are in their Mid Seventies.
When the Boomer Generation was in their 20s, the catch phrase of the day was "Don't trust anyone over Thirty." And we MEANT it. We were *not being "ironic".
All of these bootless comparisons of generations who are now of vastly different ages, and who faced vastly different problems and circumstances in their own times, is a lazy orgy of comparing pear pits to pine trees.
7
The greatest generation had living wages, pensions and generous SS/medicare while voting for tax breaks, smaller government, infrastructure neglect and obscene military spending.
Gen Z and Gen X are too cool to vote and now they are waking up to realize that their lack of participation have left them drowning in debt and under-skilled for this economy. The ones who will be asked to pay for all of this will be the ones who graduated in the 1980's and have survived outsourcing to cruise into social security/medicare to find the GenZ's ready to burn it down.
If there is a name for my generation it should be The Abused and Used"
5
I’m not surprised the young folks are trying desperately to improve things. It’s pretty clear they’re going to see world environmental catastrophe and associated social upheaval in their lifetimes and they may not be able to live out their normal lives.
7
"Will Gen-Z Save the World?"
No. Try hiring people from the Gen Z group, and you'll soon discover a dominate lack of an innate ability to both (1) figure out how to do something without an instruction book, (2) and effectively communicate with people in person or over the phone.
I suspect much of the above is a direct results of this generation's obsession with and dependance on social media.
6
"(1) figure out how to do something without an instruction book"
Please give a specific example. In fact, people who read the manual are better informed and, therefore, BETTER employees.
"(2) and effectively communicate with people in person or over the phone."
Please be more specific about the employees -- How old? High school or college graduate? Previous employment?
2
@Mary I have no pity for the Millenials or the Gen XYZers all of whom have had more privileged lives than I or most boomers. Gap year? - I had never heard of it. I worked summers in the NYC garment district starting at age 16. I thought being a "working woman" was just grand, took the subway to work, and socked away my pay. I wasn't bored.
Cellphones and social media prevent interaction or true interaction. No, Facebook doesn't count.
Take a job even if the job is menial or volunteer. We can't get lifeguards for our pool except from Eastern Europe. They live together in a room or two, and bike to work. When they get fed gratis - pizza or whatever - from get togethers, they are actually grateful.
All generations have had to adjust to changing economic and social times. America was agrarian, then industrialized, then WW1, then the great depression, then WW2 etc, and everyone had to change with the times. I'm sure there was plenty of anxiety - and boredom too without all the entertainment available today.
The current generations all need to get noses out of cellphones and social media and quit the self pity and the boomer blaming. As you said Mary, hiring and getting across the idea that there is work to be done from the ground up is not part of the mindset.
Very disappointing column from Mr Brooks.
4
Mr. Brooks is trying to slam boomers again. (Kind of "woke" is it?) But boomers changed the world. With help from older brother sand sisters, we fought the war against racism, sexism and homophobia that the Greatest Generation did not.(They had their own battles and greatness against the Depression and the Axis powers.) But in mid-life boomers also encounterd an unleashed "creative destruction" of global capitalism and the rising social Darwinism that went with it. (Others on this site have also noted this.) American life has been defined by the growing wealth and power of elites and their distance from struggling middle and working classes working long hours at Wal-Mart and Amazon. Younger generations cope with jobs lost through automation, overseas outsourcing, and (yes) cheap immigrant labor. They will think about "larger causes" when they have the time and money. Good luck, Gen Z.
7
I am a Boomer who had high hopes for my generation. Many served in the Peace Corps, Vista, participated in the Civil Rights movement, the Feminist awakening, protesting the Vietnam Nam war with an eye to ending all wars, others serving in the Vietnam war and learning what would be never to be forgotten lessons about war, working against Apartheid in South Africa ;many a worthy and noble cause. The mid-term elections of 1994 shook me to my core, to find that so many of my generation and a good percentage of younger generations, had secretly hidden and nurtured the hatred and prejudices of long standing. I had hopes that future discussions and elections would be about the specifics of the path to Progress(ion) not Regression. But the course of most of the last 35 plus years has seen tremendous regression, mostly at the hands of the Republican Party. I respected Eisenhower and Bush Sr. Disagreed but respected. I could have tolerated and accepted a President McCain or Romney or Dole. The current Republican Party has done its share to promote the rugged individualism mixed with hedonistic consumption that has culminated with the current situation across the board. Mr. Brooks should address that.
6
@Daniel Christy
Precisely. The "Greed Is Good" '80s was a direct result of the "Regan Revolution", and it has not abated one iota since. It has simply gone Global !
4
The problem with America is that it is not... Scandinavia! That socialism is believed to be some export from Venezuela. That a Green New Deal might hurt the economy. That health care for all will bankrupt the country (even though other civilized nations do it for half it cost US). The problem is that politics are bought, the system is rigged and economic model is based on predatory practices.
All of the above point to the fact that US is now a country with a dying culture, one in great need for rebooting, for rebirth, for something to believe in. The Z generation is the canary!
7
What’s up with lumping Gen X in with the Baby Boomers here? Two very different generations and world views there... I think you’d be more accurate to draw comparisons between Boomers and Millenials, and Gen X and Gen Z, if you’re determined to generalize about generations at all.
12
@Violet Gen X'ers are exhausted from losing all our retirements and housing values (and many jobs) in the 08' recession. Parents were overleveraged? Gen X had to pickup the slack and take care of that. I also spent every dime I had putting my kid through college so he wouldn't have to suffer as greatly as other kids. He lives on his own which is great but his peers are still living with their parents (Gen X again). Here we are stuck between our parents who thought they planned but not enough and Gen Z who we just want out of our houses. Retirement is a pipe dream for many X'ers. We can't save because since wages have remained flat we can't save a dime. Everything got more expensive. The 80's were great for boomers but killed the economy for the rest of us.
1
Interesting piece. I’ve been thinking for a while about strategic approaches to happiness that can work for most of us. And of course there is no algorithm. But I have thought for some time that one key is to not work on sources of happiness that are based on limited resources (like social status or work achievement, where there are always winners and losers) and instead work on things like exercise, volunteering, spirituality, meditation, because these kinds of things are essentially infinite in supply. I also have noted that even when people go through phases of their life where they just tend to their own garden before long they realize that they must tend to the larger world around them at least a little because of the world around your garden is burning your garden is going to go down with it.
5
Amen, David. Someone needed to address this horrible degradation of the lack of comprehension of being a part of something greater than themselves. Yet I feel the need to share my observations of the attitudes of a number of young people online (a self selecting group, to be sure), when they whole heartedly (and bizarrely) tell older people that they will die soon, and that they (the younger people) see this as a solution to all of their problems. I, for the soon-to-be shortened life of mine cannot fathom the distortion in humanity and cognition that somehow actually makes this coldly stared “sentiment” (can you even call it a sentiment when those embracing it seem to be free from the need to behave as fellow human beings? The cognitive dissonance of such statements boggles my mind. But it also demonstrates lives spend head down with “iDevices”, all intense and preserve forms of distorted thinking and lifestyles.
There’s a disturbing void here that I cannot even begin to grasp or explain. How does a group (or even one individual) become so distorted in their thinking that they sit, faces planted in a blank gaze at their personal machines, and actually tell others that they are looking gleefully forward to the deaths of these others?
They, of course, are young and will never die. My generation didn’t have the luxury of bizarre thinking. Our friends were dying in Vietnam, and we knew that loved ones were often snatched away from us w/o warning.
6
@Laurie
Well said, indeed. Shakespeare notes this phenomenon in his play "Hamlet" four hundred years ago wherein Hamlet discovers that there are young actors in London disparaging their own acting forbearers as if in ignorance of the fact that the young actors themselves are not going to be immune to aging.
3
Laura ,, may i disagree with you? these kids, not the kids brooks “interviewed” but real kids, are VERY aware of the current situation. They are frightened about health insurance. Jobs with value and they can depend upon. Debt, including education, and credit scores.... i would be concerned also with what my generation handed them.
Each generation had its activists, hard-workers and responsible selfless citizen aiming to make this world a better place, just like it has its fair share of lazy deadbeats who voluntarily waste resources without contributing in any way to the society.
This has never been a generational thing. You can’t define a generation based on your perception of what some of them have done. That’s just trying to simplify problems and their solutions.
14
We oldies must encourage this critical view of the world; the world must change and we must be part of that change, only if by encouraging and supporting youngies in their attempt to create a "brave new world!"
3
How many of these supposedly "woke" young people cared enough to vote in 2016? As far as I can see, they like to boast about being "woke" and then they go play with their phone apps.
8
I'm not sure I can answer that. But how many young boomers spent their free time cruising around in gas-guzzling muscle cars and drinking milkshakes instead of doing community service?
It seems to me that replacing one stereotype (woke) with another (narcissists with cell phones) is the kind of cynicism that we've come to expect from boomers. The kids, and lots of the rest of us, see right through it.
4
I am a 53 year old gen x guy; my son is a 15 year old gen z guy. No matter what i do to attempt to ignite an interest in girls, money, cars, etc., he seems quite content and peaceful to chat with his friends online, play some video games, and do quite well in school. In many ways I believe he will be a better man and a far better citizen than me.
4
Mr. Brooks, I take issue with how you have minimized the contributions of the Boomer generation. They raised their voices against the Vietnam War, called for racial and gender equality, and ushered in environmentalism. I was in junior high school when the first Earth Day was celebrated. That movement set the course of my life. Many Boomers have worked passionately to make the world a better place. Each generation has both good and bad actors. Those working for good tend to do it quietly.
10
How to find meaning in what at times might seem to be a meaningless world? We are not as smart as Camus but we have to keep on grinding.
I am a proud boomer at age 72. Remember our demonstrations helped bring awareness of the Vietnam war and to finally end American presence in Vietnam. Many of us discovered meditation (TM) and other Eastern spiritual disciplines in the 1970’s. We campaigned for Human Rights, came out of the closet, and many of us married and remain so. Some of us had children or adopted them. Family is an important value and an endless ethical challenge. Don’t try to paint our generation with one huge brush that ignores our achievements and inflates our shortcomings. Believe me, we continue to grapple with them and adapt to a disappointing now.
6
The kids are right, they aren't entitled or fragile they are disgusted and at 38 I'm disgusted. I hear the government throw the amount millions and billions around daily and there is more than enough wealthy people to give every American a million dollars.
But we can't pay to get the homeless off the streets, and feed every child in this country. Frankly I can't wait kick the ventilator cord out from the wall when the time comes to put the Baby boomers out of their misery. You all know better but are to cheap emotionally, and morally to write the checks and say to your employees, that I appreciate you giving me your whole life to make me millions of dollars so I can buy another McMansion. The America dream is now a daily nightmare of ugliness and expensive disillusionment that this is still a " Great "country.
3
@Travis `Baby boomers are hardly the only McMansion owners. Baby boomers are however the people that ended the Viet Nam war and brought on the sexual revolution, the modern phase of women's liberation, gay liberation, environmental awareness and organically grown food, and general breaking of stifling social mores of previous generations. And Elizabeth Warren. (Bernie is a pre-baby boomer war baby.)
Sure, a lot of the baby boom generation are Tea Partiers, Fox News watchers and Trump lovers, but these are generally not the ones who did all the revolutionizing back in the day. They were against all that as well.
Please don't paint with such a broad brush.
My long-dead parents were part of the greatest generation and I'm an aging boomer. But their achievement wasn't marked by storming the beach at Normandy just as mine has not been measured by being a self important dolt who screwed up the environment and the rest of the world. Although some of the "greatest" were actually great, others, like my mom and dad, had no opportunity for heroism nor did they have the inclination to follow their bliss to personal fulfillment. The worked crummy jobs to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. Boring, dirty, difficult jobs - every day, year in and year out without complaints. Happy to be able to make ends meet. The end result was that my life was far easier based on their selflessness. I was the first in my family to go to college, as were my boomer cousins whose parents did the same thing as mine. I'm a retired special educator. I'm awed and gratified at the choices; the ultimate flexibility my own kids have as they grow, work and learn. I've never lost sight of my white, male privilege and tried to level the playing field whenever I had the opportunity. But within each of our respective generations, we're all individuals, doing the best we can to make the world a better place, whether alone or in an organization. The players change, the opportunities change but the task remains the same, as it has for many, many years.
8
If Gen z and Gen x voted in every election we wouldn’t be in this mess.
7
It is very nice that David has spent months talking with people who feel disconnected and disappointed with their lives after spending many years of his own life supporting and defending an ideology which nurture these feelings. His inability to see this glaring reality says much about the problem he is addressing.
For whatever reason be it divine or chance, human beings are social animals. It is connection with others that has made us what we are and we derive a lot of pleasure from being with others. Our desire to protect the helpless, defend the weak, and honor sacrifice are known to be the best in us.
For whatever reason be it divine or chance, some human beings have far more than they need. (Some would say hard work has a lot to do with that but I've known many hard workers who barely make ends meet.) These people have made made it their life's goal to keep and increase the amount they have and a great way to achieve that is to exploit the weaknesses of their fellow humans. One of the clearest ways to do that is to convince their fellow man that the individual is the highest aspiration and that they owe nothing to their fellow man.
This disconnect of nature and rhetoric is the foundation of this country's conflict as we fail to recognize that we are lost without the other. It has been the Conservatives who have spread the lies of individualism while suborning Christianity to their ends. For many this disparity is profound while others refuse to see.
11
As a Gen-Z, I am taking action right now as the founder and manager of peoplesbignews, a news outlet on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit. My generation wants news that is unbiased and concise. So, I give short, nonpartisan explanations of the news from the U.S. Government without talking points or flashy graphics. My duty is to help fix our democracy, which includes the spread of information that will compel future and current young voters to be informed and make a clear, thought-out decision when they go to the ballot box. That is my project.
7
I find it utterly amazing the David Brooks continues to write, seemingly bewildered, about our “spiritual crisis” and what has happened to the social fabric of America.
He’s bewildered, yet he refused to express a single word of regret or contrition over his support of policies that created those very conditions of social decay. I’d actually be relieved if I thought that his denial was the product of being so overwhelmed with guilt for his sins that he can’t bring himself to confess. Or if by constantly bringing the problem to our attention he was actually expressing subliminal guilt -in some twisted way, maybe as part of a search for his own “inner peace.”
But - he continues to gently wave the conservative banner, and conduct a very subtle and insidious campaign for the very conservative values that failed us so miserably. As Brooks talks to people across the country he always concludes that their spiritual malaise – and that of the country – is not the result of draconian political and economic policies, but of some personal spiritual failing. Like we quit going to church (the church of America) and if we just had faith, if we went back to individualism, self-reliance, and old-time religion, all would be well – and peace would descend over the land.
In other words, if we just recommitted to the conservative values that caused the problem in the first place we would be saved.
Isn’t insanity trying the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result? MAGA?
20
“Spiritualism” stops people from growing up.
2
@Michael
Exactly..
David Brooks has contributed to the destruction of these Z children’s future..
And now he throws up his hands in wonder..
Brooks should look in a mirror to find them enemy..
3
I'm with you, Michael. I may be one of those people who now answers, " playing puppy with children " because I am truly saddened and discouraged by the greed, anger, ignorance and willingness to destroy our environment which are in the ascendancy. I say this as someone who spent years working for and directing my children toward the common good. I hope the upcoming generation can right the ship.
2
The only way I can judge this article is through the prism of my own life: four years in the military; about 10 as a newspaperman (not a 'journalist'); 22 in government service; and 20 in private sector security. Augmented by a number of part-time jobs like bartending, these 50-plus years in a mulltiude of war zones in many parts of the world have left me not only well-travelled but in good enough shape physically and economically to be able to help my hard-working daughter and her husband guide my grandson as he grows up. Maybe I'm not introspective enough for David Brooks' template or maybe I was just too busy to notice I wasn't. But my prescription for the anomie or malaise that Brooks writes about is to find something legal that you like doing and become good or at least socially useful at it.
9
@JAS3rd
The legalization of Cannabis offers a great financial opportunity..
These kids should grab it with books hands..
1
I am a high school teacher and find daily inspiration in the grit and drive of the kids I teach. They are serious, invested and want to make their world a place which will be better for their time in it. I couldn't agree with Mr. Brooks more. This generation of young people may save us boomers from ourselves.
As for whether or not I’d rather be torched alive by a passionate mob or live a long and boring life, I’d def choose long and boring.
4
The younger generations are tired of being raped by priests, shot by white nationalists, bankrupted by college and federal debt, and told they'd have to deal with climate change on their own dime and in their own time. I wish they'd vote; they'd own this country. I'd trust the Gen-Zs over the boomers.
7
Civilizations sink when their founding myths are debunked, their aims exposed to be dillusionary (the war to end all wars), and the sheer boredom of "having arrived." There's simply nothing left to do, nothing left to prove, no distant frontier to make into "the city of God."
Meanwhile, the greatest scourge of mankind, WAR, but awaits occasion. It will come, and the world will look like Syria--and worse. Modern despair is the sense of a social vacuum in which anything can happen (think mass shootings), and all acts are morally equal (again, think of mass shootings as serving a larger cause, or thinning human ranks now to prevent mass starvation later). When all morals have opposites there's nothing left to prevent a Darwinian free-for-all: anarchy--the woke against the non-woke. Killing in a mall, like killing in war, is only possible if the moral against killing has been unchecked in the conscience. The woke generation is in for a rude awakening.
5
I think many of David Brooks critics get too tangled up in nets they’ve been weaving for years to ever give him a fair break. I often disagree with him and I do sometimes cringe at what I see as an overly idealized view of community and selflessness. At those times, I have to remind myself that Brooks is a romantic conservative. That makes him something of a political outcast, but it also places him in the illustrious company of some historical figures that liberals admire.
So, when I get down on Brooks, I think about how much better the world would be if even half the GOP had the good sense to listen to him and follow his lead.
5
There is no leadership in the area of meaningfulness!
We have been in a cultural apocalypse for the past 2 decades. The wealthy have defined “Meaningful” to only mean “work”. So while the wealthy can break records collecting art the rest of us don’t have time to even contemplate art because of ... work. Heaven forbid the workforce develop some critical thinking skills! We better cut the arts budget at schools before the masses realize they’re being robbed of their culture.
5
"... its own version of the Salem Witch Trials (online shaming)."
That's a terrible comparison. The Salem witch trials were formal court proceedings. Indeed, there are verbatim transcriptions of the court records.
See the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project, which is online.
3
I am 59 and thinking about transitioning, not retiring. I've spent 37 years paying the bills, raising "good" people, but now I want to save the world. I want to support a non-profit, write inspiring articles, help disenfranchised kids find a voice for college essays...how do I find my way?
1
@gin Try starting locally. I volunteer at a local respite care facility for dementia patients. I just went to their website, filled out some paperwork, background check etc, and was helping out within a coupke of weeks.
1
Perhaps the deepest - and certainly most scathing - diagnosis of the malaise David Brooks is talking about is Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism," published 40 years ago and even more relevant today. Lasch located the destructive spread of extreme self-absorption in everything from politics to medicine to sport and castigated both conservatives (worship of the free market) and liberals (cultural progressivism) for the breakdown of traditional, widely shared social bonds. Indeed, Lasch's condemnation of modern decadence is so sweeping as to be almost salutary, for in leaving no stone unturned he was saying, in effect, "Don't think you're morally superior to next guy, because chances are that you're not."
5
Well I’ll be darned - I’m in full agreement with a David Brooks article. Well said, sir.
Well, I would hope that "growing in holiness" tends to produce action more helpful to both the person & others than having no purpose at all
But the fact is, the goal in itself is more narcissistic than any of the stereotypes of boomers supposed hedonistic principle of 'doing your own thing' which simply meant choosing your own path in life rather than mindlessly conforming to custom or fashion.
But aiming at being holy is just another variety of seeking a sense of superiority -- like being a billionaire or an artist or a 'maker' or a top athlete or just 'successful' etc etc. It deals with image, & a central concern for one's image strongly interferes with concern for others' reality, because life is screened overall thru your concern for how others experience you, not for how they experience life themselves.
An ally once said of the ascetic, poverty-activist philosopher Simone Weil, that 'it cost a lot' (or sthg. like that) -- paid, that is, by others in money & effort -- to keep her in poverty. She was a perfect example of a self-sacrificing person whose focus on her idea of holiness sometimes interfered w/ her own sacrifice -- & blocked her discernment of other's views of her actions.
In fact, using the word 'meaning' to apply to living is pretty silly & empty. Young people, and Brooks himself, ought to ask themselves exactly why they use the word meaning at all to talk about living.
5
We can always count on Mr. Brooks to remind us to get a clean haircut, say our prayers every night, and for heaven's sake, stay away from those scruffy Woodstock people who dare to enjoy themselves.
14
The Boomer morality?
You mean equality and justice?
Why revolt against that?
12
why all of us, at every age, are not thrashed by the existential threat to the fate of this world as we know it remains a mystery to me. The young person who finds joy in a small piece of nature close at hand that simply exists, is both telling, and heart breaking. That's all we'll have left, if we're lucky, looking at how the worlds politicians are Luddites re Global Catastrophe. No wonder the only "safety" feels close to home. And we know, in truth, it is no longer there, either. But we need something to lean into. I'm old, I'm part of the generation that had it all--and the young are left to try and save what is now most likely beyond saving. Anxiety and depression are understandable. And teenagers around the world showing up to pressure world governments are my heroes. One major option is a carbon tax with a full dividend. James Hanson proposed this 15 years ago.
We still aren't listening to him. The loss world wide of the world itself devastates the heart. It has always been an imperfect world, but it has been livable and breathable and capable of nourishing.
3
Men and women have struggled with the "meaning" of life since the beginning of time.
Do these Gen-Z future miracle workers David Brooks is talking to really represent their peers or are they children of wealthy families padding their resumes for private colleges with excursions to help the less fortunate.
I would be willing to bet most middle class high schoolers are spending the summer working at McDonalds and SubWay to save money to help pay for college.
Take a deep breath. Like most other grandparents, I know my grandchildren are brilliant. They will be fine.
7
David, your lead is "There is some sort of hard-to-define spiritual crisis across the land..." Then you go on to describe and define it.
It makes me hopeful, the way donating to Elizabeth Warren does.
4
I am a millennial man fortunate to work with Gen Z college students everyday as a career counselor at a large public university. Mr. Brooks is absolutely right: young people are in passionate revolt against the atomized, despairing results of decades of hyper-individualism. Thank God! We need their energy and ideas.
I find it both curious and irritating that Mr. Brooks can’t resist constant, derisive swiping at these young people even as he praises them. We should not be surprised that teenagers do not yet speak with the voice of sober maturity. Rather we should be grateful that they speak with the shining sincerity of youth. The tragedy here is the absence of sober maturity among far too many of our nations’ senior citizens, the geriatric moral children who gave us Donald Trump.
God bless Gen Z. They are not the young people we deserve, but they are the young people we need.
9
As many comments point out, rejection of the values and materialism is not new to Gen Z. All one has to do is rewatch some of the "discussions" or arguments between Mike Stivick, aka "Meathead," and Archie Bunker in All in the Family. My generation, the Baby Boomers, sadly are often equated with the Archie Bunker stereotype now.
It remains to be seen if Gen Z will still hold the noble values and desire to work for the greater good as they age. I hope for the sake of the world that they do.
4
Instead of his usual sociological preachings, I wonder what Mr. Brooks would have to say about the imprisoned children taken from their parents at the border. Something philosophical perhaps?
6
@J.Sutton Exactly. Jailed children, broken families, dreamers in the military betrayed.
So-called moderate republicans and so-called moderate democrats, need to justify their flaccid acceptance of these monstrous injustices.
5
More “I wish” thinking from Brooks I suspect that if the survey he sites was taken in 1990, 1980, 70 and so on, the results/conclusions would be all the same.
4
Is the loneliness and quiet despair you have observed a result of one generation's distinctive culture, or is it simply a result of age, a condition that each generation tends to slide into at a certain stage of life? Haven't young people always become young zealots when education opens their eyes?
5
Why do unverifiable generalizations pass for punditry?
7
What I get here is a David Brooks lament regarding his very own life. Poor David.
Buck up Dave, the sun is actually rising. Thing is, you have to look for it.
5
What interested you most in The Times this week and why?
- This week, the article "Will Gen-Z Save the World?" peaked my interest. As one of the millions of millions Gen-Z members in this world, I thought it was very interesting to read about the ways this generation has evolved from past generations. In my opinion, I do believe it is crucial for Gen-Z to make a change in this world. I know we can and it promising to read that others, not from this generation, believe so too.
2
1. What interested you in The Times this week?
This week the article that peaked in interest was "Will Gen-Z Save the World?"
2. Why?
I find how interesting our generation differs from our parents and grandparents generations because I do believe that it's up to us to help make a positive change in the world. I think it's cool to see an adult writing about how the new generation can find their meaning in life to help save the world.
1
Youthful idealism is nothing new. We had it in the 1960s. Social revolution was in the air, and many of us revolted against “the system” – “The Man” - and corporate capitalism. We refused to go to war; our music rebelled; Civil Rights was for all.
But then…we got married, had families, and economic reality forced us to go to work for the very “Man” we once hated. We got sucked into the vortex of “America” and into The Man’s vision – to be American meant to serve The Man. We bought televisions, and cars, and bigger and bigger houses. Some became Republicans. The idealistic of us stuck with the Democratic Party – as if that were enough to carry on the revolution. And we watched quietly as the Democrats, who once represented our proud unionized fathers, turned their back on working people and slipped into bed with Wall Street.
Fueling this was a decades-long Republican master plan, inspired by the Powell Memorandum, to privilege individualism and the free-market above all collective social considerations.
We learned the eternal truth: that the juggernaut Man and his machine just consume whatever objection anyone makes about them.
America now runs on fear; it’s a country where people go bankrupt getting healthcare and a college education. I wish Gen-Z all the luck. We’ll see what happens when they enter the gig economy and go to work for The Man at Facebook, Amazon or Uber.
Their “inner peace” will likely be shaped, not by them, but by The Man’s algorithms.
22
I was under the impression that people from Generation Z (like myself) are often characterized as having a higher tendency to be depressed. I do hope the idealism will last in my generation, but one can wonder if this idealistic view on the world will remain when people from this generation get older. Won’t many of us lead lives in quiet despair in the future?
3
@Mees In these bleak times, you have every reason to be depressed. It is a normal response when people see the ethical structure evaporating and selfish companies speeding climate change with the connivance of credulous yahoos.
The trick, in my experience, is to forge the depression into anger you can use to smite the malefactors of too much wealth.
2
Our society currently favors only work effort within it that generates clearly identifiable, measurable monetary profit. When ability to turn a discernible profit wanes, individual talents, however well refined, are discarded or simply ignored on the way to being forgotten. Ignoring well-honed, individual talents leads inevitably to the need for wasteful reinvention of skills society falsely thinks it must newly create in order to evolve. In fact society need only be mindful that the work of refining many individual talents may already have been done despite our propensity for inefficiently shelving those past efforts.
To ensure evolution of an improved society we must continually be aware of good work that has gone before by holding open avenues for our valuable, past works so that they remain relevant in newly creative ways. Remembering and recognizing every individual as the sum total of his or her good works is the key ingredient in our crucial effort to achieve a better place in which all life can flourish. Human nature may not favor such a simplistic definition of how collectively to shape better life prospects for each of us. But, it is a thought worthy of serious and continual contemplation.
2
Boomer “quietism” and “moral miniaturization”? I guess Mr. Bruno missed the loud and long civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, and the list goes on! Boomers are not quiet or small with regard to our response to injustice and our impact on social and cultural change over 5 decades. That’s so obvious that I am mystified by the author’s statement.
9
Brooks' search for the reason why Americans are universally feeling lethargic about themselves needs to focus on the occupant of the Oval Office. His lack of culture, his mocking of those who dare to disagree, his lying, his moral abrogation, his fanciful logic, his.......the list goes on.... All have taken a toll on our collective emotions. No one wants to live in a divided house. Yet, this is what America has become. It is no wonder that we all want to run away from home.
The kids today who are being raised in homes with nurturing parents that insist on a good education and the development of learning habits will realize the truth of our situation. But the kids who are not so fortunate will not. So the divisiveness we currently experience might very well continue beyond the current potus and his administration. I sincerely hope not. But it will take a good amount of effort and a good amount of funding for public education to make things proper.
3
David, I'm a pediatrician in Portland Oregon with children in Lincoln High School. Yes, there is a cohort of kids in High Schools as you described, but you've over-simplified their positions. This group remains filled with worry over the fate of the world. Why are apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead so popular? Young people actually believe such a descent into chaos is likely! They beleive us old-folks are going to succeed in destroying the planet. And while the strong kids might take on a cause, they still feel disempowered with the knowledge they will never make a decent living by caring for the planet or the downtrodden. More common, as I see it, are young people, from "good" families that are living for the moment. They are getting high, they are partying like it's 1999, they are living for the moment. Because what is it, a 1/3 chance of armageddon by 2050? I mean, even I want to reach for a gummy!
5
Let's be really clear and call "wokeness" what it is - a tortuously self-righteous and narcissistic attempt by the younger generation to sanitize the entire world of anything and anyone that makes them even slightly uncomfortable.
It is in fact not an antidote to despair but a major cause of it, because eventually they run up against a most inconvenient truth - while they are entitled to their opinions about how the world should be, not a single one of us is obligated to agree with them or change our own behavior to better suit their preferences.
I would also point out that for people that claim to have some elevated level of awareness, they are remarkably blind to just how at odds their approach - of trying to shut down and shame into oblivion anyone who's words offend them - is to the most fundamental and important freedom we have in this country. That this generation is so unable to tolerate speech they find disagreeable does not bode well for America's future.
9
With all respect, sir, I reject the premise. I do not find divisions, analytic or otherwise, based on false notions of generational differences to be illuminating.
As a “boomer” who has fought all my life against the forces of selfishness, greed (corporate and otherwise), & ignorance masquerading as patriotism, I am encouraged by the evidence you mention of a continuing awareness that our national capitalist religion is void at its core. It is always good to hear that the energy of youthful awareness is being directed, angrily or otherwise, at the smug complacent narcissism of those sitting comfortably at the top of a rotting edifice.
The #ClimateCrisis you mention so rarely is but the latest & most urgent symptom of how out of balance humanity has become. We are endlessly clever apes, yet we apply our cleverness not to the existential problems that block our advance & threaten our survival, but oddly enough... we spend our energies on denying the truths offered by our most enlightened & fighting each other!
We may, through some miracle yet unforeseen, “make the turn” to a more sustainable future. Certainly the energy of our youth will be invaluable in this. But the fight to right our distorted priorities & share the bountiful fruits granted by a beneficent fate at this point appears to be a fight to the death. Only time will tell.
Robin Williams was recently quoted to me as saying “Never forget that words and ideas can change the world.” And that’s truth, not comedy.
3
In reading Brooks’ latest, this phrase stuck with me, “the privatization of morality”. It seems to imply some deeper meaning, but I’m not sure what? Does “privatization” imply that morality used to be public, like a stock-issuing company, and some hedge fund bought it out and took it private? Is Brooks lamenting the decline (well deserved) of organized religion, or the lack of prayer in public schools? Perhaps Brooks has noticed that Republican leaders have abandoned public morality, and that Trump’s White House is an unethical mire? Or maybe he thinks that we sinful Boomers have replaced the Official Morality (as certified by whom, Eisenhower? Walter Cronkite?) with all that ‘60s relativism that led to the decadent release of gays from closets, blacks from Birmingham and women from kitchens? I don’t know, that “privatization of morality” phrase leaves me wondering what Brooks meant. I often feel a little sorry for him, he seems sad. Everything he writes is tinged with a poignant yearning for something lost. He seems burdened with a nostalgia for an America that was never really as decent or as moral as he imagines it had been. He’s certainly disappointed in us, today.
1
I hope so, someone needs to, and it's pretty apparent, that it's not going to be the baby boomers or GenX
@doug It is silly and useless to frame our population into "generations," and then attribute praise and blame.
We all face the existential threats of climate collapse, crooked politicians, large parts of the populations living in closed-minded bubbles.
We need to work together, not focus on our different shapes of navels.
2
I live in the rural end of Boulder County in a predominantly republican farm neighborhood. These kids do chores, go to church, work, and eventually attend the same colleges as the wealthier kids from the city of Boulder. The difference is the rural kids end up getting married, working, and saving for the future. They appear to be very grounded and successful. I don’t know any that vape or take drugs. The Boulder kids appear to be stressed, anxious, depressed, suicidal, unemployed, confused, hyper sexual, addicted, bitter, resentful, etc. For what it’s worth, this is my observation.
3
@Independent
At least they are enjoying sex—at least I hope so.
1
I don't think they'll save the world. If they follow my generations lead (millennial) then they'll become increasingly puritanical in their view of morality and it's applications to race and gender. They'll continue to inspire the universal bolt to the political extremes, either by bringing people to the puritanical left or by repelling people to the far right. They will continue to live in a nation where your political opposite is seen as your enemy and their ideas as heresy. Then they'll get to confront the realities of climate change and famine, and they'll all wonder how we could've focused so much on identity politics while our ecosystem crumbled around us.
Wait, is this the despair you were talking about? Oh, look. A butterfly.
4
Generation Z? That would indicate they will be responsible for the end of the world.
Who started this nonsense of labeling generations with letters of the alphabet? This is what (you've heard it before) propagandists call "grouping", placing people into categories. It's tiresome and it's dehumanizing. It's a way of thinking that robs people of the the opportunity to have a personality.
5
GenZ is the most diverse and most progressive generation in America. For informational purposes, GenZ consists of those born after 1996; the oldest among them is 23. While David Brooks apparently interviewed a few GenZ , “InspireU.S.” as a nonpartisan foundation, has actual experience working in hundreds of high schools all across America to register these young adults to vote. Here’s what we have found: They are passionate about the opportunity to vote! GenZ young men respect LGBTQ, gender equality and women’s’ reproductive rights as their classmates are vocal and resolute in asserting those “rights.” GenZ know the immigrants among them and protect their DACA colleagues. Moreover, these young people understand completely that they will bear the brunt of the climate crisis even at the cost of their lives. Based on our experience thus far in registering 78,000 GenZ to vote, these young Americans want to translate their aspirations into full citizenship as voters in order to play a direct role in shaping their future because the stakes are so high!
3
This was a really good article. Thank you.
1
Again Mr. Brooks comes off as the NYTs myopic, sanctimonious
scold. Tacitly pitting one generation against another.
Somehow failing to remember or recognize the ongoing generational optimism inherent in youth.
He also ignores the fallout from years of adults coming up against the conservatives embrace of capitalism and consumerism. Striving and all too often failing to keep up with the privileged one percent. A group I’m sure feels absolutely
wonderful about themselves.
3
This comment describes my first wife of 26 years: “I don’t feel very satisfied with my life. I’m a stay-at-home mom and my life is endless monotony and chaos.”
I made a more than adequate income that allowed her to be a stay-at-home mom. She also worked as an at-home seamstress (a very good one) because she wanted to, not because we needed the extra income. A couple of years after she divorced me, she admitted she made a mistake.
I have since re-married and realize now (but certainly not at the time) that she did me a very big favor by divorcing me. People like this woman do not have my sympathy---- don't wallow in your (perceived) misery---- instead, do something constructive to change it. Join the PTA, help out with the Food Bank, find a challenging hobby----- the list is endless. Do not expect your spouse to be the sole source of your "happiness."
3
"... involved in the Bezos Scholars program."
That's in no way a representative group.
According to the web site*, the group is "17 exceptional high school juniors and a supportive educator from their school".
Thus, the Bezos Scholars are a high school clique.
* The Times should link to the web site, so readers don't have to do a web search.
3
First of all, don't confuse Republican morality with the morality a whole generation. Secondly, if Gen-Z saves the world, it won't be because of the Gen-Z Trump supporters. The Party position on climate change alone tells you that much.
2
@Sam Williams - I don't "hate" the millenial generation, but as a GenXer I have been, let's say, STRONGLY motivated to take them on because of their assualts on free speech, their hypocrisy when it comes to racism, sexism and classism (they're all for inclusiveness and diversity except when it comes to white males and the rich), they're against hate speech except when it's directed at those they've decided it's okay to hate (again, like white males), and their jaw-dropping disdain for and dismissiveness towards anyone over about 35.
Although of course these behaviors and attitudes are not found in every millenial, they do seem to be widespread enough to be considered a generational characteristic. They are also dangerous, and just as deserving of the term authoritarian as what is coming from the far right.
4
truly astonishing. here we have an article about "gen-Z" and their "privatization of morality" (whatever that means!), and for which climate change is one of the most moral of all moral issues.
and we have a led photo of high school "students in an environmental justice class" -- and what greater environmental injustice is there, if not our contemporary ponzi scheme of pushing carbon climate costs onto future generations?
and david brooks, moralist, can't bring himself to write the two key words here:
climate change.
david ... you're in deep, deep denial.
4
So let’s get real. It appears that if your in the Bezo program you have an opportunity to grow . This is the same greedy capitalist who strip searches his warehouse employees and won’t pay them for the time they have to stand on line to be searched. So a select group of scholars are allowed to think and the lower class are subject to abuse.
Politicians create these hateful policies putting children in cages and you wonder why people are depressed! Everyone is sick and tired of seeing our country slip into a dictatorship and we know where dictatorships lead to. We see the hate daily in this country and the Fourth of July was such a perfect example of why people are just tired of hate and if people are troubled it’s because they have a true sense of reality not the tv spin of nonsense.
The announcement of a secret second Facebook group makes normal people sick to there very core of humanity
2
The need to keep dividing us by generation seems so stupid and artificial. There also are millions of us who were not of any of these named/alphabetized generations!
I too have blamed "boomers" for dropping the ball we betweenies started with feminism, environmentalism, civil rights, peace, etc. Many that followed seemed to believe the work was all done!
So now I don't blame that way. Every generation has to mature and start to understand how things are in their time.
I do agree that Reagan was the beginning of the end, as they say, as the nation was taught/persuaded to value all the things I was taught are selfish and wrong! But we probably should be grateful for the negative climax of the Trump years. He has appealed to all the worst of our natures so we can now really see the darkness of fear and hatred that lies beneath American self-love and self-congratulation.
We needed to be reminded that we have all the good and the bad in ourselves, and it is our task to choose wisely for the good of ourselves and the nation. Currently we reward only the greedy and the selfish professions, not the caring ones.
That has to change. We have to choose to help, not harm the planet and our neighbors. Simple--just do it!
2
There is a fundamental isolationism washing over America. Everything can be sent to us for survival and upwards on the hierarchy of happiness. Food, medicine, advice, friendships, sex, religion. What is the point of self discovery when everything and everyone has already been discovered? These kids are taught to love the Earth more than themselves. And it leads to the behaviors mentioned by Brooks. And guess what, you Boomers did cause all this grief. Boomers hit the sweet spot in American history and benefit greatly. The leftovers have run out.
1
I don't see any mention of the disconnet caused everywhere in our society by the enormous amount of time individuals (especially the young) spend looking at screens. The time we used to spend developing relationships mostly goes into processing symbols and contrived sequences of other peoples experience. How can anyone develop values beyond immediate survival experiences when this is the case?
So glad that David has finally garnered an appreciation for the big picture moral revolution that drives idealistic youth. Extreme age based generalizations are always dangerous and overly simplistic. But we, regular readers, have been watching Brooks struggle to make sense of the generational differences of his (& mine) generation compared to the youth of today for quite a while.
In this article it seems he has finally come to appreciate that the enemy of, focus on self, that is the moral code of us boomers, requires repudiation. And that the process isn’t going to be pretty, yet society is probably better served by the a more community minded moral code and that “good” will come in an imperfect package.
Thanks for letting go of trying to defend and justify us oldies. We serve society better by trying to help improve an emerging community focused culture.
2
I stand in awe of them; they are engaged in the great projects of life. But they need to take their passion and commitment to the ballot box. None of it will matter if they do not vote.
3
If the Gen Z kids want change, they’ll need to root out the rule of plutocracy and the religion of unrestrained capitalism. A lot of Boomers were idealists, and were ultimately wooed or destroyed by the 1%. I am one of the older Boomers at 71, and fell somewhere in the middle. I definitely worked for larger causes, primarily in education, but also lacked for little as a successful lawyer.
The election of 2016 radically changed me. After fifty plus years of atheism, I discovered faith, wisdom, hope and love in Greek Orthodoxy, to my astonishment (i’m not remotely Greek). In part because I concluded that expecting justice, fairness, tolerance or compassion from the vast bulk of humanity was delusional. I look to a Judgment Day for a final reckoning, unsure where I will end up but hopeful that the evil and greedy among us will be called to account.
We were also blessed with a grandchild late in life. So I will continue to fight for progressive causes, and to address the one issue that should be the cause of everyone who cares about the future, climate change, until I die.
No need to demonize or lionize generations, Mr. Brooks. Save that for your beloved GOP and the fat cats of all parties who keep acquiring far more than they need or deserve and ignore the poor, starving, homeless masses. They will not pay in this life for their misdeeds, absent a new French Revolution. Maybe they will in the next. That is up to God, not me.
1
Once again, David Brooks is lamenting the societal problems brought on primarily by Conservatives and Republicans.
No generation is going to "save the world." What Generation Z can do with the help of other generations to make the US the country we were brought up believing it could be requires some fundamental changes in the way the politics is approached and practiced.
Ultimately the goal needs to be to get responsible leadership in our representatives in all branches in government - it is lacking in all three. This can only be achieved by removing the grip money has on our government.
Bribery is legal in the US - so says the US Supreme Court. When government officials can be bought it stands to reason that those who can buy will exercise this power and buy what they want in government just as they buy what they want in other areas of their lives. That is what commerce is all about, buying and selling goods and services and the Supreme Court and Republican party love commerce. They are always trying to figure out more ways people can make money on societal needs whether it be education, health, imprisonment, even law enforcement and defense.
It may take a constitutional amendment at this stage since statutory efforts fail with the corrupted current Supreme Court. Let's get on with it, Generation Z and X and Millennials and Baby Boomers. Let's save the world or the US anyway.
2
Two reasons I see for this general despair and loneliness are the fracturing of family life and the near disappearance of a feeling of community with neighbors. Once the Boomer's parents die off the siblings retreat into their own families, if they have one, and sibling infighting. I know more than a few people who no longer speak to their siblings, whether it is over inheritance, or just sibling rivalry.
We once had communities in America, urban, suburban and rural. But at some point people began retreating into their own homes like fortresses. This process began years ago. I recall reading Pete Hamill's memoir A Drinking Life. He related how when he left his Brooklyn community in the early 1950s he left behind a community that was often outdoors, children playing in the neighborhood, adults chatting on their front stoops. When he came back to the neighborhood several years later the neighborhood was quiet. People were inside watching television.
Other factors came into play. Neighbors competed over who had the nicest house, the biggest car. Things that got us out of the house such as movies, book stores, record stores, video stores have either vanished or are a pale comparison to what once was. Technology has not given us greater happiness. Much of the technology are just toys.
2
As a father of two sons in their early twenties I can observe directly what gives them meaning in their lives: engage in preventing the impending climate crisis. They have a much deeper understanding of human nature, civilization, global social justice and of our failing economic system and what needs to be done to achieve harmony of our civilization with nature. As many of their educated peers they can’t be bothered with dividing inter subjective realities such as nationalism, marriage and race. They understand as expressed in the Green New Deal that preserving our civilization requires personal dedication for a greater common good. Prosperity for them is not defined by the GDP but by common social wealth that includes education, health care, a decent basic income and a global sustainable culture. They reject our misguided materialism based on stealing nature’s resources from every future generation (that is all life on earth).
We all need to join them in this “project”.
3
"They have a much deeper understanding of human nature, civilization, global social justice and of our failing economic system and what needs to be done to achieve harmony of our civilization with nature."
"Deeper" than what? Some parents would have everyone believe that their children are geniuses and moral leaders.
And nothing in that list suggests that they have any "understanding" of physics, chemistry, or biology. No one can discuss the so-called "impending climate crisis" without knowing fundamental science.
1
@ VMK: “deeper understanding of human nature and civilization” can only be reached with fundamental knowledge of sciences. Your critic is misplaced. I might also include that the climate crisis requires a good grasp on natural and social sciences. What makes you think that the youngest adult generation did not achieve better and deeper knowledge? Did we as the parent generation fail in their education? I don’t think so. Measured proficiency levels are rather useless and not predicting college level education. But as a society we can definitely do more about a better general education, which currently goes as income to only a wealthy minority. Hence the emphasis on social justice with better education, universal health care and a basic decent income
1
It's easy to be disillusioned when your elected officials are destroying the federal government, trampling the constitution, favoring corporations with tax breaks and relaxed environmental regulations, the list goes on. The people who support this turn of events become ever more entrenched. Meanwhile homelessness grows and the opioid epidemic take more victims. The middle class struggles to exist even with 6 figure incomes per NYT today. Who has time to protest or volunteer? Or right, students! Fantastic, the young are always the best hope for the future. I sure hope they can help us change course before it's too late.
1
Well, a boatload of Gen Z are already committing heinous crimes, some revolting enough to be chronicled in the national news. The reality is that Gen Z is no different than those generations that came before, except they seem less educated in history and less intellectual while more herd oriented, gullible, sexualized, and with immature impulse control issues from being raised on screen devices and the false world of the internet. And there are more of them, since humans have refused to control their breeding for the past 70 years. Gen Z also is very coddled, dependent and lacking in the self-determination + perseverance to be individualistic - which is where creativity, joy and innovation blooms. I have a Gen Zer and am always looking at peers for some reason to hope they are better, smarter, stronger, more trustworthy and resilient than my Boomer generation. They aren't.
My assessment: Post-9/11 American society infantilized Gen Z to protect them. But it insulated them into group think consumerist and entertainment addicts; too much Harry Potter fantasy and Hunger Games dystopia and not enough serious humanist books (my teen reluctantly just read Chekov's short stories and the heavens parted - we're now working on Dickens, Chopin, Steinbeck); they forever look at themselves in the shallow, phony social media mirror, limiting their self-awareness, introspection, subconscious exploration of the natural world. Boomers knew no limits, freed to mature and dream big.
4
Boomer "quietism"? You mean like the Vietnam era anti-war protests? The marches for equal rights? The college sit-ins against apartheid and for migrant field workers? Beyond labor unrest and the suffrage movement, there was precious little social activism of the kind we see today until the "quiet' Boomers came long.
9
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” As cheesy as this must sound it still inspires and electrifies my soul to serve and help others. To be kind. To stand up for what is right. To be a decent human being.
6
No one who is Gen Z can vote. The oldest of my generation are sixteen. We rely on older generations to make the right choices, and we do whatever we can to inform and educate them to make decisions that will impact us positively. I'm too young to even drive. The only thing I can do is protest for what I believe in. Older generations are greedy. I am too young to hold a job, yet I understand the value of giving others what little I have. My generation is very very scared of what's going to come next. Even the youngest politicians won't live to see the devastating effects of climate change. You call us lazy, technology obsessed, but we're trying to create a world that works for us. Please try to respect us.
15
"No one who is Gen Z can vote."
Quoting the Pew Research Center:
"But for analytical purposes, we believe 1996 is a meaningful cutoff between Millennials and Gen Z ..."
Thus, as of 2019, the oldest members of "Gen Z" are 23 years old.
The following Pew article attempts to rationalize Pew's categories, but no one should accept Pew's categories as reflecting reality in any fundamental way:
Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins
By Michael Dimock, president of Pew Research Center
January 17, 2019
pewresearch web site
1
David, I think your focus primarily on Gen-Z misses a larger contributing factor about the older generations. What I see, in today's morass of meaninglessness is the rise of a "get mine at any cost" culture. We see it in politics, business, and every aspect of our society. Why else, for example, are the Koch brothers and the politicians they've bought fighting so hard to prevent action on climate change? Only a fool would believe they don't actually understand the reality and implications of global warming, which are agreed upon by 97%+ of climate scientists. Yet they persist. Why? It seems clear that the reason, of which there is ample evidence, is so they and their friends can accumulate more wealth.
Historically, the attitudes and ethos of each generation have often been shaped as a reaction to those of prior generations. Today, I think it's clear that Gen-Z's zeal is an equal and opposite reaction to the ubiquitous, predatory materialism and reckless selfishness of older generations.
We are at a crisis of the soul in the US and the world. Unfortunately, in the vacuum that has been emerged, unprincipled opportunists and demagogues have risen to take advantage and make things worse. Gen-Z's passion and zeal may be our best hope. I say, "let the auto-da-fe begin and burn the iniquities to cinders."
5
There is a definite difference in the way this country treats people of color, especially during this administration. The corruption and flagrant spending is so darned obvious. No wonder kids are depressed. If she had a legal abortion without the GOP phony right to life stance she could have gone on with her life.
And if she did move on, she would still face discrimination and stagnant wages.
1
GEN-Z is not going to save the world anymore than the Boomers. I often ask myself what happened to my generation? I do not even recognize it from the 60s and 70s. Where did they all go? Everyday life intervened. We all had to go to work and do something with our lives. Gen-Z will have to do the same thing. Is that depressing? In a way. When i look at Donald Trump and Mike Pence who are at the leading edge of the boomer generation, it is unrecognizable from what was going on in the our youth in the 60s and 70s. Yes, it is disappointing in some ways. However, the boomers were an incredibly innovative generation and generally advanced standards of living and lifespans. I hope that Gen-Z does even better and can correct the bad aspects of the boomer generation.
3
I'm a Millennial, and I wish I could say it will be my generation that will fix all the damage Boomers have done. Unfortunately, I fear we will go down in history as the metaphorical canaries in the coal-mine whose mid-life misery will inspire younger generations to take action to prevent themselves from having the same miserable fate. The Millennials are, in a sense, too broken down by debt, income inequality and the Boomers constant gas-lighting telling us our misery is all our fault to fight back as aggressively as we should.
Mr. Brooks does a pretty good Dan Quayle schtick: the world needs saving from hippy boomers and Gen Z, full of woke do gooders will save us.
This is MAGA: take us back to a dreamy time before there was even rock and roll, maybe only Pat Boone, apple pie and a woman knows her place. Before there were gays we knew of, or homeless people we noticed, Blacks, Asians and Latinos kept to themselves, and the world was a pristine, leafy Ozzie and Harriet neighborhood.
Brooks thinks we need saving from boomers. Those lazy hippies, useless, free sex types who pointed the way toward equal rights for women and women's right to choose, civil rights, against stupid wars, stupid rules, dress codes, and oppressive sexual mores. They brought awareness to environmental degradation and toward the greening of America.
Boomers pointed the finger at the lies of politicians and the military. They ridiculed harmful, meaningless constraints of religious dogma, laughed in the faces of cultural, political and social icons of the time. They were woke before that cloying word described awareness.
And they gave us some really great music.
But then, as now, there were trumpites, GOP right wingers who know what's best for us, ever lurking to bat down any threat to the status quo, their notion of sexuality, morality, or their myth of the American dream. That's who we need saving from.
17
Baby Boomers were the great "save the world" generation. (I was born in 1940 and so was a few years older than they, and a little more cautious.) They marched for peace in Vietnam, for de-nuclearization, for integration, for women's equality. They sang about the corruption of the old world, and the immanent arrival of a new and better one. Then Reagan happened.
In 1980 the oldest Boomers were 35, not yet a majority of the voters, and not Republicans. Reagan, like Nixon before him (until he was exposed as a crook), was the product of a backlash by older voters who resented the changes and upheavals in which the Boomers participated. Reagan's "Morning in America" feel-good message distracted voters from the meanness of his policies, and was an earlier version of "Make America Great Again." The Republican ascendancy was an attempt to build a wall against the movements for social justice that the Boomers helped to energize. Even Clinton had to "triangulate" by adopting anti-crime, anti-welfare, budget balancing measures to get elected, and even so his election was a fluke, due to Ross Perot's syphoning off of votes that otherwise would've gone to Bush Sr.
Bush Jr.'s and Trump's elections were also flukes, due to the Republicans' unscrupulous capturing of the Supreme Court, and of state legislatures thru gerrymandering. Boomers after 1980 had to worry about earning a living, raising children, etc. and had less time for idealistic causes that seemed to have lost. Give them a break!
11
@Robert Crosman. Yes! And the seed of so much of today’s problems were laid by the ‘over-35’ crowd in charge when they did away with the Fairness Doctrine. This step was accomplished with ONE aim in mind: the development s of a propaganda tool for the far-right views of Murdoch, Ailes, the Kochs, with mouthpieces such as Limbaugh. Their poison in civic discourse cannot be underestimated, and is still terribly dangerous.
1
@PeteNorCal Yr right, of course. There were many aspects of the Boomers' "failure" to change the world - which overlooks the many successes in civil rights, limits on presidential power (since rolled back), broadening of higher education, detente with Russia and China, abortion - which are today either under attack, or taken for granted. Above all, I'd say, the massive power of money in the hands of capitalists used to control government has made a mockery of the claim that we live in a democracy where every person counts equally. That was the Boomers' ultimate value, and we've seen it undermined and betrayed diligently by the power of money.
1
Thank you David Brooks for another deep and thoughful piece of writing. I'm pleased that you are collecting and sharing stories about young people who are depressed, detached, and without hope or vision.
I find it hard to believe though, that you can walk around for four months talking to people while selling your book, "The Second Mountain," and you fail to report that there is any concern out there for the environment, or the threat of climate change. Why is that not part of your study diet. Is some one paying you to ignore the fact that humans are destroying the planet with pollution, and the externalities of their profit making production? Are you in the closet, as a climate change denier?
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth Century Vietnam” and blogs about the environment and the world at InconvenientNews.net.
2
I’m convinced we make this harder than it needs to be.
Human beings have evolved to live in groups with other humans. We were not faster, or stronger, or bigger than other predators, so we banded together in order to survive. We thrived by living in communities and came to be a dominant species.
Culture is simply the rules that communities, however large or small, use to make living in groups possible. There is no mystery about this part of human existence.
Other questions, however, have no clear answer. We don’t know what happens when we die. We don’t know the ultimate source of the creation of the universe. We don’t know if there is any meaning underlying existence as we perceive it, or if there is, what that meaning consists of. I would suggest that we aren’t yet all that close to having an answer.
But I would also suggest that an essential part of human nature turns out to be our drive to find some answer. This is why we invented religion, and our collective drive to find an answer has led us to accept very many outlandish versions of this invention.
Perhaps, though, the true nature of faith is accepting without knowing. Maybe it is enough to believe that understanding (like grief) is a process, and that process allows us the room to set aside certainty for now. It’s OK not to have an answer, but to investigate, to wonder, to believe that an explanation might yet be uncovered. That, I think, is central to the human gift, and it allows us, if we let it, to hope.
4
@Marshall Doris
Marshall, you knocked it out of the park!!!!
Strange photo. Laptops? A more accurate snapshot of Gen Z would have shown them glued to their phones, texting and snapchatting with each other as they sat side by side. If they got off their cell phones and smelled the coffee maybe they would stop pondering how shallow and depressing their lives lived in cyberspace really are.
4
Please don’t lump Gen x in with the boomers. The boomers can keep this mess were in all to themselves.
7
Generations far removed from the boomers, the X and Y, the Millennial and upcoming Z have a role to play even though old and nearing 90.
A simple, small time-consuming effort like sending this article by David to younger friends they know - like millennials, like Boomers and X and Y people they know.
and you can ask all the mothers and fathers of millennial and grand mothers and fathers of the Z generation to share the article with their youngsters if they are in their upper teens.
It takes a few clicks on the "vaunted" computers in the world to 1. Save the article to yourself. 2 Send the article to as many generation friends you have email addresses for. 3. Apply an appropriate "non-political" message since David's entire article is non political. Nearly all my "generational" friends appreciate the thought - because it is " non- political.
We have morphed from what George H. W. Bush prescribed as nation of “a thousand points of light” into a nation with a foreboding sense precipitated by a million points of darkness.
If the members of Gen-Z, as its members are called, truly dedicate themselves to developing our better angels, it will be all for the good. We can only hope that their commitment to such ideals remains steadfast, and that their sustained actions overtake the nascent selfishness and suspicion increasingly rampant among some segments of the American population.
The letter "Z" is the last letter of the alphabet. It would be nice if Gen-Z became the first letter-generation with a noble and impactful purpose which, over time, can redirect our country to a better place. Time will tell.
Loneliness and quiet despair is the fault of boomers? They are responsible for social media?
2
I am of the boomer generation and dedicated my life to teaching high school students. I have marched for gun control, against war, for civil and women's rights, and volunteered in many organizations including Habitat for Humanity. I have tried to live a life of giving and open mindedness. Please don't include me in your jaded viewpoint of boomers.
10
EXACTLY.
2
Why have we so easily given up on GenX? Obama, Harris, Buttigieg, etc. Do we really feel the generation after the boomers don’t deserve their opportunity to show what more they can do? GenX’ers gave us America’s first black president. We have been fighting the Boomers our whole lives and we built the grassroots infrastructure in use today. Obama was one youngest presidents ever and is just the start of what this generation can accomplish. GenX’er are here right now, ready to tackle the boomer’s messes. I’m not waiting for the millennials or GenZ. Time for action is now.
5
Obama is a Boomer. He’s the same age I am, and I was born in 1960. The tail end of the Boom. Gen X began in 1965 or so.
1
While technological advancement has brought myriad benefits, it can also lead to depersonalization. Rabbi Aaron Kotler, who passed away in 1962, famously insisted on using a human toll taker rather than the coin catcher because he felt this devalued human beings. Technology must be combined with appreciation of humanity.
1
Recognizing the emergence and presence of meanings when they occur is not always easy, for they often leave some cancers behind, cancers that need our attention and that can be excised. For example: the death of the republican party is a joy that is rich with meaning, yet it leaves Trump, Mitch, senate republicans and other "deplorables" behind.
It's Republicans they hate David, and with good reason. Their votes will not "save us" but they'll go a long way toward getting us someone who will.
Sincerely,
Looking forward to 2020
And what has Mr Brooks done to improve life for anyone that he should assume the right to be critical of an entire generation that brought an immoral war to a close?
4
The young have always been idealistic and alturistic. After living a few years, reality sets in and the older generations becomes cynical. Give those kids a few more years to really experience life and resurvey them. Think about what happened to the kids in the 60s, they became boomers. Those are the ones you are complaining about now.
1
As a boomer, I joined protests against Dow Chemical (PFOAs were known to be toxic then), Vietnam, and worked to support ecology and the likes of Rachel Carson.
I've spent most of my life worrying about justice and income inequality, and observing the toxic playing out of lies about exploitation and waste and what it is doing to our planet.
Things went downhill fast when "greed is good" came in with Reagan. Bush II added in winning elections by foul means and the executive privilege of declaring war without Congressional oversight.
Trump has encouraged people to seek their inner hater, and this poison is spreading across the land.
But boomers aren't the problem; humanity's tendency to be led by the nose into selfishness and following a god made in the image of man, all too prone to greed, exclusion, violence, and magic thinking.
8
&:
Attended (with family) the March on Washington in 1963.
The Beatles, something bad about them? Really?
2
Interviewing Bezos Scholarship winners and college students who likely had some "social justice" experience on their applications is like breathing your own exhaust. Where are the voices of the failing inner city kids who go from school to work to the potentially dangerous neighborhood they call home. Privilege interviewing privilege is picking the audience that suits your premise.
3
The main philosophy in the U.S. over the past 40 years has been the achievement of individual financial success over anything else. Rich people become famous for just being rich. Wealth attainment becomes the primary goal, and it doesn't matter what you do to accomplish it. If you harm others, if you break laws...well, that's to be admired.
It's a philosophy that was mainly promoted by conservatives and the Republican Party and has resulted in a fake billionaire, reality-show star becoming president. He admitted on tape to sexually assaulting women and is excused because he's (supposedly) wealthy. He avoided paying taxes and is hailed as a financial genius. His unethical, illegal behavior is lauded and rewarded by law-and-order, family-values Republicans because it helps them accumulate wealth and power. Unfortunately, cowardly Democrats have gone along without challenging them.
David keeps looking for solutions to today's moral problems without acknowledging the role that he and his party played in creating them.
7
An original insight into the nature of some of the elite campus uprisings - well done.
Boomers are not so homogeneous, and neither is gen-z, x, y or any other generation. Boomers did, however, produce the worst generation of politicians America has ever suffered along with. All generations are aghast.
Mr. Brooks cannot be serious. Trying to draw conclusions by comparing samples of middle-aged or older respondents and their 20-year old "counterparts" is meaningless. If I remember correctly, very few people are burnt out and despondent at age 20. Most are filled with hopes, dreams and good intentions. Let's check in with them in 30 or 40 years and see how they're doing, OK Mr. Brooks?
3
I guess we should all go get a stack of parenting and mentoring books. Kids should not have to raise a flock of engaged and awoken parents.
1
There is nothing novel in this column: the youth of most every generation feels a pull toward something profound, deep, revolutionary and meaningful, while their elders mock their earnestness and passion for a better future as naive, arrogant and misguided. The promise so many of us feel at that age is a beautiful thing, but for far too many that flame dies quickly for lack of fuel, lack of encouragement, lack of opportunity. Older generations tend to stomp out those sparks in the young like so many overzealous “Smokey The Bears,” forgetting that they, too were once planning on changing the world for the better, before they let their own embers burn out... I for one am excited that the young still feel a passion to change and heal this planet because, quite frankly, they are the ones who have to live with the disastrous consequences of inaction and selfishness of the previous generations. Gen-Z will save the world because they are aware that they can’t wait, and that the previous generations sure as heck aren’t going to do it, while we have some in power who actively seek to deny reality and destroy even more of the planet for the sake of lining their pockets. Please, Gen-Z, don’t let the naysayers get you down...
2
I laud David Brooks’ discussion of America’s spiritual crisis. Philosophers from Confucius to Nietzsche have pondered similar crises.
Brooks describes a one-toned picture of American youth, a population that is seems rootless, stuck in a spiritual sand trap.
“The best you can do,” writes Brooks, “is find a small haven in a heartless world.”
I wish Brooks would have written of the curative power that naturally exists in the depressive bleakness of this “heartless world.”
In the tumble of technology, the blur of modern life, we have lost the skill to use our pain and suffering to grow and heal. We endure by trying to toss our pain away rather than using it. We believe in perfection, that once we get it right, then life will be perfect.
It is the deception of perfection that gets us into trouble. That life is never perfect is the beauty of life.
The psychoanalysis, David Winnicott, said a depression contained a “germ of recovery.” He suggested that the anguish of living in a “heartless world” was an opening ready to be exploited as “a healing mechanism.”
William James, in his extraordinary essay, “Is Life Worth Living?” asks: “What sort of a thing would life really be…if it only brought fair weather and gave these higher faculties of yours no scope?”
James insisted life, regardless of how good or bad it was, must be viewed as “a real fight.”
James concludes: “Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”
1
More generational nonsense. People are born every day, not in once every twenty year batches. I tire of the constant blaming of prior generations for the perceived problems of another.
I used to tease my "Greatest Generation" father for creating the "Baby Boomers" by having too much sex after WWII.
Do people really believe that "Boomers" travel around the country to have conspiratorial meetings with each other to disenfranchise future generations?
Do people really believe that humans have substantially evolved in one generation and changed human nature to the extent that all will be better because of the new "Gen Z gene"?
I believe that the problems we are having are results of the constant conflict between individualism and the common good.
Our country was founded on individual rights and our economic system is based on individual wealth accumulation. Over time the too much "me" and not enough "us" leads to the problems Mr. Brooks has been discussing. It seems that money really cannot buy happiness and "rugged individualism" cannot insure fulfillment.
We cannot come together when our systems force us to compete.
3
How fitting that Brooks, who used to write good political analysis, has abandoned any hope of dealing with the ongoing train wreck that is the GOP, and now seeks satori among the youth.
Adults used to have responsibilities. That would incude opposing the moral rot that now rules Washington under the aegis of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, if they were what used to be called Republicans before the hostile takeover of the GOP by the friends of JIm Crow and the Know Nothings.
Is there Buddha nature in the dog, Mr. Brooks? Perhaps more than in the disciple.
3
I am not quite sure what is meant by “privatization of morality” but I sure am excited that Brooks remembered that Generation X exists!
1
Brooks should read Hans Rosling’s wonderful book Factfullness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Brooks suffers from the bias of negativity – just as most in the media do. Information about bad events is much more likely to reach us -- that is what the media sells. When things are getting better we often don’t hear about them. This gives us a systematically too-negative impression of the world around us, which is very stressful. The fact is the world has made tremendous progress and is continually getting better. Generations of people have been making the world and the US better and better – it doesn’t need “saving”!
If you click on the link Brooks provides about the Pew survey there isn’t one word about despair. The survey found that in open ended questions, family is the number one item that gives Americans a sense of meaning – in all demographic groups. Who did you spend the 4th with – family! The only evidence of a spiritual “crises” in the data is that Evangelicals (43%) and members of the historically black Protestant tradition (32%) find meaning in spirituality – and atheists (4%) don’t. That’s a crisis? Brooks twists a survey on where people find meaning into evidence of despair -- classic case of negativity bias.
My recommendation is to turn off the news – or remember to take it for what it is worth. They harp on the negatives to sell papers. Read the sports page -- it celebrates accomplishments.
2
Basically: the internet. Previous generations were insulated from the hellish world our media provides to us as news and we were able to grow up without the envy induced by social media and daily comparisons to 1000s of people's "lives". Everyday you hear about tragedy and see privilege and think of that as normal, while older peole grew up no knowing much more than what was happening in there local community. Noy shocking younger people are overwhelmed and unable to put it all in perspective
3
@Jesse- you hit the nail on the head. I see so many young adults/ teenagers suffering from crippling anxiety and depression because the world is too much to digest. And the past two years with a delusional megalomaniac in charge has done nothing but exacerbate the situation .
1
Gen Z are currently between 4-24 years old. The optimism of youth typically gives way to the realities of maturity. Give them a decade; they'll be the same as the boomers and us Millennials soon enough.
The hatred for the millennial generation, from gen x'ers and baby boomers is cliché. The generations responsible for mass pollution, wastefulness, and materialism; gn x and boomers. The younger generations want to clean up the excess mess.
My generation thought it would be really easy to be superior to our predecessors, and instead we've left wreckage everywhere, from the White House to the climate. So I eagerly welcome the emergence of new generations that may do better.
I'd only offer this small piece of advice (forgive me, young people, if you already know this deep in your bones, because you'll need to): It will be harder than it looks, and it'll be the work of a lifetime.
We thought there would be shortcuts. We thought there would be instant gratification. We were wrong: those don't exist.
1
David: If we are going to survive and thrive on this planet, it is going to be a multi-generational and multi-cultural awakening that we are all in this together: regardless of age, generation, race , religion, sex or any other label that society likes to give us human beings who act or look different from them. And by "awakening," I mean the realization that the planet and us humans are not going to be saved by more money, more stuff, more people, but by helping each other in a cross-cultural/cross-generational effort. This is not idealism; it is our evolution and our ultimate survival.
1
Don’t be too quick to paint all Boomers as the problem. Some of us have hung in, worked for social justice, voted, rejoiced with the societal evolutions that made progress like same sex marriage a reality, volunteered, found spiritual sustenance in our (main line, but far from staid) church, our family, and our greater community. We’re thrilled when our high school and college age children rail against capitalism, the crimes of the current administration and discover the new directions they believe in and work for. Their ideas and energy are the best hope for our future. I’ll “pass the baton to the new generation”— and happily work alongside them too!
4
‘They’ versus ‘we’ IS the problem. Brooks sets up yet another division, Boomers are this way, Gen XYZs are that, that, and that. Does anyone grasp that labels and categories become limitations, enclosing people in an imaginary box.
Boomers were one peace activists, remember The Summer of Love? The same folks who marched about Vietnam now want military parades, walls at the border, ‘lock ’em up’.
How did they get to that?
Money.
America’s worship of money is evidenced by Brooks’ own words regarding the Pew study…'Nearly 70 percent identified family as a source of Meaning, followed by career, making money, and practicing a spirituality or faith.'
All of those Meanings involve exclusion, the family is one box, career another, religion yet another, my stack is bigger than your stack. (Remember Pink Floyd’s song Money? Look up the lyrics, there’s also a superb youtube video. It was recorded in 1973, 2019 doesn’t look any different.)
The Gens that follow the Boomers, will look like Boomers in thirty years.
1
Someone needs to write a book on .....How the Baby Boomers Destroyed America. The fact we ended up with immoral greed, employment instability, feckless politicians, financial insecurity, stagnant wages and working towards caring for aging parents and agonizing over the burden of debt college graduates spells our failure. We as a country should be flooding the streets of Washington like the images from Hong Kong. The 4th of July will never be the same for families scattered and broken across the land
2
So sadly true. My niece has chosen to be a journalist and she has been discouraged for years by the adults in her life who tell her she won't make any money doing that. Thank goodness she has the strength of character to follow her heart which is a heroic one.
3
The moment I come looking to see if Brooks can ever get out of his own way, he manages to group Boomers and GenXers together.
2
The revolt being discussed in this column is against the GOP, not a generation.
Thanks for playing Mr. Brooks, again you got it wrong.
6
David Brooks likes to focus on all this "touchy-feely" stuff, but maybe he ought to talk about the things that are doing real damage to the country, like right-wing media organizations like Fox News, Republican voter-suppression and democracy-suppression efforts, and the right-wing propaganda machine that tries to continually fool Americans with nonsense "trickle-down economics." Brooks is part of the right-wing establishment of the AEI, the Heritage Foundation, and other right-wing propaganda machines that are destroying America. Go talk to them David, and focus less on hugs and puppies.
5
As I read this, I’m listening to The Chainsmokers and Emily Warren express so much of what David Describes here. The hit song “Sick Boy” denounces the privatization of meaning that young Americans are trying to escape. As a resident of New York, the East Side and West Side in the song resonate strongly with NYC itself!
“I'm from the east side of America
Where we choose pride over character
And we can pick sides, but this is us, this is us, this is
I live on the west side of America
Where they spin lies into fairy dust
And we can pick sides, but this is us, this is us, this is...
I am the sick boy...
And don't believe the narcissism
When everyone projects and expects you to listen to 'em
Make no mistake, I live in a prison
That I built myself, it is my religion
And they say that I am the sick boy
Easy to say, when you don't take the risk, boy
Welcome to the narcissism
Where we're united under our indifference...
I am the sick boy.
1
Overall, I believe the younger generation is simply better that any other generation before it. Less racist, less homophobic, more selfless, more knowledgeable about the world, and certainly kinder and more tolerant. Yes there are bad apples in every generation but the younger generation didn't put a bad apple into the White House. The old folks did.
5
White Boomers voted for Reagan, White Gen X voted for Bush, both voted Trump.
It's an age and experience thing. To quote a boomer band, The Who - say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.
1
I've been vegetarian since 1991. It was not easy in the early days, but we have a co-op here thanks to a Liberal Arts college in town. Finally the world has opened up to those of us on the fringe and it is frankly just plain dumb to hear all these 'revelations' which my circle of friends always knew - that Americans are ignorant and boring, all they do is worship the military and talk about each other or teevee shows. We were the Gen-X of the book Generation X and far worse than the very mainstream characters of the book. We never were part of your society because we disagree with practically everything American society stands for.
1
"The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair."
Actually, I'll take quiet despair over the Spanish Inquisition, thank you.
4
One has to wonder how such a smart guy can so consistently and deliberately look away from the real cause of dispair in this culture, the GOP mentality of selfishishness which decares war on everyone but a small cohort of their grifting con-men, their oligarch leaders who manipulate their victims with lies and fear into votong against their own interests.
5
David Brooks is always reflecting himself. I’m a boomer and purpose and meaning and giving are as important to my generation as they are to gen-z. I found his article a bit insulting.
3
How will the press label the generation that follows Z?
I suggest to start using the Greek alphabet.
Ok, given human nature and our slow progress, what comes after Gen Z? Loop back through the alphabet with Gen AA.
I would gladly hand over the reins of society to my 16 year old niece and her friends. They oppose racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. With the millennials withdrawing from some aspects of consumer culture, Gen Z looks like they are not going to participate in some social norms and to actively try to change others. The Who was right...The Kids are Alright.
3
The Survey registers the effects of the 40-year bipartisan project, globalization. This policy was carried out in the dark. Its main consequence was to shift US purchases to the Third World, letting our own industry collapse.
The victims of this scheme are the depressed Americans of the Pew survey. One suspects they are disproportionately from the Midwest, ground zero of the destruction of the greatest industrial engine on earth.
The young idealists of your Gen-Z are not just younger. They are elite, doubtless pampered, and taught to be sure of their moral worth.
A society isn't assured of a good future when its best and brightest are committed.
But, it is looking at a dismal future when its workers live in ruins, without hope.
In The Times and other leading media, I read very few proposals for saving devastated America.
What I read instead is that these victims are overwhelmingly white, and they really have to get over it.
That is, the hope for America is the immigration of vast numbers of young, non-white, workers to rebuild hollowed-out flyover.
Now, let's look at some justice here:
The bipartisan elite, which destroyed the Midwest, is rewarded with low wage workers to boost their incomes even higher.
The low-wage workers, who have done nothing for America, are rewarded with US jobs, doing much better than before.
And the white and Black workers who built this country are to be civilized about it, and get lost.
Stay tuned.
We've been trapped with aggressively more criminal Republicans for the past 40 years. There is no real progress with such malevolent and malicious people in control of business, policies or our country.
3
I find meaning in life by looking up what birth cohort is gen z, and whatever ever happened to gen y.
GenX always hated the boomers, who started complaining about us while we were still in college. They said Gen X was “self absorbed, jaded, not doing enough drugs not protesting enough”, we had “no sense of direction or purpose”, and furthermore our music was just noise.
2
Lose your holed up jeans and use the savings to buy some unholed jeans for those in need. Stir a pot in a Salvation Army kitchen.
Reach out to help other's needs and your own inner needs will be met and then some.
2
I'm sorry, but while some of Brooks' string of pieces about life, meaning and morality resonate, many are just inchoate musing that are more mushy than revelatory. And this is one of them.
5
I think we could all use a little MORE quietism and miniaturization—not less. A little less breathlessly running from gig to gig, a little less chasing the almighty dollar, a little less pounding the fist on the kitchen table against whatever right or left wing outrage the media has artificially drummed up in our politically-inflamed brains today.
Think haiku.
Crawl out bravely
And show me your face,
The solitary voice of a toad
Beneath the silkworm nursery.
—Basho
3
David: Read David Reisman's brilliant book, THE LONELY CROWD. He's taking about the 1950's, but it still applies today. As does Thoreau's "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Also, America is a much more violent country at present, mostly attributable to many people having no inner life of the mind to develop. America is losing its soul, willingly, for no reason other than mammon.
3
David: You lack any understanding of the reality people face when you live in a society as unequal as the one created by the baby boomers, quite possibly the worst generation. People find solace in small things and relinquish larger aspirations because in spite of superior educations they are simply cut off from achieving their dreams for lack of economic equality. Fix the distribution of wealth and you won’t have to listen to another generation’s incessant whining. It’s really that simple.
2
I hope young people can see through the selfishness of boomers. We are living on debt that will be paid by future generation. Debt that was created by tax cuts and wars of choice. We are enjoying travel and life style that is very energy intensive, We will leave a planet that is hot and polluted with sever climate change events. We will a an infrastructure that is deteriorating. We are destroying safety net and honest judicial system. What followed the greatest generation is a very self centered and selfish generation. God help us.
1
The Spanish Inquisition must have been the low point in society’s history so I won’t suffer a reference to it no matter how palatable Mr. Brooks may try to make it. Here below is the definition of the term I have only just encountered for the first time:
DescriptionAn auto-da-fé or auto-de-fé ——— was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition, Portuguese Inquisition or the Mexican Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the carrying out by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed. Wikipedia
Well it doesn’t mention torture or killing at least.
Such an ineffable concept as boomer morality exists only in the fevered imagination of the reliably clueless Mr. Brooks.
1
"In the upscale colleges on the coasts, Wokeness is a religious revival with its own conception of sin (privilege) and its own version of the Salem Witch Trials (online shaming). But the people in this movement have a sense of vocation, moral call, and a rage at injustice that is legitimate rejection of what came before."
The first sentence drips with utter condescension and disdain.
Then the second sentence is the most important sentence in the entire essay: It's the antithesis of the rest of the essay, offering an antidote to the despair that's been depicted, offering hope for the future.
So, why did Brooks preface it with the first sentence?
Because he has a personal inability to admit when us coastal Liberals do anything good and positive! Even while he himself is undergoing Midlife Wokeness in a very public manner, and dishes out his new "epiphanies" in his columns, he still can't acknowledge the fact that perhaps we Liberals haven't been as bad as he's painted us to be over most of his career.
Brooks' columns about his own wokeness is just as "over the top" and "insufferable" as how he describes these kids's work, because he doesn't understand what wokeness really is. Wokeness describes people like Brooks, i.e. people who hadn't understood the world as experienced by other people (mostly unpriviliged). Brooks is the one being woken, by these kids who were already woken.
Their Gospel of Wokeness is what will save the world from washed-up Boomers like Brooks!
3
Lots of generalizations here. Too many.
3
This is just an anecdotal observation — but I am a boomer on the east coast who frequently attends protests and takes part in resistance activities. What I see, repeatedly, is that the rallies and protests are filled with gray heads, and the grassroots activists involved in working on these activites are mainly boomers as well. I often lament that the younger people just are not there. Virtually every time, I wonder what happened to all the young people and why they are not standing up and speaking,out in the way my generation did against the War in Vietnam. But, David Brooks, I certainly hope that you are right about today’s teens. We need youth and energy to turn things around from the sorry, often cruel and greedy state we are now in.
2
Many "Boomers" your own age worked for civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, the environment, education, national parks, children's health, etc and made a difference!
@DavidBrooks Don't blame us that you spent your entire career as an apologist for the Republicans who fought every good and moral thing we worked so hard to accomplish!
9
Neoliberalism continues its mission.
1
Better to turn our present cultural despiration into a generational struggle, than accept thst it's a political problem, created by a bunch of greedy, self interested republicons.
1
Gen “Z” is unique . They are the most diverse and deem to be the most educated generation so far. They are activists, they are focused and they know they have everything to lose. They are also very different from their older siblings, the millennials and are more pragmatic. They grew up with mass shooting, America at war, opioid crisis and global warming. They knew an inspiring black president and a vulgar crude president. They have to save their world and we have to help them.
1
The world was saved at the outset. Now no one force saves it. It is already saved. Those who see within see this. It's universal, just. It is the fruit of unconditional love.
I commend all who are "doing inner work" as mentioned in the last paragraph. Without constantly trying to improving ourselves, even when our efforts fall flat, our ability to care for others and for the natural world will be limited.
I think the author Brooks is talking about boomers who have lived like he has. I remember a book he wrote in 2000 called "Bobos in Paradise", which featured his friendship circle's fascination with certain upscale appliances.
Many of us have never shared such interests, but have spent our lives finding and expressing meaning in addressing suffering in various forms.
VISTA volunteer, work in low income communities with Legal Aid, organizing the first shelters for women and children subject to domestic violence, anti-hunger work.
And now, teaching people how to ease mental suffering via meditation training accompanied by moral development and social values.
I ain't all that, but I have lived my life with integrity and constancy of moral intention. And I know this is true for many others of my generation.
When I was young, a woman in her 90s answered my question about how she had been able to sustain her activism over generations. She said " you need to have a pace you can keep up for 60 years."
I wish the emerging generations energy, wisdom, courage and patience as they take up their part. There are many miles to walk, and they like us will face the refiners fire.
8
Mr. Brooks,
I feel like most “former” middle class Americans. My wages have been stagnant since 2004 while everything else in life costs much more. When my parents bought their “row” house (18 feet by 100 feet) in 1962, it cost about three times my father’s annual salary with a 5% fixed rate mortgage for 25 years. They sold the house in fall 1992 for nine times what they paid for it, and the buyer resold it in fall 2016 for $719,000.00!
I was fortunate to buy in 1994 a two bedroom/two bathroom condo for about three times my salary at over 8% mortgage interest rate. I had since refinanced to a 5% loan and paid off my mortgage last year. If I sold it today I probably could sell it for about three times what I paid for it, which today would be six times my annual salary.
The huge inequality of income began with the Reagan (and majorly Democrat Senate and Congress) which cut income taxes on the wealthy from 70% on every dollar earned over $400,000.00 to a low rate of just 35%, ultimately dropping to 28% under President George H. W Bush. My income tax rate was not cut by 50% and two important tax deductions for the middle class were eliminated: deduction of car loan interest and deduction of interest on credit card debt, neither of which the wealthy required to maintain their lifestyles.
Ever since the Republicans have been in the majority in the Senate, Congress and the Presidency, my personal quality of life (fixed income verse rising cost of living) has declined.
6
Yes, it's been common for young people to be idealistic for as long as I can remember - since at least my college days in the seventies. One thing for sure, most of them will grow out of that frame of mind when the necessities of building an economically viable life occur. There may still, however, be a few that hold on to their values and make a difference.
6
perk up david and think positively. you've been down in the dumps lately and lord knows it's easy to see why but good vibes are just around the corner albeit it's a big corner. takes a long distance to move this huge ship. we will do it though you will see. need to you smile fridays.....
2
"The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair."
It is not either or.
Stephens' view resonates more than Brooks. These young zealots will be the end f us if not moderated.
1
The new hippie, bless them
1
Will Gen-Z Save the World?
Simply put, you better hope so.
3
Brooks, don't drag Gen X into your mess. We were busy silently judging you Boomers.
8
I am tired of the generational distinctions - a totally made up concept that we have fallen into using to disparage one group or another. This has become yet another way to separate us.
I am asking you, David Brooks, to stop using this short hand as a lazy way to explore what is going on across the globe.
As a humans we are certainly affected by the culture and time we are born into. We are further affected and shaped by our personal environment, the opportunities afforded us, our, our health, morality taught and learned. Every wave of humanity holds cruelty and greed, great compassion and right use of power. Every individual chooses where they stand and what they stand for. We form a wave of "good" or " bad" and carry others in our wake. We evolve as a human species into fresh new cells of possibility or fall into decay. Currently, I believe we are in a fight for our morality, our souls, if you will, our hold on what is morally wrong or right. This transcends "generations" and anyone's sorry opinions about which is more shiny than the other. Can we stop fueling separation wherever it shows up, please? We have work to do and this doesn't help move us forward.
6
"we’re lucky to have a rebellion against boomer quietism and moral miniaturization. "
they are young and we are old and tired. it's that simple, it's not a difference in morality.
3
"Will Gen-Z Save the World?"
No.
3
As usual a great and positive piece by Mr. Brooks
Brooks fails to note that these kids are tree huggers in the best sense, and will flock to the polls in November 2020 to rebuke Trump's 'manmade global warming is a hoax' idiocy.
1
This generation thing is jive. Across a population, humans reproduce continuously, not all at once every twenty years in a sexual conflagration. Plus it's the worst sort of pseudo-explanation for anything.
3
I am also gettng tired of this narrow, shallow, simplistic way of describing our world. The arc of history is long and generations aren’t so easily divided nor so monolithic. Younger people are always more idealistic until they gain the experience and perspective that comes with age. We’ll see how much the world is actually changed by this cohort.
2
The sense of blackness and hopelessness stems from John Roberts Citizens United decision, where people with the most money can buy and promote politicians, and from Mr. Stephens Republican Party, which supports a lawless President who not only professes to be a sexual predator, but says he could murder someone with impunity, and violates the emoluments clause for his and his family’s profit.
Why shouldn’t people be hopeless, Mr Brooks, with your party’s Messiah of Hate in office, and no one in your party to object?
5
Do you remember what we were doing at that age? Registering voters in the south, putting our own lives at risk; sitting in public accommodations for racial equality; going door to door campaigning for political candidates who we supported. Then we got older and got jobs and kept on doing all those things. We did make the mistake of assuming our accomplishments were permanent. They were not, so we Boomers are our there again, alongside GenZ, finding renewed purpose in working for things we believe in.
4
The idealism that was the foundation of the Boomer's youth was built upon a cooperative spirit, that we were all in this together, in pursuit of a greater truth, that we would care for one another, and not exploit one another but follow the anthem of The Youngbloods: Come on people now/Smile on your brother/Everybody get together/Try to love one another/Right now.
Of course, as we all know now, that kind of naive idealism leaves you wide open for exploitation. What we learned was if you're going to believe everything everybody tells you, out of love and trust, there's going to be more than a few people who will tell you lies about Viet Nam, costing the lives of 58,000 of our generation. That if you're going to preach love and justice from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and open your arms wide, somebody will put you in their cross hairs. And if you tell a big enough lie, and tell it often enough, it becomes the truth.
Did we become cynical money grubbers? Some of us, yes. Have we become marked, as Mr Brooks puts it, by quietism and moral miniaturization? Many of us, yes. Did we fail to live up to The Youngbloods' prayer? Sadly, yes.
Soon, many of us will pass, and the rest will sit even more quietly, our lessons ignored as irrelevant, and the younger generations will take the reins. I wish them better luck with the mendacity they will face, I wish them the resolve to hold onto their passion that we failed to achieve. I wish them a Youngbloods anthem they can live up to.
2
I take umbrage at your clumping boomers into a groups characterized by "quietism and moral miniaturization." I also don't like to be smushed together with Generation X. We questioned the establishment and fought racism, sexism, trigger-happy war-mongering, indifference to the polluted environment, and homophobia and advocated for blue-collar workers as well. We didn't fix the world but are famous for having tried. Tricky Dick came along after we'd convinced a lot of the country how wrong our involvement in Vietnam was, to prolong it for another seven (?) years. I have to admit, as a timid activist (I was new to taking stands and new to activism but fiercely committed to the values we were fighting for), I left for a few years, unsatisfied with my liberal arts education and wanting to know "something about something." I came back to the East Coast raring to go, but where was the activism? Grown up and in law school, med school, en route to the American dream, which was still alive at the time. Tricky Dick had meanwhile established the EPA and proposed single-payer healthcare.
Sure, there was a dissipated element associated with hippiedom
BUT WE ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING HUGE, Mr. Brooks! We shredded establishment values and pointed society in a direction it should have pursued--concern with all the people and not just those living the American Dream.
I expect another column from you equating us with Generation Z as a laudable precedent not to be dismissed.
1
David, you are a world class writer and thinker, do you ever put into direct practice those insights and conclusions you reach as part of your work?
God knows they can’t do a worse job than the boomers have done. Boomers are the most selfish group of people in this country, it’s the IGMFY way they act/treat/speak of millennials and anyone not of their generation. We have failed the next generation, they watched us work hard at jobs that didn’t allow for a work/life balance and they don’t want to be a part of that. They have watched us ignore systemic problems because it was just to hard to compromise. They have watched our government dissolve into a food fight at their HS cafeteria. They have watched us ignore mass killings of children because their lives were used as way to cram more guns down our throats. If I was of that age I would just give the boomers a giant middle finger for being incompetent selfish people. But that’s just me.
3
We no longer have any faith in the Republican Party's desire to "save" the country, let alone the entire world. Our only hope now will be for Gen Z and their followers to do what is needed to keep America moving forward into the 21st Century, instead of Trump and his Republican abettors (or abattoirs) who want to return America to the 20th Century which has long become past history for all but Trump and his supporters.
3
Q: What, pray tell, comes after Z? The end...
Spot on
"Boomer quietism and moral miniaturization..."
Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?
Where were you then, Dave?
1
David. Brooks must have missed the the decades of baby boomer activism for civil rights, for women’s rights, for gay rights and AIDS research, for an end to the Vietnam War, etc. Protest (or reactionary resistance) defined the youth of ALL baby boomers (born 1946-1964). Most members of the boomer generation are senior citizens now and arguably entitled to a little “quietism,” in Brooks’s words, after changing the world. What’s with the revisionist sniping?
6
One thing I notice is that people who fall for the machine—literally, the machine learning algorithms that drag them into their phones for hours on end, clicking and clicking—are much less happy. Perhaps this is because they've surrendered their identity and self to a set of mindless algorithms with the objective of maximizing profits. These people also tend to buy lots of stuff, and that stuff seems to suck meaning out of their lives. The reactions to this are apparent in small bits of society; the craze for throwing stuff out, or "delete Facebook" movements. And yet, most people can't really stop. I was recently in the Adirondack mountains hiking, and found many young people going to a place called Indian Head just for the enviable Instagram selfie at the end, and utterly missing the beauty of the forest on the way. The machine even follows us into nature.
1
Boomer quietism? I do not know what planet David Brooks grew up on but suggesting that Boomers embraced quietism as a "lifestyle" choice is ludicrous. One definition of quietism is, "calm acceptance of things as they are without attempts to resist or change them."
That has not been my observation. Boomers were on the front lines for racial equality, for getting out of Vietnam, for abortion rights, for environmental action. I'm 70 years old and many of the folks actively resisting the tragic folly of Trump are fellow Boomers.
Speak up. Speak out. Get involved.
Dylan Thomas wrote, "Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Quietism? Hell no.
3
I call my twin teenage sons "The New Denizens of the Fix-it Generation." They along with the other Gen Z-ers are facing a future of rapidly depleting natural resources, financial insecurity with mounting student loan debt, and climate change that will create destructive Category 3 hurricanes out of what in the past would have been an ordinary tropical storm.
As I often tell these two young men, if I can get their attention away from their always present iPhones, "In another century historians will look back and refer to you guys as the 'Fix-it Generation,' left with the awesome burden of making more from less."
I say that with a pang of guilt as the gluttonous Baby Boomers (me born in 1952) basically sucked the well dry. If Gen-Z ends up heartless, who can blame them?
2
Yeah, every generation will save the world, until the next one comes along and blames the previous one for how completely screwed-up things are.
8
“If you ask philosophers how people fill their lives with meaning, they usually point to some version of serving a cause larger than self.”
I’m no philosopher, but it seems to me that Sartre’s characterization of ‘being-for-others’ is about as close to living a fulfilling life as any of us will ever get.
It is up to each of us to ascribe meaning to those things in life which we find meaningful. From there, meaning springs eternal.
1
School began REQUIRING Community Service for their students at least 15 years ago. Middle School, High School, and College Students have been required to put in several hours every week. My two Grandsons have volunteered for several years, once a week, at a local Habitat for Humanity Restore. Their father volunteers with them, by the way.
This makes a BIG difference in how they see the world. And it gets them out of their school and their peer group.
In addition, school curricula has added much more 'information' about topics like environmentalism (environmentalism is the safest 'ism' there is, it seems) and more truth about the US history of discrimination and injustice.
You are right, David. GenZ may be the next greatest generation. If those who went before haven't already damaged our world beyond repair.
2
The problem is the manic obsession with economic growth.
We are conditioned to believe that it is almost the meaning of life and nothing else really matters when in fact, to paraphrase your late and great Robert Kennedy, GDP growth measures everything but those things that make life worthwhile.
We need to measure happiness and wellbeing and to be citizens of a country not consumers in an economy.
4
The world faces massive problems. New-ish, existential problems like climate change and weapons of mass destruction, as well as age-old problems of poverty and social injustice.
Modern technologies and social change have helped to create and exacerbate these challenges, but they could also offer solutions to most or all of them.
The disconnect, the gaping abyss that confronts us all, is the gap between what we know needs to be done and what seems to be possible. Corporations and many political leaders tell us to just be good consumers -- surf, click, watch, buy, consume, consume, consume.
We need political leaders who will listen to all their citizens, and help us to bridge that abyss. We need leaders to stop listening just to the billionaires, who would burn the world down so that they can die on a bigger pile of gold.
1
The problem with the 20 somethings, they have no imagination. I'm not talking about the occasional 19 year old savant. I look at the average 20 year old and there is little curiosity.
I blame cell phone/video game technology. The person holds the phone, sound and motion stimulate the little brain, which, in turn, command the fingers to keep the stimulation going. For hours. Weeks. Years.
When I was a kid, that technology was not available. I frequently had to walk long distances. Whilst walking, my brain was working. I had to create my own stimulation.
Today, kids just can't think into the future. Unless it is to plan their next "Fortnite" episode.
6
According to my Gen Z sons and students, we get a choice as to how they will manage this Boomer-made wreck:
Fix it
Burn it all down
I agree with them. As a Gen Xer, I grew up listening to Jimmy Carter teach me how to be a decent steward of the Earth. I'm STILL waiting for the Boomers to get out of the way and stop gobbling up all the resources.
Any day now...
2
I was a high school teacher for over 30 years. The kids are all right. They've always been all right.
It's the pressures of daily life, of having to make a living, of finding time and energy for social connection and personal purpose, that grind you down. It's significant that when we talk about "the economy" we mean dollars and cents, not housing, roads, schools, parks, farms, rivers, water, air, food and drink....
It's our fundamental values, the ones that shape our lives without our realising that they do so, that need changing. And that's a purpose all generations share, because in every generation we get someting wroing.
So good for Gen-Z: They are doing what every generation has done, trying to reshape the world to be better place, closer to the ideals they've been taught.
5
Privatizers and their enablers in government have monetized everything and everybody to the detriment of peoples' self respect. Sure some young people work for clean water, but you and I know they are up against the big business of fracking, coal mine waste and agricultural run-off.
And as for self-realization through mindfulness or religion, this isn't new; it is age-old.
It's given impetus by the spectacle of this administration blatantly trashing the air, water and food we depend on through cronyism with big business. This is a winning strategy politically (huge campaign cash,) but it denigrates the people and our environment.
3
I think almost all of the generational stereotypes are meaningless and decidedly unhelpful. Generations share history, but their interpretation and role in it is pretty much unique to each person living it. I do think that we boomers have some better music, and that's the extent of the generational battle I'm willing to fight.
8
People seem determined to put everyone in boxes. Brooks is first in line with that. He reaches a conclusion that fits with his world view, and finds the story that conforms to it. I wonder if it occurred to him that the young people who would go to his book tour are self selecting, so he is having a conversation with a pretty small subset.
Some boomers and gen Xers are selfish, some are giving and sacrificing. Some gen Zers are selfish, some are giving and sacrificing. Boxes don’t tell a story.
14
Every generation we look to the next one to “save” us from the mistakes and shortsightedness of the previous generations, only to be disappointed to discover that we’ve given them an impossible task and set them up for failure. After all, we were once the generation that the past hoped was the key to a better future, and that didn’t work out any better than it did in all the generations before us. Isn’t that time we got wise and cleaned up our own messes?
6
At 74, the 4 Ps of pleasure, possession, power and position certainly haven’t provided meaning to my life. Interestingly, Scotty Peck, in his famous book, The Road Less Traveled, postured that “For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it eventually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood.”
Growing toward godhood certainly gives us a purpose and a challenge. How does one do that? I know I have found my road through a life of experience and reading, and I can certainly attest to the first line of Scott’s book, “Life is difficult.” That applies to life in general, but most especially to the road less travelled, the road back to divinity, to becoming a child of God.
4
In a conversation with a psychiatrist friend he remarked that depression was a very normal emotional response to the economic and moral decay we see around us.
But he was also a social activists and knew that depression could be overcome by engaging in the process of changing those conditions.
Rather than open new ways for that activism, my boomer generation simply writes a prescription for some drug that might alter ones perception, but does nothing for the social conditions that led to the depression in the first place.
The thing I hear most from generation Z is how overwhelmed they are by the incredible mess we have made of things.
We've savaged the environment, ruined the economy, all but eliminated pension plans, turned the free tuition that we enjoyed into 1.2 trillion in loan debt and turned what was supposed to be a "peace dividend" into 18 years of endless, meaningless war.
Even with all their excesses, I say bring it on! We not only need meaning in our personal lives but in our public commons as well.
We need to collectively stand for something. We need to at least try and put the brakes on this destructive path that my generation has created. And I'm hopeful and confident that this generation will find a way.
5
So, will they actually vote to support their beliefs and projects?
4
I’m an old hippy who has seen both material success and emotional bankruptcy. For over 30 years I have made a weekly trek to a halfway house of sorts for alcoholics and drug addicts, sitting down to talk one-on-one to guys who have landed there. I have no counseling credentials, only my personal journey to share. Five out of the six guys on the staff there, including the director, who holds an MBA, are former residents who had hit bottom with just barely enough bounce left to make it through the door. The place started out as an old six-plex purchased by a bunch of guys who had found sobriety and, out of gratitude, wanted to pay it forward. It is now in an 80 bed building with an institutional kitchen (a home for unwed mothers in days gone by, replete with a confessional booth in the basement, but I digress). The point of this little story is not that I am to be commended. The point is that I have all gotten far more out of serving others than I have put into it. I cannot count the times I have come close to blowing off my weekly commitment, made myself go down there anyway, and have walked out feeling changed for the better. Having the opportunity to get out of myself, if only for an hour, is of incalculable value. If it helps someone else, that is icing on the cake.
6
Halooo! from way out here in the "Silent Generation" where we survivors of old age are pretty darn active ourselves. I see peers doing amazing volunteer work, being political activists, and spending their diminishing funds on worthwhile causes. Looking to youth for salvation is great, but every generation is making its contribution too. The trick is to get us all pulling together.
7
A lot of young people are looking around and finding the game is rigged. Economic inequality is concentrating wealth in the hands of a powerful few. Political polarization and Republican gerrymandering, court packing, and voter suppression disenfranchises them from what democracy we have left. Housing prices are too high to buy a home in the city, social benefits are being cut and programs like medicare and Social Security seem destined for collapse by the time they are needed. The largest corporations have have abandoned any sense of duty to their employees for retirements or even as anything other than disposable 'work units' that can be replaced at any time. And in the final insult, many feel there is no future on a planet rapidly heading for ecological and social collapse due to the Climate Crisis the boomers created and refused to do anything about for decades. There is true despair in many youth I have spoken to abut a future that looks bleak and they are angry about it. I think they have a right to be. It's the first generation that legitimately can expect a life less well off than their parents had.
5
I’m toward the end of the baby boom generation, but I share the same existential crisis as the young people; the past two years in particular have left me feeling hopeless and sad. Why? The seventies were filled with hope: Earth Day was celebrated, racial tensions were easing and the Vietnam War was over. Our generation recognized the importance of protecting the environment:our water, air and soil. Then came Ronald Regan who, along with trickle down economics declared government, instead of being an agent for service and protection to its citizens, was “the problem.” I remember the popular bumper sticker at the time: He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins. It was all out war on the working class and, with Citizens United, corporations are now people. They are free to continue to pollute and outsource labor. Lastly, the Supreme Court has been bought by the donor class and representative democracy is on life support. But nothing matches the despair of seeing the United States of America being represented by a pathological liar who was aided by a foreign government to achieve office. The Republican Party is complicit in this travesty. Yet, they wrap themselves in the flag to dupe the vulnerable with false patriotism, while wearing small, flag lapel pins on their suits.
9
@Mary Jane Timmerman. So, Mary, what did you have to complain about during the Clinton and Obama years?
1
There are a lot of self identified boomers in comments disappointed with their character being generalized, so I thought that I might help with some perspective.
This piece is not a direct attack on individuals. It does not discount the work that many boomers did for the Vietnam war or Civil Rights movement. In the nonprofit sector, many boomers whose idealism and guidance has enabled younger workers to move forward towards common good.
Unfortunately in choosing to take offense at the generational generalizations in this piece, commenters offended are missing the message. Harkening back to one’s youthful protest not only is beside the point, but doesn’t allow reflection on what one is doing to make the world better today or perhaps what one could be doing.
Perhaps people in their 30s came of age worrying that their lives would lack the opportunities their parents had, but kids today grew up knowing that their lives would be difficult and that the world would not be a welcoming place for many considering the environment crisis, the post racial lie, and economic burden that has been growing for decades.
These kids feel like they have no choice but to be involved, and the popularity of social causes among them is certainly larger than in my generation and other generations mentioned.
Rather than taking generational offense, perhaps reflect upon why what they do is necessary and for goodness sake try to support the kids.
3
I have a vegetable garden. It has needs for most of the year. It gives back what I give it many times over.
2
Mr. Brooks,
I have been reading you for years. I often disagree with you but it has been wonderful to watch you document your quest for meaning and empathy.
Thank you for being so open to the world and open to change. It is an inspiration.
2
These snapshot in time generational comparisons fail to account for age differences at the time. Boomers marched to protest a seemingly pointless war in asia, as advocates of civil rights. Generations before marched for worker's rights, women's rights (to vote, for example). Before that, the Abolitionists.
There are always persons in a given generation who are 'woke'
3
The message of this story explains why Joe Biden is a risky nominee for the Progressives. There is a new experience in lives of younger Americans. This will evidence a new path for the US if they bother to vote for a candidate who cannot identify with their experiences (brief though they may be). The question that remains is whether this generation (and X )and so on until Boomers, will bother to vote if they believe a vote for Mr. Biden - who is at least not Trump - is a vote for a government that simply continues the experiences of older Americans i.e., more of the same. And really, is that too much for those to ask who are the future of the America they will Occupy?
2
Not alone and not in their later years. It has to start now and include all of us. We are refusing to face obvious critical matters from the environment to increasing disparity in access to education to inflicted financial hardship on patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes and and by offering incredibly expensive medicine to possibly extend life by a few months. How can we expect a single generation to do what humankind has not done in all of its existence. Make no mistake, we are creeping toward calamity now but the dominoes are being set. Start now. It may still not be too late for a world wide effort but our leadership base is threatened now with potential disarray. Generation Y may be perceived as digital savvy and ready but how they use it will be for the future to tell. I look at all the SUV's, trucks, and high powered sedans and think the auto industry could have done much more to increase efficiency internal combustion engines. We we to the moon starting our program in 1961 or a bit earlier and landed in 1969. Project Apollo cost $169 billion in today's dollars somewhat more if the costs of the Mercury program were added. We can afford it but be need not to put it off until the the last Boomer is gone perhaps around the year 2085 or it will be too late.
The last comment, about developing a better character, is the role I chose, though I was in my 40's before I began. I have studied philosophy for years. People are often reluctant to take even one course. I can attest that I first read Plato, and thought he was the man!! Then I read others, each time thinking that the latest had the answer. But, I kept two ideas from Aristotle. First, "Count no man happy until he is dead". This gave me hope in adverse situations. I was not dead, and I could not read the future, therefore opportunities, even one, might appear. (I was 49 when I took advantage of a great opportunity).
The second idea I gleaned from Aristotle was the notion of virtue (excellence). This word can be applied to persons or skills. A very good carpenter is virtuous, as a carpenter. A greater, but life-long enterprise is the development of a virtuous character. Do not fear self-criticism, and listen to others. Over time, a person can become a more virtuous character. However, this process never ends, since no one is perfect. Still, satisfaction can be had even daily with such a pursuit. It may sound self-centered, which it is if taken literally. However, to become a virtuous person one must take into account not just oneself, but also one's surroundings. One's self includes one's actions, and that requires a value assessment of the external world. So, to Gen-Z, if you need a life-long pursuit that will never end, try to become virtuous.
2
Human imagination is both glorious and damnable, capricious, creative and malicious. Philosophy is whatever anybody says it is. Same with religion. Get real for a change. Experience your role in nature to gain perspective.
As others wrote, I too don't understand "the privatization of morality". As Brooks once again rails against the Boomers spirituality and civil commitment, he seems to forget: who protested the the Vietnam War for YEARS, who brought Earth Day to the world and ecology into the mainstream, who were the first Peace Corp and Vista volunteers, who marched with MLK and Chavez, and....who are STILL the most well-known American Buddhist teachers who brought Buddhism and meditation to America in the 1960s. Brooks needs a history lesson.
20
As the world population continues to grow our problems will become more complicated and result in more distress and lead to depression for a lot of young people. Climate change may have a number of causes including the expanding population but no one wants to address that issue. We are reducing our dependence on fossil fuels as fast as we can as we should but that may have little to do with climate change. Our high schools and colleges are failing us by not teaching that hard work is paramount to solving our problems. This country was built by individuals who were “not afraid to get their hands dirty”. Too many today are looking for easy solutions rather than hard work. When they cannot find these easy solutions they get depressed.
So what's new? Many years ago, St. Augustine said: Our hearts are restless 'till they rest in Thee." Generation after generation, we see variations of the same theme.
4
I can't speak for Gen-Z, but what keeps me going are my important projects, including one that really does qualify as "larger than self." But even so, life has been wrung of most of its joy.
I think this is in large part because of the thorough meanness of our culture, both political and social, that seems to pervade everything. Of our inability to come together to deal with big problems. Of the constant playing dirty in our politics. The maneuvering for power.
I despair that we seem to wallow, even revel, in our own ignorance, at a time when more than ever a clear-eyed understanding of reality is crucial.
That many of our religious institutions seem mostly interested in controlling what other people do.
That it's becoming ever harder to escape the constant suffocating press of noise and commotion. My best times are when I'm alone, with nature and my own thoughts, glorying in the song of that Eastern Meadowlark over yonder.
But these days "glorying" is too strong a word. The joy has become flat.
Worst of all is how we're systematically destroying the natural world, and with it ourselves. Climate change will be the decisive final blow, ending that "big project" of mine, and all else.
It's no wonder so many of us struggle to find meaning.
3
it is the question itself, does my life have meaning, that is the outlier for humanity. For most of human history, the purpose in ones life was survival of self and family. It is one of the more consistent truths that when survival is assured man struggles with what to do (think children of the uber rich). watch a well cared for dog live his life. love his human , play a little, nap a lot.
I always thought that working to open minds and hearts towards those who are the "least of these" was about as fulfilling a purpose as one could have in life. So when I see how it now appears that closing minds and hearts, and closing them even against one's own neighbors, is the prevailing mood, I don't see a lot of hope for this country.
I hope that Brooks is right that the younger generation may set things right. But, of course, it's the "flower power" generation which is now in charge and they were supposedly destined to make the word a better, more loving place. And look where we are.
Maybe what we need is a real revolution, one that brings a 2 by 4 upside everyone's head which, if it doesn't kill us, may wake us up.
The world is a dark place, but younger people are the source of some optimism. I am the mother of two daughters- 25 and 32. They and their friends are well-informed, smart, thoughtful people—WAY more aware and concerned and involved than I was at that age. Many have chosen career paths in education, social equality, the arts, sciences- and all work hard for purpose as opposed to huge paychecks. I admire them, and they give me hope. Yay young folk. May you do it better than we did.
10
Fundamental to reviving society is redistributing income and capital. The financialization of life is what has eroded society. Finance and its ally, advertising (including the most modern insidious forms of hunting for the consumer online) need to be reined back sharply. The face of this is Facebook. So now is when the Democratic Party wisely take a stance definitely to the left of center -- something that may lose it the election. But what else can be done? The country, above all else, needs broad reform and that begins with an election, a dare that sweeps away the so-called Republicans and the corrupt Democratic center, showing up the specter of Trumpian populism for what it is, a paper tiger, profoundly un-American. So let us all stand with Gen-Z. But Gen-Z, please, do not become self-righteous. Just get the job done.
5
"The privatization of morality?" Moral miniaturization?" Absent examples of such, these expressions were lost on me.
21
I see these terms referring to the same thing the hyper individualism that is the stock and trade of neoliberal capitalism. It’s all about our own personal preferences everyone else be damned.
2
Ulysses and Dante both taught us this lesson. Our children are no different than we were as young people. They all have watched their parents chase an illusion so they search for their own. I think of Dante meeting Beatrice in Paradiso and Ulysses sailing away from Ithaca. The knowledge and the growth is in the journey, not the destination. The energy to survive is hidden in the illusion. Brooks writes today about a life, a country without an illusion.
2
They still feel they can change the world. So did We in the 1960s. Instead we were co opted or beaten down by the relentless drive to inequality which is the result of vampire capitalism in America. I spent decades living in another country( one of those Northern European egalitarian social democracies( where I learned decent societies can be created in a stakeholder form of capitalism. When I look at the rancid bigotry and indifference to cruelty that is the tenor of power in America today, it’s no wonder I’m spending my dotage on a tiny island at the absolute farthest reaches of America.
So good luck to those fiery youngsters. However, unless they vote , they’ll be contributing to 4 more years of trump.
13
Pitting one generation against another is probably not a good idea. It would probably help to talk more about the doers and non-doers, rather than divide people by when they were born.
10
As soon as I read the generalization of Boomers and Gen-X the author loses credibility for me here. These are academic and economic stereotypes that the media uses but are not grounded in the American experience. I am "Gen-X", my parents are "Boomers" and no one in my American experience is victim to the "privatization of morality". My American community is made up of artists, creatives, intellectuals, doctors, diplomats, and thinkers with strong moral convictions who are deeply frustrated by our landscape. I'm not sure taking a four-month book tour which would expose you to only a select section of the population - likely the population buying David Brooks's books - earns one insight into the real American experience either. Seems quite a shallow piece with all due respect.
24
What is David Brooks talking about? "Boomer quietism and moral miniaturization," I have no idea what he means. Who does he talk to? I am so amazingly tired of being categorized in his terms, as he rails against the Baby Boomers. We, too, were super idealistic; we marched, we phone banked, we rallied behind our candidates by going door to door, hoping men such as Eugene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy might be elected and end the Vietnam nightmare. We marched for civil rights, we wrote letters, we listened to those who knew more than we did. We were inspired by words written or spoken by people such as William Sloane Coffin who in 1965 told my high school graduating class to be righteously angry. Despite so many disappointing outcomes, we marched on in our 20s and 30s, protesting American involvement in Central America, the nuclear arms race, equality in education, environmental causes, women's issues. AND we raised families, AND we ran for office,AND we worked outside the home giving back to our communities, AND we took care of aging parents. Lots of meaning in our lives. So, Mr. Brooks, what finally are you talking about?
85
@Jane
Well said. I don't know these people he is referring to!
2
I would strongly encourage anyone who wants to know the state of America today to read The Unwinding by George Packer. He weaves a sad tale of the breakdown of many of the institutions that shaped Post-WWII America, now overridden by faceless and heartless $. One cause for great hope is that the young seem largely optimistic and willing to see the world through fresh perspectives.
3
@Concerned They are also the generation that will suffer from the results of climate change.
3
Concepts of wokeness and privilege are not new or specific to Gen Z. The concepts evolved out of thinking that goes back to Civil Rights days. Those of us boomers who have marched, worked and sacrificed for the cause are happy to see the next generations move forward with it. I'm not sure what purpose it serves to ignore previous generations' efforts and progress made as a result when discussing the current generation's aspirations, morals, and beliefs. We all have despair over the down sides of American history and problems inherent in our democracy and capitalism. Each generation must find their way to make us better. We in America are privileged to be here, we have so much more than most in this world. It is our duty to help those who are not privileged, to work toward changing the inequities. Gen Z's biggest most pressing challenge is to heal the planet, a challenge connected directly to healing income inequality and capitalism's immorality of greed and avarice. And they need to build upon the work of those who have gone before them. They, and we, should not blame the entire previous generations for the sins of those who overpowered and thwarted our best efforts to address these issues. They may feel less alone if they look at history; at those who bravely fought for the causes they rightly identify as urgent & feel more hopeful, draw inspiration in the stories of the heroes of the movements that have brought change, learn from the successes and mistakes.
7
The leading picture of students in an environmental justice class seems separated from Mr. Brooks column--where little mention is made of the Gen-Z climate crisis mitigation movement.
This crusade is a part of an ultimate life meaning--the common good. The beauty of that concept is that it is self-definable and once an individual feels their idea of the common good it can become a tremendous, sustaining force.
That and exercise . . .
6
The Pew Research question is rather silly. "Describe the things that bring meaning to your life." How is anyone supposed to answer that question? What does "meaning" even mean? You're inviting negative responses.
Most people will say family, work or religion because its easier than reflecting on their purpose. Fact is though most people are incredibly average. If you stop to think about the long arc of your life, chances are you will never accomplish anything worthy of even a footnote in the annals of history. Most human life is by definition unremarkable.
This can be a very depressing realization. Young people will always respond more positively to the question though. Youth is nothing but potential. The door hasn't closed on what will be. That's a comforting thought. At some point though, all us average people will have to look around and say "this is as good as it gets" and be satisfied with whatever "it" is. Youth doesn't have that problem yet.
11
My father supported the eight of us on his middle class income. Yes, my mom did most of the work of raising us, unpaid. We lived pretty good. Not much "disposable income", but all the necessities and then some. All went to college save one, graduating with little to no debt. Almost all went on to good, solid reliable jobs and careers. Give today's married middle class couple of, let's say two children, the same buying power the dollar had when I was a growing boy and they would be swimming in surplus cash. I can assure you, there would be much meaning in their world and in the lives of their children.
7
Three years of Trump should depress any normal human, I doubt the same responses who have been given under Obama. I really wish that younger people would stop blaming entire generations of older people because it is almost entirely the Republicans, specifically, over the last forty years who have destroyed the best of America. Between supporting the NRA, big business, tax cuts for the wealthy, and fighting against health care, the environment, racial equality, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration reform, you name it, the REPUBLICANS of all ages are the problem, with McConnell, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus and Dark Money leading them. Younger people need to quickly get informed on who is their real enemy and what they have done so they can do something about it by voting for Democrats of any age.
14
As long as David Brooks continues to search for the 'large" answers in purely sociological terms, he is going to miss the mark. Look, every generation is, eventually, going to grow old and die, and to become an oppressive entity along the way. It is up to each individual, in every generation, to find his or her sincere, quiet passion in life, and to nourish and defend this sacred ground as best as possible against the crushing onslaught of societal pressure. What Brooks holds sacred - communal identity - I have, thank God, turned my back on long ago. I turn 63 years of age next month. I've never owned a house, and have always worked for myself in a number of capacities - educator, shaky entrepreneur, book publisher & designer, consultant and now a hopeful novelist. My two children were educated at Canadian and European Universities at less than half the cost of American Universities. Their unique experience beyond the confines of our country's collapse into this state of vicious nationalism has proven invaluable to them. I've taught my children that they are surrounded with opportunities to be kind and generous to others, and must act on them. Personally, I continue to look forward to each new day with a sense of wonder and appreciation. There are other alternatives to the given, and they are inside each of us. Looking for meaning and happiness, as Mr. Brooks does, within group definitions is a fool's game.
4
“I no longer find much of anything meaning, fulfilling or satisfying. Whatever used to keep me going has gone. I am currently struggling to find any motivation to keep going.”
That 100% describes how I feel every day these days. If I had any courage at all I would have blown my head off in January, but for some reasons I haven't.
17
So, what? This is the first generation off teenagers who think they know more than their parents?
7
I think this article (and many of David’s previous articles) describes the results of America’s blind devotion to capitalism, and the insistence that free markets will solve all ills. We know from happiness studies that America falls short of other countries. Why is that? Capitalism pits individuals against each other, and drives them to work harder and longer to beat the competition. At some point the stresses of that kind of work life show up as…unhappiness. Yes, capitalism does many wonderful things. By design, it does not distribute the fruit of those wonderful things evenly. The unsuccessful find themselves working endlessly in pursuit of financial goals they will never achieve. The successful spend so much of their lives working that they have little time to spend with their families. At some point you have to ask “What’s the point?” And then you go looking for a greater cause…
4
Boomers were a "we" generation. The following "me" era created a society where all were convinced that they were entitled to success- wealth, love, fame. Max out your credit cards. You should have what everyone else has. Become a millionaire by the time your thirty. Put off marriage until tour middle age, and perhaps have no children because it will interfere with your "me time." It is easy to understand why members of this generation live lives of loneliness and despair when they don't marry, or get divorced, or have no children. If you work hard to support your family, focus on raising your children properly and cultivate your marriage you will not have time to be bored. Sounds naive, but living your life, at least in part, for others (spouse, children, other family or a social circle) results in more contentment and less depression. Oh, and remember the Rolling Stones lesson- you can't always get what you want.
3
Just my opinion: The human brain is designed to process the surrounding environment: What we can hear, see, touch, etc. We can deal with stressful situations that impact us directly. Years ago, something could happen 100 miles away, and we would never know about it, so we didn't stress about it.
Today, with social media and instant news, if someone sneezes halfway around the world, we can Tweet "Bless you" in a timely manner. Our brains are now absorbing the stressful situations of the entire planet rather than our immediate environment. Our brains haven't evolved to that point yet, so we have a society of people who are over-stressed.
17
No surprise that the young are openly critical of the older generations. It's been happening ever since the beginning of time.
366
@Susan: Yes, but now kids are growing up with the threat of climate change (true existential external threat) as well as the likelihood of crushing college debt. So, I think the sense is becoming more proportionally pronounced.
23
@Anne: Yes, but boomers grew up with the threat of nuclear war in an era of a hot "cold" war, a real existential threat. Remember duck and cover? Boomers had to deal with a draft during a failed war. Also a tough economy during the high inflation high unemployment Seventies. Proportion?
56
@Tenhofaca I have to agree with you. While climate change is a massive problem that requires a response, deaths due to climate related catastrophes are at an all time low (down from nearly 500,000/yr in 1900 to less than 50,000/yr today). This is because as wealth increases we are better able to stand up to its effects. There is a lot of alarm (even though I think this is one of the biggest issues today). The nuke was the actual existential threat.
8
The wealthiest 1% in the United States have 43% of national wealth, a far greater share than in other OECD countries.
In no other industrial nation do the richest 1% own more than 28% of their country’s wealth.
The problem in America is not generational per se, but ideological...as in radical Reverse Robin Hoodism on a 39-year joy ride of economic sadism and misanthropy that has ripped hope out of people's souls in exchange for modern feudalism.
The problem in America is that the government was purchased by the rich who then gave themselves endless tax cuts to maintain ownership of the government while effectively telling the citizenry to get lost with funding for education, healthcare, childcare, infrastructure, public transportation, worker unions, retirement, consumer protection, voting rights, functioning courts...the basic building blocks of a decent society.
Just the other day, the right-wing Supreme Court told Americans that it's fine for politicians to pick their own voters instead of the other way around.
It doesn't get much more depressing than when a rigged right-wing court is perfectly comfortable publicly saying that there's nothing they can do about equal protection under the law.
Generation Z might solve some of our problems, but America will never be great until the majority of Americans agree that we all need to pay for a decent civilization with more taxes and put the selfish right-wing in a corner to cry 'socialism' ad infinitum while we move forward.
633
@Socrates
The joy ride is 47+ years.
See Bit.ly/EPI-study
Scroll down to graph #2.
The median wage has been flat since 1972 even while GNP has gone up 150%.
23
@Socrates. Not that complicated really. Cut defense and we could pay for all that stuff. Funny nobody ever even mentions this. Eisenhower was right.
100
@Socrates
I agree with your last paragraph, but I also think that there is nothing wrong with a few people acquiring enormous wealth, as long as 1) fair taxes are paid on their income, 2) in life they make significant charitable commitments to support those less fortunate, and 3) the bulk of their estates are redistributed to those who were partners in enabling them to accumulate a fortune (i.e. the other citizens).
The boomer (my) generation: guilty on all three counts.
The next generation indeed has their work cut out, and I pray they are up to the challenge.
13
When you're told over and over that finding meaning outside of yourself, helping others to live better lives, is a sucker's game in a Calvinist/Social Darwinist/vulture capitalist rat-eat-rat zero -sum world--and your society is structured to ensure that those who choose to take that path anyway out of some strong moral conviction can't make enough money to lead a reasonable existence and still pursue that path doggedly--it's no wonder that people experience anomie and depression and attempt to find meaning in smaller, more inward pursuits.
Navel gazing is an inevitable result of having your wider gazing trashed.
The fact that anyone at all still continues to pursue a more selfless outer-directed path speaks to their strength of character. But if one doesn't set up a society in a way that even modestly rewards that, you'll get fewer and fewer of those people, until it's everyone for themselves (pronouns intended).
And maybe we're already there in the US.
337
@Glenn Ribotsky
It very much depends on how one defines "rewards".
Some whistleblowers and others who sacrifice for the public good do get a huge payday or conspicuous recognition, others who make such sacrifices primarily get a spiritual and psychological reward.
If the latter is what someone cares about, they probably consider themselves paid in full. There is great satisfaction from developing the courage to act and then acting when it matters most.
17
@Alan A spiritual/psychological reward does not translate when you can't pay your rent or mortgage, educate your children, pay for decent health care. I think that's the point..
26
@Glenn Ribotsky Excellently described and discussed. And whom among the Democrats will appeal to them and get a robust turnout? It's pretty slim pickings among the 24 or 25 of them. But there are a couple or three who are genuine and with some experience to make it work. Maybe. And none of them are named Kamala, Pete, or Joe.
11
Help please. I've read this twice and I'm still not sure what is meant by "boomer quietism and moral miniaturization".
On the other hand, as an older boomer, I do feel a terrible sense of responsibility for having paid more attention to peace and social justice work than to defending the "tree huggers" of the 70s. And I heartily applaud all of today's young people -- especially those "woke" to their own privilege -- who are focussed on the need for real action in the face of our terrifying climate crisis. I'm sorry: this is not the world I expected to leave my grandchildren.
2
Here's another project for students involved in the Bezos scholars program: seeking minimum wages for Amazon employees and working conditions that rise above forced labor camps.
4
I admire the K-12 and college students who are protesting globally - going on strike on Fridays for the climate. I admire Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate justice activist who speaks truth to power. She has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. I hope she is awarded it. She herself was inspired by the Parkland High School activists against gun violence.
But I'm not waiting for Gen-Z to save the world. It is not their sole duty. I am Gen-X and I am doing my best to be an activist myself to repair the world in as many ways as I can while I still have breath. I am inspired by what Jonas Salk said: "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."
454
@J.like that quote!
6
@J. Dear J, like you I deeply admire the younger human cohort that includes Greta Thunberg and the Parkland High School Activists. I was born in 1956 and came of moral age in the mid to late 60s. My teachers were the Beatles, the main religions of the world, and the youth movement to end the Vietnam war and liberate sexuality and the human mind. The Boomers were all around us, so this situation feels like deja vu to me. We are returning to some essential cycle in human mind over millennia. There is a growing literature on the nature and expression of human mind over the long arc of our existence as a race (e.g., Overmann & Coolidge, Squeezing Minds from Stones: Cognitive Archeology & the Evolution of the Human Mind, Oxford University Press, 2019 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315780394_Squeezing_minds_from_Stones_Cognitive_archaeology_the_evolution_of_the_human_mind). This is a time of transition and those with the most to gain from making necessary societal changes are the most recent cohort of teens. We should follow them.
The enthusiasm and social dedication described here is encouraging, but is it necessarily a distinction of one generation or a representation of young people more broadly? With time, might these same Gen Z individuals focus less on the big picture and more on their own disappointments and disillusionments? Idealism is pretty common in young people, while aging can make one jaded.
185
@NM I agree completely.
I also think that the parents of middle and upper class Gen Z children impact their idealistic but often inflated sense of selves, through coddling and instilling an over abundance of confidence.
Many of these kids couldn’t stand on their own or support themselves (and may never have to). I guess I sound old - Gen X - when I say that I’ll have more respect for some of them when they can get a job without their parents connections, and be completely self sufficient. This includes traveling on their own, on trips that are not curated through luxury companies, so that their minds are truly opened. It also helps when these children don’t leave their elite colleges mired in debt. Much easier to self-reflect, self care, and have the time and energy to focus on larger issues.
16
@NM
Some elders retain their idealism and do not become jaded. They have always been anti-war, anti-racist and for a fair shake for the workers who built and maintain our country.
They persist to this day inspiring the young and the old.
12
I just spent my 4th of July celebration being the old, very old guy, that boomer, at the end of the picnic table. A table full of 20 & 30 somethings. I got lucky. These are the good ones. They are changing the world in meaningful ways. They don't just work at jobs. They work at purpose. They work in research and development at non-profits, or green energy industry, nuclear bioscioences, nuclear energy transformation, or in non-traditional health care fields. They are a great bunch of young people. I feel so lucky to be connected to them. We are connected because of a state university classroom. I was their professor. I am long retired. They are my legacy. I might add it wasn't easy. I am a Viet Nam veteran. That war almost ruined life. But with the help of the G.I. Bill America provided me I made something of my life and now I am very proud to say I've past my America torch on to a new generation just like JFK said to do.
689
@concord63Thank you for your comment and your life's work. I think there are alot of us oldies out there who have lived (and are living) quiet lives of decency, meaning, and love. I'm proud to have come of age in the sixties, when change seemed possible and plausible. That it all began to crumble when Reagan began our descent into the swamp that is the Trump administration is a tragedy. I was a nurse for over 40 years. I didn't get rich, but my life was enriched by the patients I had the honor to know and help. They taught me what was iportant in life.
Sometimes I get tired of David Brooks empty moralizing while he clings to GOP that is at odds with the values he sypposedly admires.
66
@concord63
Lovely!
8
@concord63 I have a really good feeling about the new generation too. I'm 65, and our son is entering college this fall. It has been a privilege to raise him and get to know his friends, teammates and classmates. They are engaged and sincere, and they also enjoy discourse (and action) on a broad variety of subjects of great import today - from politics to the spiritual realm.
17
After all these years my idealism is battered and I’m tired and disgusted by the state of my country and the world. Our only hope is the energy, anger and idealism of our youth. Let’s support them and elect them, not draft them.
446
@S. Bernard,
What a great comment, thank you. I feel the same way, but I keep telling myself, I haven't earned the right to give up yet. As for the young people, I also take heart, a bit, when I see and hear (in family, friends) their social justice initiatives. My own opinion, I think it will stick with this generation. I'm a boomer and I got to ride the coat-tails of the Depression survivors and WWII generation. Not this crowd. All they've known is gun violence at their schools; dire climate warnings and effects; massive debt for a college education; a poisoned civic and political culture; ultra-conspicuous consumption; and I could go on and on. They don't really have a choice but to fight back.
22
@S. Bernard
An example are the high school kids pushing to get sane gun control laws in place. One million US civilians killed by guns over the last 33 years is NOT enough ? What sane nation would allow this and let it continue.
8
@S. Bernard Until today’s youth make the shift that comes with age, and realize that they are not the first generation who believed that they, a chosen generation, would somehow be able to do what no other generation has yet achieved, which is the utter transformation of human nature. Back in the 60s abs 70s, WE were the generation who was out to change the world for the better. An end to wars and pollution. Careful and conscientious curation of natural resources, and a humanistic outreach to help those who needed it. We joined the Peace Corps, and sacrificed for the betterment of the world. We were later schooled by the realities and deep corruption of a capitalistic economy, the Reagan Revolution of voodoo economics, union busting, and proliferation of materialism, and a world which saw our generation languish in decades of flat wages for all of our working lives. Let’s see what the next generations accomplish when the weight of reality finally sits firmly upon their shoulders, and it becomes a lifelong battle to promote the greater good, and not just a naive, feel good exercise in the youthful indulgence that we all have when we’re excited, have few burdens, and a safety net of “moms and dads” to shore up their smug idealism. I suspect we’ll find more summer soldiers and sunshine patriots than we will any truly dedicated to grinding and mind numbing work of the long haul, instead of the heady glory of what sounds and feels like an uplifting shift of the world dynamic.
1
It's hard not to live a life of quiet desperation when you're acutely aware of the destruction of all the things that have real value for the sake of "economic growth" and profit - and which you feel powerless to stop.
Capitalism has atomised us. It's relentless insistence that a happy life is predicated on having more shiny new things has proved hollow.
We need a new socio-economic paradigm to replace the soul crushing reality of the one we have now - to save both ourselves and the planet.
3
Excuse me David Brooks but I’m a boomer. So are most of my friends. None of us are the leeches you describe. We all volunteer and worry about the future of our country and planet.
Please recall about 58,000 of us died in a useless, immoral war. We demonstrated and fought back otherwise more would have died. We didn’t start or perpetuate that war.
We carried the torch of for freedom. For civil rights. For women’s rights. Some people, mostly retrograde Republicans, say the change was too fast for the country to absorb. But we waited long enough for equality. A just goal
We spawned the environmental movement, opening our eyes to the destruction of our planet by industrial giants. Clean air and water and conservation of our precious land are just and mighty goals.
So please, each generation brings with it good and bad. Even the great generation had some really dark sides.
1088
@Sharon--- I concur with your point about each generation having the good and the bad. Regarding stats cited as bleak by Brooks: there are plenty of people who humbly serve those around them and strangers, without considering themselves anything special. In fact, if seven percent of each/any generation can say that service of others is a true source of personal meaning, I would say I'm thankful for that 24 million Americans.
Having taught teens over four decades, and being a boomer myself, I can offer this observation:
Every year, regardless of the music, the films, the apps, and the national political climate of the day, young people who care about others emerge. They often, though not always, are leaders, and they put their own live(s) on hold- at least a little- to actually make a difference in the lives of people they know, and people they just met, and in the well-being of our planet. These, it seems, are ones for whom the revolution is not a fad, but a steady transforming of self and, as far as possible, the system and the common good.
70
@Sharon Thank you for giving me a sense of hope. I am also a boomer, and I have devoted my entire career to help create high quality jobs for people in the United States as well as people in other countries around the world. I have also served on many boards of non-profit organizations to address the quality of health care, the protection of the planet and the willingness to confront the inequality that has emerged across this country. I have never made financial success more important than or even equal to the importance of making a difference to others. I can assure you that I know many other boomers who share these points of view.
62
@Sharon
I suggest you not read a recent piece in The Atlantic called "The Boomers Ruined Everything." It's amazing how much can be blamed on a single cohort only 18 years wide.
39
In my immediate family of three generations none of us are Boomers. I have many cousins who are coming from a large family and they are not as described. Giving back by either volunteering or donating to a cause is something that was passed down from my parents to
me and to my kids and hopefully to my Gen Z Grandkids. Yes,it is a very unsettling world out there but we have to try to live a better life. I love my Smart Phone and what I can do with it but believe that it helps people feed into this sense of unhappiness. Even at my age I check to see how many people like my posts on FB, check news websites that are full of bad news and read about politics and people who agree/don’t agree with my views. I know Seniors who feel left out in this new technology driven world (my work background was in Telecom)!and try to help those who are interested by teaching them how they can use their phones to their advantage. When I get on the elevator I see most of the young people on their phones paying no attention to each other. I think technology is great and helps us in so many ways but I also believe that it contributes to the doom and gloom many people are experiencing
1
I have great hope in Generation Z .
This generation is being shortchanged by the “ boomers “ , who are leaving a planet in deep ecological crisis , a society dominated by the top 1% , an education and healthcare system inefficient and tremendously expensive.
This generation Z has to roll up the sleeves and start addressing so many social issues , not least racism, human rights , demographic explosion, environment , infrastructures , education, healthcare , deficit etc.
Unfortunately most of the industrialized countries, particularly America , have become the societies where “ to have “ is more important than “ to be “ .
This explains the high rate of depression and suicides .
1
As a parent of a Gen Z, 9 year old, I can tell you that he can already very precisely and eloquently describe what is his generation’s defining challenge - climate change. And he is also very clear that his parents’ and grandparents’ generations have failed his generation in our stewardship. He’s right. My role as a parent is to help transform this clarity into purpose and action. While his generation may save us, we have roles to play too.
1
David Brooks is almost completely wrong. First, it isn't a sign of self-centeredness to rank career highly as a source of meaning: many of us think that what we do 8-10 hours/day makes the world a better place, even if only incrementally. For it is a truth that almost all progress is made incrementally, one baby step at a time.
Look at CAR-T cancer therapy. Developing it required the ability to model the proteins on the surface of a cancer cell, and developing poisons/drugs that could bind to those proteins exclusively. As a prerequisite, it required incredibly cheap (by 1970's standards) computing. And no doubt much more infrastructure than I understand, developed over decades. It wouldn't have happened without the small contributions of thousands.
OTOH, When I was young, I did some middle school math tutoring. I wasn't very good, compared to a teacher with even a modicum of experience. Looking back at it, it isn't surprising that I don't think it was a particularly meaningful experience. These days, I can (and do) far more good by donating 10 hours of salary to a school, than by donating 10 hours of frankly lame tutoring. I can even do more good giving a free guest lecture on something I'm a real expert on at the local college.
Yes, when you're young, you see yourself as the next Einstein, Gandhi, RBG, or Salk. But in truth, most good comes from ordinary people trying to do their best, marginally improving a sometimes marginal system.
8
I think one of the fundamental problems, clearly demonstrated by this article, is that America sees itself as the centre and thereby also as the natural and only viable saviour of the World. Young people in China for example are boldly optimistic about their future, they feel like the rightful inheritors of the World (for better or for worse). America is unlikely to be the saviour or destroyer of the World in years to come, and maybe that's the problem, the country is becoming like a faded movie star that everyone has forgotten, turning to drugs, alcohol and inner despair to wonder 'where did it all go wrong'. Pessimistic I know, but at least partially true.
5
Gen-Z?
I think adults are frankly scared of them; scared of them, for them, and scared of what will become of their own identities as children grow up and judge their legacy. After having read a bit of the literature on the dangers of A.I. and how humans should proceed with respect to these unforeseen developments it's interesting to realize that children today are themselves treated as if dangerous A.I. about to run amok: Children are increasingly watched, guarded, controlled on all sides, forced onto the internet, forced to have advanced technology applied to them, and if they demonstrate any 'negative signs, negative speech, behaviors' they are shut off the internet or watched and 'reprogrammed with safe and correct content' and other similar 'take humans as machines' strategies.
This rapid technological change might have been more benign if the world today were not such a desperate place, the stakes so high what with environmental disaster, overpopulation, WMD and the like, but the combination of dangerous world coupled with advances in technology gives an overall psychological atmosphere in almost mathematical calculation: That the world is in bad shape, technology the salvation, and the children must make the change, the transition with the technology, BUT the adults will do as much of the programming and control as possible after having, themselves bequeathed children the very problematic world.
Plugged in monkeys, tampered with, made 'better' or tossed aside.
There is some sort of hard-to-define spiritual crisis across the land, which shows up in rising depression rates, rising mental health problems.
It is known as the beauty of capitalism's creative destruction.
5
As a 64-year-old atheist with a secular, live-and-let-live mindset, I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that one of the best ways to create or find meaning and real happiness (eudamonia or flourishing) in your life is to identify something other than yourself (helping or teaching other people, protecting or improving the world) and to dedicate your life to it.
I have "invested" a lot of hope in members of Generation Z. I wish fervently that it's not irrational hope.
David Brooks has a tendency to over-use the adjective "spiritual." That word may resonate with many readers, but I find it annoyingly vague and slushy, because there seems to be no consensus about what "spiritual" means. What is a "crisis of spirituality" or "spiritual scarcity"? How does "practicing a spirituality" differ, if at all, from "practicing a faith"?
Does Mr. Brooks over-use "spiritual" as a way of signaling that he thinks that vague, lip-service religiosity and mainstream, familiar superstition (There is at most one god and we worship it if it exists) is a good thing?
4
@Jeff D
Don’t need to be religious to be a good human being. In fact, many so call Christians don’t follow Jesus anyway, character means nothing to them.
1
@Jeff D
David Brooks is almost always "preachy". He speaks like a kindly secular pope. However, he speaks more kindly than many archbishops who seem more interested in worldly matters than "spiritual".
@Jeff D
Well said.
Yet, you don't enlighten us by letting us know how you have achieved meaning over your 64 years - which would have been interesting to read.
Also, you qualify with quotes how you're 'invested' in Gen Z. Does that mean your 'hope' for them is just that, a longing felt but not acted on? Or, are you doing something more like mentoring?
Commenting here on the NYT's boards is interesting and can be cathartic. But, it is not engaging in the same manner as being part of a church, a community group, a book group or any number of other activities. And that holds for me as well as many others commenting.
Well you know, David, it's a natural outcome of the Chicago School teaching us, beginning in the latter 1970s, that we're not citizens in a community but are, rather, consumers in competition with each other for goods and services.
We Boomers, as a generation, bought that nonsense, along with all the other nonsense preached by the CS about "externalities" and such, and went on to teach our children to be like us. Uncaring, competitive, world destroying narcissists whose God is represented by the Golden Bull on lower Broadway. Yes, "us" is a broad brush and, of course, there are those of us which never crossed the line, but a majority did.
It's a safe bet we won't be "saved" by the Millennials, who in my experience are almost totally divorced from politics and political reality, but what we refer to as Gen Z gives me some hope. I still fear, however, that what we've built has made it too late for them to fix on the scale necessary to save the species. I wish them luck.
10
Thanks for this, David. Good to know that Gen Z is passionate about many of the good things.
But while it is reassuring that you have discovered these traits among the young, I just assumed that they would be there. Haven't the youngest generations always been boldly idealistic?
That being said, I really have great difficulty reading about the traits of groups. I feel as if we lump too much. As a boomer should I be blamed for the cataclysm of Trumpism? Does Gen X just live inside a video game? Does Gen Y only have more agile thumbs?
It would seem that those that can find some solace in the little things in life like bugs or plants might be on to something from a mental health perspective, however, I recommend a dog...or gasp, a cat.
Once a garden or a pet take you out of your profound sense of hopelessness, find a candidate for something and support her. Send him a check. Get excited about a new leader. Vote! And encourage your friends to do the same. Get "woke" about stuff.
The dark cloud over us needs to be vanquished. There is plenty to care about. Our democracy is straining to survive. Inward personal drama is highly selfish when there are barbarians at the gate. And they are not "foreigners". Pogo was right. To the battle stations!
Would you like to help lead the charge by joining Justin Amash?
6
I remember when 'The Greatest Generation' let our military industrial complex drive right into Viet Nam. I was hopeful of the Baby Boomers when they protested to get the US out. My hopes were dashed 40 years later when the same Baby Boomers let George W and Cheney go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe Gen-Z will do better. History says otherwise.
8
@Rick “The same Baby Boomers” ? Bush and Cheney et al. got us into the mess in Iraq but they certainly weren’t among those protesting the war in Vietnam. That’s the problem with generalizing according to birth date.
"Only 11 percent said learning added meaning to their lives. Only seven percent said that helping others was a meaningful part of their life."
I don't see how this social malaise is uniquely generational--many Americans of all ages are in the same boat, whereby life is sale, often unfair, and for some, totally intolerable.
And that doesn't account for our politics, which of course, permeates the culture and informs our opportunities.
But I quoted the above because of the appalling percentages it showed on two key paramters that many philosophers view as essential to finding meaning in life: lifelong learning and lifelong service to others.
Both endeavors are essential to building a healthy self, and more importantly, a healthy society of engaged and committed citizens.
Personally I believe ignorance and self-interest are killing our country as reflected in the research you've described here. Everyone is responsible for the health of society--everyone.
6
I train to work in the morning, with my bicycle, and tide the 30 miles home. Just a ride, or what I think of as a short vacation. Boomers and gen x race by on the trails. I’m a slow boomer. Gen Z ride amongst me on slow upright bikes. I’m entering the end of my life. They their beginning. We smile and we nod and we enjoy a slow ride on a beautiful day. If you want to enjoy this new generation, buy a bike.
5
I don't agree with generational stereotypes.
Millennials are entitled; Gen Z seeks a larger purpose and finds an empty existence; Boomers are morally bankrupt as they strip the earth for their own comfort.
Let's just say that the loss of religious cohesion affects all generations. My own Church's foray into politics and as an activist SuperPAC against abortion has led it to endorse people who live the antithesis of Christian life, and to overlook heinous actions. They traded justice for a Justice. I'm a Boomer, not a Gen Z, and disenchanted.
Social cohesion is harder, not because we have no soul, but because we live in larger communities - more of us are in the megalopolises and fewer in small cities - and don't have the attachment of shared culture and proximity. We have to build it from scratch.
If you live in a community like mine, you don't see your neighbors. You are at work, they are at work, their children are in daycare. Our neighborhood is post zombie-Apocalypse quiet until after 5:00. Cohesion doesn't happen because our time is taken completely with just meeting the requirements of day to day responsibility.
And I'd question the idea that more of us are depressed; I'd posit more of us know it or admit it. Their have been plenty of committed, cohesive, involved, religiously active depressed alcoholics for a long, long time. Its old, but find a copy of the "Edge of Sadness."
7
I coach MBA students at one of the most prestigious business schools. I have seen their passion and commitment to contributing to the social good. Never once in seven years have I heard these bright, galvanized future leaders set their drives, dreams, and motivations against those of older generations.
In fact, I’ve found them humble, hopeful that I, their elder by a lot, have real, useful wisdom to
Impart. Unlike David Brooks, they are not obsessed by the need to drive wedges between generations, as if humanity is embroiled in a war to the death between old and young.
I love these kids. They make me hopeful. They look at different ethnicities, races, gender identities and see...each other. They look at us old folks and see what we allow them to see. In my case it’s someone with something useful to offer, and that has brought ineffable meaning to my life.
20
Interested readers might consider Christopher Lasch's 1979 book 'The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations.' Lasch anticipated many of the things David Brooks described in today's article. The historical context provided by Lasch's book may help put Brooks' ideas in a better perspective.
4
Interesting to note in Mr. Brooks column that these Generation-Z members were most likely educated and made aware of societal inequity and injustice by "depressed" members of Boomers and Gen-X. That may be one of the reasons that this new generation is so committed to righting the wrongs of our current corporatist society that controls our political, economic, and environmental ills for profit and outright greed.
Supporting Gen-Z members in their quest to transform society to the standards that they espouse would require the revitalization and significantly increased funding of federal programs, such as Americorps and the Peace Corps, with their service to these agencies as a means to relieve or eliminate their college debt burden, much in the way that Pete Buttigieg suggests.
It is indeed heartening to see that Mr. Brooks found these youngsters inspiring. Our next President and Congress should do everything possible to empower Gen-Z's altruistic vision.
4
What David is seeing is not something I believe is new, it's an experience all young people have when they feel their first flight into adulthood. They want to correct the previous generations mistakes. By the time our children reach Gen Z's current age the unintended consequences of our ideals and actions are starting to mature and become self evident. They want to correct those. It's a good cycle. I just wish the younger people would loose the arrogant self righteousness, but that too is part of the cycle I suppose.
5
@marty Mericka young people tend not to vote. You don't vote you don't get.
When I, with many others, protested the Vietnam war in the Sixties, the fervor was intensely passionate and idealistic. The older generation then thought, for a few years, we were nothing but typical youth acting out, dodging the draft, burning our cards.
Beginning in about 1980, the well-to-do of us began to get really better-to-do -- and we/they haven't slowed down since, even accounting for the bust in 2007-08. Corporate greed, day trading, short-term investor lust, and corrupt business practices enriched a tiny number of white male execs, and began to impoverish millions of middle-class workers.
So, fast forward to the hope that Barack Obama inspired in so many people, in America and abroad. Then smash that optimism with the reality of Trump and the racism and rage that surfaced -- one shouldn't be surprised youth and others are in spiritual crisis. I'm amazed they're not curled up in their bedrooms 18 hours a day bingeing on "The Gilmore Girls."
But many youth are committing themselves to climate justice, to serving others, to life beyond themselves. So are their retired elders. Yet it's against a backdrop of rightwing, self-serving, hyper-patriotic white nationalists who sit at the controls. Time will tell which force will overcome, or whether they'll remain in tension. Z, after all, is the end of the alphabet -- let's hope it's not the end of the world.
27
I see it differently as I enter my 3rd decade as an educator and school leader, in now 7 countries...current crops of young adults are too focused on the me and the now, and have narrow, even selfish, conceptions of moral and existential responsibility. The quiet and not so quiet desesperation is a reasonable response to where we are in human history: never has the distance between what is possible and what is real been so great. Young people know this. They grasp that poverty, inequality, injustice, dysfunctionality of many of our political institutions, the ecological and climate crisis, actually have solutions - but they are not implemented. Powerlessness is at its worse when you know there is a solution but you can’t enforce it.This is a deep and frustrating, even paralyzing, awareness that leads to withdrawal, superficial “experiencing” of life, and the obsession with microaggressions, with political correctness, with an electronic alter-reality that you hide in, and the overpreoccuoation with shallow issues that end up trivializing the bigger picture issues that are the real challenges we must confront to move improve humanity. The misdirection of energy, efforts and passions would lead anyone to the kind of despair, the inability to cope, the psychological dysfunction, insecurities, false overconfident entitlement we are all witnessing.
22
I often think of the countless generations of humans beings that preceded us for whom life was more or less an experience of endless toil and drudgery. Perhaps it has really only been since WWII that we (especially in America) have expected fulfillment and meaning from our daily lives. Back then it was promised in the form of "profit," "productivity," "convenience," and "abundance."
Yet the rise in corporatism of the '80s, '90s, and '00s—the primary vehicle that was expected to deliver freedom and happiness—has not led us to Shangri-La, especially since so many of us are now employed in work devoid of purpose or pleasure (such as the online-retail wasteland of Walmart and Amazon).
So it's no surprise that the newest generation is seeking meaning through its causes. Though one wonders whether it will take one or two more generations before humans beings once again resign themselves to lives of hardship (at the hands of our AI overlords), assuming we stay the present course. Who knows? If I find an answer, I'll live-blog it.
7
It's not clear to me from David Brooks's analysis whether the spiritual crisis and depression being suffered by Americans is shared equally by all generations or whether there is a significant difference between the various generations. Do large sections of the population fail to find meaning in artistic creation, philanthropy, social service, or passion for a cause larger than themselves? What about sex, satire, laughter, and music, which were engines of liberation in the 60s and 70s? Also: To be really idealistic, should he not consider how many millions of people worldwide suffer from depression as a result of U.S. actions (such as war, and the Donald Trump presidency)? To paraphrase John Donne: No country is an island unto itself.
14
"The best you can do is find a small haven in a heartless world."
This seems evidently and undeniably true to me. I consider anyone who sees the world otherwise to be naive and deluded. We are tiny and meaningless insects in a vast universe that has always been ruled by random violence and always will be. There is no meaning in life except what we make up to feel better.
I have no ambition to fight for any moral cause. I live my life in a way that I don't hurt others. If everyone else would do the same, there'd be no problem. That's good enough for me. I don't feel any obligation to compensate for others' maliciousness by being unusually altruistic.
6
@GS
Not all "hurt" comes at the hands of malicious others, or even others. There are plenty of natural disasters that humans have no hand in (disasters that have occurred long before human-involved climate change).
You mean amorality?
And immorality ... .
Most Boomers, notorious for their “Sixties” coming out party, unwittingly became their parents; the fabled “counterculture” just another marketing gimmick. Trump’s awfulness epitomizes it.
8
As one who has suffered the flames of these zealots in academia, I wish the experience on you. I believe your tune will change profoundly, and your unconvincing optimism about these young self-only motivated savages will be filled more with fear than hope. They have inspired me to return to Hannah Arendt, not Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
13
Agree with David Brooks, for once. It's always more complicated than it seems. Happy Fourth.
Several comments allude to 58,000 boomers who died in the Vietnam war.
No one mentions the 3+ million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians who died because of our immoral adventure.
Perhaps national narcissism is part of the problem.
18
Great column David. I asked my 77 year old Dad, a staunch liberal, the other day “aren’t you glad you are in your twilight years seeing the state of America today?” His response was an emphatic yes. That is certainly quiet despair. The tragedy is he has thirteen grandkids from age six to twenty nine. I am very paranoid there is going to be a widespread global civil war in the West in the next ten years. The right cannot possibly win in the long term thank God just as in Spain after their horrific civil war.
3
"Only 11 percent said learning added meaning to their lives." 89 percent of people have decided to stop learning? That explains so much. This group must include those who have decided to stop caring about their fellow humans, their environment and their government. These are people you can lie to, manipulate and lie to some more. I haven't been this disappointed in a poll number since FOX news, on the eve of the Iraq War, found that 82 percent of Americans thought that Sadaam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 911. That's what can happen when you stop learning.
25
@Rick Gage
The one statistic that has stuck in my mind ever since I read of the study that produced it over twenty years ago is this one: fully twenty percent of adults in this country “think” the sun revolves around the earth.
1
The most meaningful enduring socioeconomic political educational moral emotional mental and physical gap in America was and still is the color aka race aka ethnicity aka national origin callous cruel cynical hypocritical caste barrier.
No Americans have ever worked harder and longer for less return in every phase of civil secular and spiritual life than enslaved and separate and unequal while black African in America.
No Americans have had more of their lands, lives and natural resources stolen from them than brown Native American pioneers.
The guilty parties in both crimes against humanity were and still are white European American Judeo-Christians. They are aging and shrinking majority with a below replacement level birthrate along with a decreasing life expectancy due to alcoholism. drug addiction, depression and suicide.
5
@Blackmamba
Truer words were never spoken. The danger for minorities is paradoxically greater today than it was in 1865. I think Trump wants a race war to develop into a civil war.
4
@Peter I think you give Trump too much credit.
1
@ursamaj
Well I certainly hope I’m wrong but I should have commented earlier that pitting conservative non college white workers against every other conceivable ethnic and class demographic is bad enough. And a race war in America would be civil war, there is no question of a morphing aspect.
I hope America is too wealthy for political violence because it would be the most epic fail in human history.
"Everything feels personalized and miniaturized. The upper registers of moral life — fighting for freedom, struggling to end poverty — have been amputated for many. The awfulness of the larger society is a given. The best you can do is find a small haven in a heartless world."
The amputation has more to do with how little nonprofits truly trust their volunteers and empower them to do big things. If all you want me to do is sign an online petition, then of course the upper registers of moral life will be amputated.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Volunteers from Citizen's Climate Lobby had more than 4,200 letters to the editor and op-eds published last year. No amputation of the upper registers of moral life here.
Volunteers from the anti-poverty lobby RESULTS have spent 35 years lobbying Congress on child survival issues and global child death rates have plummeted from 41,000 a day in the early 1980s to 15,300 a day today.
This is where the words of George Bernard Shaw from Man and Superman truly begin to soar: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being a force of nature, instead of a selfish, feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy....”
7
@Sam Daley-Harris Amen!
1
The Boomers have been had - by themselves. They were convincing themselves that things only count if there is a metrics attached to it. They convinced themselves that there is only metrics that counts, namely the maximization of shareholder value. For the most part, they didn't realize that they were not shareholders.
Boomers were recruited into social wars as an Ersatz-meaning of life, while their real worth was assaulted daily. They have resigned to believing that everything has to be done for the business tycoons, or have learned denial of the most pressing problems, e.g., climate change.
Generation Z has woken up to this scam.
Is this the same David Brooks who just a couple of days ago decried to the "Democratic Left" (See Krugmann's comments on that) to "Not Loose Me"?
The means that GenZ uses to link their personal fate to global issues is sometimes irritating, sometimes infuriating. But, these personal fates ARE connected to the larger picture, and GenZ sees purpose in fighting for a better picture in that.
Climate Change, Inclusion, Gender Rights, Equitable Market Based Economy for All are not figs of imagination of some imaginary Democratic Left, they are the bread-and-butter of Genz's survival - and they know it.
1
I volunteer with childcare and feel heartened and impressed by the wonderful next generation
but I fear that it's not the good kids we need to worry about
the ones growing up alienated, alone, living in their bedroom on the internet playing shoot-em-up video games and absorbing racist white supremacist or other quasi-religious intolerance as a reason for being - then come out of their bedrooms locked and loaded - or join some terrorist or paramilitary group because it looks like fun ...
that's what I worry about - in real life you can't just press 'restart' and play on after someone's been killed or injured
3
There's nothing quite like publishing anecdotal information by a sociologist manque to inspire future readers of a prospective book... He might at least have quoted Henry David Thoreau, who remarked early on in Walden, over a 150 years ago, that "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". Plus ca change, c'est le meme chose or old news doesn't sell.
9
This makes one hope Trump, for all his faults and inadequacy for public office, will be reelected. Maybe then these self-centered brats will recognize that the world is about more than their feeling good about themselves.
6
@Jonathan Katz
Well, since Trump is a “self-centered brat,” perhaps the king of them all, I hope that he not be reelected and that someone who is generous, compassionate, and thoughtful is instead, so these “brats,” as you call them, have a better role model.
Holy cow, your holiness! But seriously, this: "I’ve also found that college students are eager to talk about a moral project entirely absent from the Pew survey: Doing inner work, growing in holiness." That's a very good thing - except for that "holiness" bit - which, IMO, is a fraught, religiously freighted term. I just mean that you CAN do inner work (and be engaged in moral questions) without that Old-Timey-Religiosity, you know. Sometimes it's even referred to as, "The Courage To Be". I'm a boomer (although I think these generational-divides can get over-played - as I think David Brooks does here) but I do wish that more of my contemporaries had that particular brand of courage.
But oh man, this: "The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair."
I mean, those are our choices!!?
I think we can do better than that! Sheesh, that's some pretty grim pessimism, Mr Brooks.
Again - there's always "The Courage To Be" as an option. (Thank you, Paul Tillich.)
2
"Hard-to-define spiritual crisis"? Climate crisis, climate crisis, climate crisis...
2
All descriptions of generations (Boomers, X,Y, Z etc.) are massive generalizations. Like most generalizations they are suggestive not all that precise. The Pew research appears to be about all Americans without regard to generation. The essential issue is less about generations, than how to engender connection, purpose and a level of economic security. The individualism and materialism which are staples of our culture are not sufficient for most over time. Brooks has made this point consistently. It may sound too philosophical. However, the consequences of EXCESSIVE individualism and materialism are evident especially as other forces disrupt our communities.
4
How sad, to read something like this: “I don’t feel very satisfied with my life. I’m a stay-at-home mom and my life is endless monotony and chaos.”
I see it differently. Stay at home wives care for their family. That is important and valuable work, and more than enough to provide a sense of purpose, even though it might be the same thing day in and day out.
Would a job be better? Not if one's family comes first and the family can afford to have someone at home. Beyond that, many jobs are monotonous as well.
As for the chaos, life with small children can be chaotic, but it won't always be like that. Children grow older and get out of the house.
I wonder how her family would describe how they feel about having her at home. Their perspective might be totally different, that she is a valued presence, that she brings meaning, care, love and support.
I agree the problem of social isolation follows when we no longer learn how to find and build community. Get out from behind the computer! Develop hobbies, then look for the people who share those interests. Find groups that interest you: religion, politics, etc.
4
@Barbara
Well stated. And of course the lament of the stay-at-home mother is not new. Been there since I was a kid 3 score ago.
Thank you Mr Brooks for sharing so clearly the angst that your party (Republican) has brought to this country
3
I don’t understand this characterization of Boomers — read any history book and you’ll see they are the original “woke” generation (minus the online social shaming of others). They are the most revolutionary generation alive.
- Gen X person
8
Given what abject, selfish failures the boomers have been, it’s no wonder subsequent generations are searching for meaning, even if it’s not in the superficial way to which most boomers would relate.
2
"Boomer quietism and moral miniaturization"? 'Scuze me? Mr. Brooks forgets the civil rights activism, antiwar protests, birth of environmental awareness and a host of other unquiet, morally expansive efforts of the '60's generation. Although we were wrong about a lot of things, forgive us for having been young. And contrary to seeing a chasm, I see a lot of the same restlessness, doubt, rebelliousness, soul-searching, and yes, depression among today's youth as I saw in my own. Maybe these sentiments are just a rite of passage, updated for the digital age. Poor kids, with their lives being ruled by little talking black slabs.
16
You know what really gives meaning? Learning a foreign language. If you don't learn a lot of meanings you won't be able to speak the language!
Equating the Salem Witch Trials to "online shaming" is almost as appalling as Trump railing against the "witch hunts" he is supposedly enduring. Neither Brooks nor Trump are female or powerless, and they are not being punished by religious fanatics (all of whom were "Christian"). I recently found out that I am descended from Rebecca Towne Nurse who at the age of 71 and as pious as the day is long was hanged as a witch during the Salem hysteria. Her family had been feuding with another, so all it took was two adolescents from the other family falling down in "fits" and an overzealous pastor to condemn her.
3
"... female or powerless, ..."
Five MEN were condemned as witches during the Salem witch trials, and they were executed.*
Anyway, Brooks's comparison with so-called "online shaming" is hopelessly uninformed, because the Salem witch trials were formal court proceedings.
See the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project, which is online.
* See the Wikipedia articles "List of people of the Salem witch trials" and "List of people executed for witchcraft".
I enjoy Mr. Brooks’ thoughtfulness! It is a quite different, and very much appreciated antidote to the “paralysis by analysis” or opinion mongering one too often finds in journalism these days. Any article that gets me thinking does me a service, whatever i
1
There is no such thing as boomer morality. There is actually also no such thing as Gen Z or millenials or Gen X. People looking for spiritual fulfillment are looking for something that is imaginary. The key here is that people down the economic ladder are surveyed. Additionally nothing is more depressing than being lead by a fool and a cruel one at that.
Brooks suggests the Boomers may in the end looking small compared with future generations. They already look small compared with previous generations. Perhaps future historians will see belching up Trump as the Boomer's final disgrace.
3
Please.
I watched 5 minutes of the Kardashian's today for the first time in a hotel room. (I don't have TV at home) These poster children of this generation are even worse than I imagine, and I see miniature versions of them all across this country. Vapid, self centered, with their whole worth and reason to be centered around the latest Instagram post.
I also deal with them as clients and tenants. Our President and past Presidents have been role models in lying without shame to obtain selfish objectives. The 'role models' have shown a path where honesty is not the best policy, and these kids have been quick to learn, use and even become better at it while simultaneously wielding the power of faux moral outrage.
On a positive note, I am impressed by their color and sex blindness which portends a better future in that regard.
But to be inspired by this generation is just a sad commentary on how bad the last two have been.
4
Will Gen Z save the world? No, voting Republicans out of office will. And there is no time to lose.
9
“Drugs and alcohol are the shining rays of light in my otherwise unbearable existence.”
Yeah well there's the rub!
Drugs and alcohol come first -THEN the loss of positive flow and
the subsequent crippling ennui that makes existence seem futile.
Alcoholism and drug addiction are rampant in this country primarily because of self inflicted wounds -lousy parenting enhanced low esteem and lack of discipline.
Stop the lame excuses and DO something!!
2
Could it possibly be the meaningless treadmill we’re forced to run just to get health insurance and keep our heads above water? No, can’t be that. Church attendance is dropping. That’s the problem. “More Church!” proclaims the ivory tower philosopher.
4
"Spirtual crisis"? Hardly.
It's you, David, and your masters: the order you've promoted, based in worship of wealth, dynasty preservation and collecting rents -- sold as high moral principle, the self-improvement ethic and the wished for eleemosynary virtues of community, devoid of a political consciousness which might topple your party choice....
When the program is sick, what did you expect?
3
Are you too young to know the movie “Black Orpheus”?
In another vein, the sources of each achievement are ability, privilege and luck. Our goal in this democracy is to assure that ability is, at least, equivalent to privilege.
And that goal is less than the wishes of our founders.
Mr. Brooks exhorts us once again to be better people, and who could argue with that? And it's so much easier than confronting the corruption, carelessness and cruelty of our political and corporate masters. Be best, little people, and everything will be fine!
7
These days too many people seem to be finding meaning in being indignant. On the left, indignant about Trump. On the right, indignant about being dismissed.
So they all yell at each other, all claiming to be engaged in some type of moral crusade. But actually, their anger gives them a sense of meaning.
I hope this era passes before I die.
8
I cringe every time I read poll-driven political and social analysis. Polls use cherry-picking to make a point, ignoring the big picture, which is: your 20s are the most confusing decade of your life. You are lost in the wilderness. You don't know who you are. And only one rite of passage will will save you from internal misery: EXPERIENCE. I am a Boomer who is thankful for coming of age in the Sixties, when I was steamrolled by experience during an era when the revolution paid off and changed America: JFK, MLK, RFK, Kent State, Vietnam, USAF, marijuana, LSD, group nudity, men and women freeing themselves from the 1950s imperatives. The Boomer legacy is: rock the system. Question authority. Stand up against Trump and the Republicans and cut them down to size. The well-being of this planet depends on your actions, Gen-Z.
10
Funny thing, this so-called "Generation Z". We're at the end of the alphabet -- does that mean this is the last generation? (It could happen!) Why should THEY be expected to pick up the pieces?
1
"The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair."
Great line! And it's true.
1
Mr Brooks claims that over his 4-month tour he's talked with "thousands of people." Just the sort of self-inflating nonsense spouted by Trump. Mr Brooks, I believe that you talked with many, but not thousands. Or do you believe that talking TO an auditorium is the same as talking WITH people? Do you know the difference?
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@Big Frank
Mr Brooks book is very tedious. He seems to try to sound like a philosopher and he is no philosopher.
College campuses and trendy bookstores are not where you’ll find the population of gen-Zers for whom despair has turned to cynicism. They are actively killing their minds and bodies with opioids, suicide and Trumpism right alongside their boomer parents and grandparents. And the Indivisibles, environmental activist groups and healthcare for all groups that I am part of are predominantly grey-haired. I don’t think your generalization works, David.
6
"Hard-to-define spiritual crisis..."
I'll give it a shot. I get depressed when I read David Brooks with his endless, repetitive, facile cliches: "family, faith, community, making money, materialism, consuming in mass quantities?"
I think they define that as bourgeois philistinism.
1
@Jeffrey Gillespie
You obviously have a lot courage. It takes a lot of courage to face the overwhelming sad state of the world and keep going. You will find that motivation. I am 60. The Universe is a very weird place and some people have a very large capacity to deal with complexity. That’s you. It’s just a lot and it takes time to process the information/knowledge.
I am a Wild Bee - not honey bees, they’re livestock - sanctuary builder. Although that is not my life’s purpose, there are not a lot of arrows and signpost directing one to that particular purpose. But that’s how life works for some of us.
1
"they didn’t define their identity by where they were from, or even by their ethnicity and race."
Nor by their "generation," either.
Your overgeneralizations destroy your admirable aim of helping people find purpose and meaning.
2
Interesting article. But I find it more likely that Gen Z will be the ones to suffer their auto da fe. Tribalism and social media will sap their energies.
2
Not at all sure what “boomer quietism” is. These sorts of generalizations and collective portrayals of a generation miss the mark and are meant as broad brush strokes in search for answers. It isn’t through collective representations that change is effected. As a boomer and parent of a GenZer, I find much affinity with the perceptions of my son and his view of the world around him - and his sense that life can be meaningful and purposeful and driven by a sense of contribution to bettering society.
So contrary to the mindset of the abomination currently occupying the WH and oblivious to addressing the true problems facing our country that give rise to strangling addictions, hopelessness and meaninglessness. All propagated by Republican stupidity, greed, blindness, and complete disregard for what matters, which is not found in the religious right who blindly created the present intolerable situation.
Yet I work with students daily seeking to better their own lives, that of their families, and communities. There is hope...
It seems to me that folks are, finally, waking up to the reality of America versus the myth.
If you don't have a good job or a decent salary, your life can be exceedingly difficult, at best. Gone are the days when a single working person's salary could provide housing and a safety net to a family. Now, you are fortunate to have any semblance of job security, or wage growth, or even health insurance, if you don't have a skill that is needed in the workplace. I could go on and on, but the truth is, our society is brutal for those who can be exploited.
This fails to even mention or consider providing for kids or saving for the future. When the daily struggle is so overwhelming, who has the privilege of looking to the future?
You can't help but view this through a political lens. One party is committed to continuing this downward trajectory, because an exploited, low-wage workforce is key to corporate profits and hence large bonuses and payouts. The other party, however flawed they may be, wants to address these issues.
So yeah—happiness fulfillment, contentment: these are luxuries in a society where the simple task of not ending up on the streets homeless is a daily, constant, VERY REAL struggle. We are the richest nation in the history of the world. It is pure social insanity that we not just fail to address these concerns but, in about half of the population, refuse to even see them as a reality.
6
I am a middle class boomer and grew up marching for civil rights, protesting the war in Vietnam, volunteering to help those less fortunate, and trying to improve ecological problems. It seems the next bunch of kids to come along wanted to be stockbrokers. Then the next bunch wanted to work for hedge funds. That was decades ago and kids are still similarly focused. As the stampede out of our greatest colleges and universities stop choosing to go into “consulting” and private equity and hedge funds ( or become internet influencers) and start to contribute more and more, the situation for all will improve.
6
I’m a Boomer through no fault or good fortune of my own, Mr. Brooks.
I just happened to be born within a certain convenient time frame defined by sociologists, economists, demographers and the like whose facts allow them to opine as they see fit. I’d call it (and every other proclaimed generation segmentation) an easy gateway drug to identity politics.
The quiet despair you describe has no geographical or generational boundaries, as the Brits have already established a specific government agency to focus on this portion of their society’s malaise.
Times change, so do people, some more than others, some less.
While a view such as yours, from 50,000 feet up, may prove helpful in observing phenomena such as this, it’s only just one part of a forest of humanity that recognizes not just the trees, but the variety of their respective species as well. Or, according to Boomers Simon & Garfunkel, ‘One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.’ You may not agree with those words, but they might just get you thinking on another level.
Enjoy!
3
First, Bret and Robespierre. Now, David and the Spanish Inquisition.
Baby Boomers, too, tried to save the world in a social experiment called the ’60s. The counter-cultural attitudes of that era were much more significant than any contemporary seachange, whose half-life is very fleeting. Youth of any generation are typically more optimistic, before this energy is assimilated by the conventions of establishment adulthood.
Universal basic income will go a long way toward resolving the social malaise and anomie you recount, David.
Health and a modicum of financial security do wonders for matters of the spirit.
Spirit can uplift the corporeal, but the circumstances of one’s life shape the spirit.
Existence before essence.
13
“I no longer find much of anything meaning, fulfilling or satisfying. Whatever used to keep me going has gone. I am currently struggling to find any motivation to keep going.”
Your 4 month book tour probably reached the people that are hurt most by the Trump/McConnell crazy train and its abhorrent policies.
Want to fix this? Ensure Trump and his GOP sycophants are voted out of office so that the Democrats can fix some of the damage done by Trump.
Give these people access to affordable health care, equality, decent jobs with decent (minimum) wages, a sense of belonging instead of exclusion and the next survey will show America truly is great again.
12
David, I get what you are saying about the Gen-Z generation. And more power to them, too. I welcome their passion and sense of social justice. I support and encourage it.
But I am wondering if it is not so much about the particular generation but rather about the changes that occur with age. I am a Boomer. When I was in high school and college we were ready to conquer the world and end injustice. It was kumbaya and the Peace Corp. Later on it was protesting a war which seemed to have no end and which killed or injured, psychologically as well as physically, too many of my age group. (Sound familiar?) In the 70's we women were the ones who adopted Helen Reddy's "I am Woman" and shunned Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man." What I am getting at is somewhere along the line we got off course. Look who was elected president..an amoral, corrupt, barely human being and a Boomer. Look who helped put him in office and who his sycophants ala Mitch McConnell are...Boomers all. Gen-Z and our Millennials are our future. We older folks kind of messed up this last decade or so. Let's mentor our young in such a way that they can stay focused on what counts...the welfare of the society as a whole as well as individually.
9
It pretty much falls on 'Gen-Z' to save the world. None of the previous generations have done well in that regard.
Good luck with climate change, the ever rising gulf between rich and poor, science-deniers like anti-vaxxers, and the growing plague of global right wing nationalism, kids!
6
How did David get away with mentioning spirituality in the anti-spiritual media?
The thriving Judeo-Christian ethic that held the young United States together could solve the problems these voices mention like it still does in the American midwest and south.
But the dominant media culture sees religion as a primary enemy to be destroyed. Good luck, Gen Z.
6
as long as religion. any religion, is dominated by extremism as is the case today in this country, said religion begets to be opposed and muted for the greater good. religious folks of the moderate mindset would serve well to get off the comments section and win back the message of generosity and humanity that they claim of their religion.
@The Observer
Our founding fathers rejected the Great Awkening. Until Eisenhower was baptised as a Presbyterian during his presidency and we added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, we eschewed organized religion. My public school teachers, all Presbyterians, taught me that America was a Presbyterian nation, and that almost all of the presidents, including Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson et al were Presbyterians.
We always had a minority of evanglkicals, but they were'nt so politically active until they backed Reagan, who promisted to bring back bible reading in schools and to oppose abortion.
Fox and other right wing media has created a mythi that the main stream media opposes religion. That the media actually opposes religion per se is fake news.
1
I'd love to be positive and optimistic.
(Go ahead, read that sentence again.)
1
"One day it will be realized that men are distinguished from one another as much by their forms their memories take as by their character." Andre Malraux
3
Mr. Brooks, the notion of young people growing in holiness seems to have given you hope. I'm glad you got to meet them. My own experience with young people who are working on holiness is rather depressing. They are the people who criticize the mote in the immigrant's eye while ignoring the splinters of intolerance in their own.
The young are easy to idealize and "believe on." They look so fresh and innocent. But the students who wanted to meet you are surely a tiny minority; nor is there anything to indicate they aren't just going through another adolescent psychosis.
When the young zealots come to burn me out of my house for helping a child get an abortion, I'll think of you.
6
@Christopher
I feel like you may be confusing holiness with religious fanaticism. I think that spirituality or holiness is not the same as espousing a militant fundamentalism.
Kids love to tell everyone how sustainable and woke they are - and how the world should have a massive transfer of wealth to the poor. Then they start shopping — huge consumers of fast cheap fashion. And start work — and realise that half their income is take at source. And then they have to pay for their family — if all changes. When it’s their money and choices, it’s as convenient and cheap as possible— like everyone else.
6
"My generation destroyed the planet and helped push for the greatest transfer of wealth to the wealthiest ever. Will my grandchildren fix it when I die?" -David Brooks, 2019, Not Joking
6
@Daniel C It wasn't Brooks's whole generation that destroyed the planet, or transferred more wealth to the wealthy. "Generations" aren't actors. Individuals respond to the structure of opportunities they encounter. The rich and powerful produce the structure that further empowers them.
Playing "divide and rule" with generations, just like playing "divide and rule" with ethnicities or religions or regions, is another tool the rich and powerful use to lord it over the rest of us. Don't fall for it, whether it's Trump's bombast or Brooks's velvet glove.
Smart phones and social media are the opposite of an antidepressant.
And they are both terribly hard on children, whether in their own hands, or while they observe their parents and peers absorbed by them.
This is surely a factor contributing to the malaise.
11
It would seem that he search for meaning must turn inward when people feel completely disempowered by their larger society. The communication revolution of the last twenty years constantly reinforces the awareness of how small and powerless individuals are. The concentration of great wealth in the hands of an unaccountable few who can’t see ways to spend their money on human needs and invest and spend it on their own private space race remind us that we are mere bystanders in their great parade. A pompous imperial leader denigrates and devalues virtue and common values. Of course boomers turn inward. There is nowhere else to turn.
3
Older people are pessimistic because they've seen the nation turn into a regime ruled by plutocrats and oligarchs. Conservatives who continue to back Trump have shown that their self-acknowledged stands on principles like family values, balanced budgets, and the cardinal virtues were nothing more than empty postures cloaking a soulless venality. Liberals realized too late that too many of their own leaders had sacrificed the middle class on an altar of corporate servitude. Young people are energized because they have causes and a foreseeable future; they have something to oppose, and something to fight for.
8
There is no inter-generational war. It is simply the young struggling to define themselves in contrast against the backdrop of their reality.
It's the same struggle every generation goes thru; each is molded by the times and circumstances of their era. They are young and in the process of becoming; playing studying and testing the power levers of their reality in preparation for assuming control of their lives and times.
Same as it ever is from one generation to the next. I wish them well on their journey; and pray they can yank us all back onto a bit more sane of a path forward than the one we are currently on.
John~
American Net'Zen
5
I have a problem with this part:
“Your current self is not good enough. You have to be transformed through right action.”
It’s statements like these that always more the bar to the unattainable causing pent up dissatisfaction with oneself and its accompanying depression.
2
Maybe he's actually hoping Marianne Williamson gets the Democratic nomination...
It's difficult to take the moralizing and preaching here. For decades, Brooks has been pandering on behalf of the "me first, second, third. Then maybe you" Republican party.
Even post-Trump, he tries to lay the consequences at everyone else's feet. "Ignore that McConnell behind the curtain."
If you want coming generations to be more committed to the common good, the common good (yes, governmental) has to be more committed to their well-being. But Republicans are still showing no evidence of this.
That is, unless Brooks is accepting the Marx/Leninist doctrine that religion is indeed the opiate of the masses. And that is what's behind this preachy moralizing.
6
Mr. Brooks, keep telling your readership that our society is marked by 'loneliness and quiet despair', and Walt Whitman has already been there.
"I don't feel very satisfied with my life. It is all flour and bland; monotony and chaos", writes Ann Corleon in her diary at 14, in search of something to believe in. Her autobiographical story begins with a description of the nightly family dinner:
'My father sits at the head of the table and rants on about my not eating and all the starving children in Bangladesh, while Old Fatso sits across from me filling her face until He starts on her for what He calls the Glutton Syndrome. She my mother sits at the other end of the table smiling at all of us, especially at Bud's empty place, which really isn't empty because we set a place for him every night. Bud is dead'. The Vietnam War is raging.
Our Human Heritage has not changed but some of us are having trouble keeping up with the accelerating times we are living.
An increasing permissive society; a lack of clear governance policy during this era; a rise of violence in the Media outlets; a moral compass spinning out-of-control and the corrosion of core values are not helping.
All is not lost. We have your guidance to keep us contained on the Home-Front, while Nicholas Kristoff is holding the fort for us who care about what is happening outside our little planets.
The 'young zealots' are most likely not reading your essays, and many past sixty are out working in The Field.
1
Well, it's probably too late to save the world because the utter lack of morality among baby boomers has probably already doomed it. However, Gen-Z are going to give it a serious shot at actually trying to live up to American ideals instead of offering platitudes. You'd think that in a quarter millennium some other generation would have honestly tried to create liberty and justice for all, but you'd be wrong.
2
Aside from the moral and economic corruption of the government which is helping to decimate the planet, today's youth have learned to socialize virtually.
Technology is great--like everything--in moderation; however, the coding for technology makes it addictive and too difficult for most Zers to put down. They will forever be lost to their own humanity--I weep for this generation's techno-addiction.
Communication across social media is mired in its limitations of our 5 senses and therefore limits emotional communications that often come across subtly through minute facial expressions, body odors, and--of course--basic physical contact.
The biggest changes have to do with liberation. Women don't have to jump across the Grand Canyon to have a job. They don't have to go into a mental institution if they want a divorce. Gays can tentatively work for a bank and wear an earring. Highly educated and professional black people are everywhere.
But meaning for the poor? For those of unlucky birth? They fight the same battles their parents, and great great grandparents fought. Desperation, a blanket of sadness and confusion.
What is meaning when you don't have a doctor? When your teeth and acne don't get fixed. Or worse, addictions aren't treated.
The picture shows young women attached to their computers. Any survey that doesn't stress the changes in the way technology has shaped the minds of young people on the most fundamental level, is missing something. So basic as to see fantasy in a strikingly different way. They misunderstand history because they think we've always communicated like this.
I recently had a long talk with a young man who thought my old habit of typing 8 page letters to my closest friends was insane. Why would you do that when you can now do it so much faster, he said, and meant it.
That little kernel is worth examining because it tells us what is being inherited, and lost. The overwhelming value of those who are surviving in this generation is of consuming and embracing change recklessly. That will determine the future.
6
It is so frustrating to read Brooks week after week lamenting the spiritual wellness of Americans while never touching on the roots of their meaningless lives - this new technological and social capitalism.
He says "everything feels personalized and miniaturized", but can't see the connection to the smartphones through which so many now experience the world? Looking for a new job? Don't talk to another human, stare at your phone. Want a new sexual partner? Don't speak to the man on the bus; swipe right on 100 different people you'll never meet. Want a new hobby? Search for it online, because you're stuck in a city without money to escape.
As if the industrial age wasn't exploitative enough... Jobs come and go without ever meeting the boss. Relationships are as superficial as the for profit app that initiated them. Entertainment is vapid, and for profit news cycles shackle the viewer to an illusory story of community, when in reality the individual is isolated, and there isn't much community to speak of.
Ecocide continues and individuals know this. They also know corporate power has disenfranchised them from their political power to change anything. Insurers still ransom death for profit, and the war machine readies its target on the next nation to destroy.
What, Mr. Brooks, is there to be positive about? Should individuals believe their lives have purpose when the purpose of our nation is to exploit and destroy for corporate power?
11
@PJ Maximilian Kolbe found meaning in a concentration camp. Every life has a purpose, regardless of circumstances: it is the gift of self to others. Everything else is distraction.
1
"Boomer Quietism"... Wasn't it the boomer generation that engaged in social activism that questioned foreign engagements; fought for civil liberties and questioned sanctimoniousness moral judgement" Every generation faces some challenge and perhaps generation z will do a better job of portraying the need for shared sacrifice on issues such as climate change and income inequities. Meanwhile I dont see a problem with taking refuge in the small but satisfying pleasures in life.
6
The naming of generations is a marketing ploy, and one we should leave to the marketers. This drive to identify, separate, and then stereotype people creates divisiveness. Today, reading the NYT, I saw why some liberals have been accused of hating America. So many things are so much better today than in the past, and if we reflect and recognize them, our spirits are renewed. For me, I’m in a mixed race marriage and no one cares — this was illegal not too many years ago. I had a surgical procedure this week, one I also had done 25 years ago. My surgery was so much improved, and less painful. Sure, it hurts, but my doctor told me to take Advil instead of prescribing me an opioid. I’m happy I’m not poor or hungry any more, and grateful that I achieved this via the bootstrap method and helping hands. Today, I’m proud to be a person that extends a hand.
We certainly have our challenges, and I view progress as happening in steps forward and back. But, I do not accept this idea of generational blame or glory, and this constant dwelling in misery, self pity, and “sent it awful” is tired.
4
Thank you. This was wonderful to read
2
"People my age rag on the younger generation for being entitled, and emotionally fragile, etc."
I thought they rag on the younger generation for having such awful taste in music. Other than that, millennials seem pretty normal to me.
4
"It’s as if people no longer see life as something that should be organized around a specific vocation, a calling that is their own way of doing good in the world."
Give these young people a chance and give them time. Listen to them. Don't judge them.
I was lucky---as a young writer you know your calling straightaway--but it wasn't until I volunteered for the Marine infantry at 26 that I turned my life around in every good way.
My generation is Generation Won the Cold War. I was active in doing that--my unit in the Marines was tasked with deep reconnaissance, counterterrorism and hostage rescue in the late 1980s. The Berlin Wall fell on our watch. That was real and good, the Gulags no longer exist and the counterterrorism ops we carried out did save lives--American and Japanese lives in the summer of 1988, to be exact.
But I remember in my early 20s, in the early 1980s, feeling just as sad and frustrated about life as some young people that I talk to in 2019. Look at what "Generation Z" is facing: the consequences of climate change--none of which are good---and a failed American counterterrorism strategy, one rooted in sleeping with the enemy in Saudi Arabia. I was embedded with American snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who were the American soldiers and Marines I saw dying in Iraq, a war we never should've fought, and in Afghanistan in 2009 so that Karzai could load up his bank accounts in Dubai?
They were the older brothers and sisters of Generation Z.
5
It’s difficult to generalize but many the boomer generation are just old, self-centered, cynical and in many cases downright rude. Many struggle with technology and lack the insight to understand its pitfalls. I embrace the younger generation - they are more accepting, more engaged, and more respectful than their elders. The boomers cling to leaders who are well past their shelf date - I hope younger voters and leaders are given their chance and the dinosaurs that currently govern accept retirement on their golf courses. From a “boomer”.
4
Mr. Brooks, there's much I agree with in your commentaries about our loss of community and civic engagement, but I wonder if you are missing a factor of modern life that has a huge impact in this area. As a 61 year old Boomer, I grew up in a world that no longer exists, because no one's home. When two paycheck families became an economic necessity for nearly all families, we lost the luxury of someone who's full-time job was running home and family. When both parents work full-time jobs, no one has time or energy left to volunteer as a Scout leader, visit an older neighbor, or join a civic club. The need for jobs propelled people into moving away from their home communities, and it takes years in a place to real feel you're part of it. I don't think people have changed so much as had circumstances forced upon them.
15
@wynterstail Not just the *need* for two incomes.
I'm 62, and my mom was *bored* just running a home. Yet restarting a career after taking 12 years off to raise kids was pretty much impossible in 1970.
While I am sympathetic to the mid-life crisis that Mr. Brooks is going through, it is sad that this intelligent man destroys many of his good intentions with ridiculous statements such as he made about boomers. I will let the other commenters' comments I just read educate Mr. Brooks to the history of the boomer generation that he clearly doesn't know. There is nothing new that you are discovering Mr. Brooks with your self-actualization journey that many of my boomer generation hasn't known for decades.
6
I don't remember this type of intergenerational warfare going on back in the 1970s and 80s, in fact we were brought up to respect our elders. Blaming older people for the problems of the world is a none starter. Blame the banks, businesses and politicians if you must as they often ignore the concerns of ordinary people like ourselves for their own ulterior motives.
4
Don't be too hard on the boomers. They marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam war. It's what happened next that created the biggest problems - the 1980s Reaganite yuppies, with their me, me, me, money, money, money mentality. (I'll admit that many of these were the last and youngest boomers, born between 1955 and 1960.)
Gen Z is great -- but I worry that Gen Z is trying to do everything from their computers and phones. I worry that they place too much faith in tech and not enough faith in live action. We need them to be holding sit-ins and registering people to vote. They have no one teaching them about nonviolent resistance techniques. All of this requires people skills and the tech is no substitute for that. In fact it seems to me that the tech is damaging the ability to acquire people skills. Well, I hope I'm wrong about this.
11
@ps. Quit blaming Boomers for electing Reagan and doing away with the Fairness Doctrine that unleashed FOX News and other propaganda Mendes on the USA. Boomers were NOT in charge foe these developments, it was their parents, grandparents who formed the Supreme Court and largest voting blocs.
I appreciate what this piece is grappling with, but I think it's doomed to lose the struggle. The problem is attaching our current malaise with a generation, whicht is just historical accident. This so-called boomer nihilism is a product of the commercialization of self coupled with the global-capitalist control of the public and political spheres. The "boomer generation" is guilty only because they were hoodwinked into living this way. But assigning the force behind this worldview to the boomers is like saying your dog is responsible for the conditions it's living in.
The masters behind all this (the 1%, roughly speaking) are adept at creating tacit approval. You can go through the parade of generations -- Boomers, Xers, millennials, anything in between -- and say the same thing. They have ceded their personal power to a worldview that is so big it's hard to find a context.
Now David Brooks is looking to Generation Z, whatever that really means, to save us from our march toward commodity. Three cheers. But he fails to consider the cause. He's like a doctor prescribing aspirin for a headache, when the problem is a brain tumor. Yes, we've lost (or sold?) our meaning, our spirituality, our humanity. But we'll never get it back unless we look at the cause. This piece describes the symptoms. Invoking "The Boomer Generation" is no substitute.
8
Huh?
"...this generation is also seething with moral passion, and rebelling against the privatization of morality so prevalent in the Boomer and Gen-X generations..."
yet, just earlier...
"...they didn’t describe moral causes or serving their community, country or God. They described moments when they felt loved, satisfied or good about themselves."
What this says is: The seething moral passions felt by this rising generation is a moral passion for feeling loved or affirmed, not about grander causes or greater purposes.
But that's not moral passion -- that's moral solipsism. It's the logical end of boomer morality, not a rejection of it.
I hope the book has a better editor.
4
This is a great article. I feel that civic and community engagement is something that has been shelved in pursuit of the American dream—measured by material possessions. The emptiness of that pursuit is acknowledged and seemingly forgot at the same time. Maybe the noisy, insistent Gen-Z’ers will wake society up.
4
Gen Z human here.
I approve of this.
In Europe as in America young people are fed up with the nihilism and 'do nothing morality's of the boomer generation.
I myself am a active supporter of human rights and environmental groups, I strive to be a better person everyday, and I try my best to fight the Chinese Communist Party with the means I have.
I am so happy to be part of this generation, even if it is sometimes a burden to always to the right thing.
2
@Nick
I spend a lot of time with Gen Z young people who are hard-working and politically committed. They are also deeply concerned about environmental issues. Curiously, though, we can barely get them to recycle; they are extremely wasteful of material supplies, and there is no end to their acquisition of electronic devices. It is easier to protest than to make personal changes. It seems they want governments to do all the work; I hope I am wrong.
@Sarah
Yes I know the problems you talk about are real.
We are hypocrites; I for example name myself an environmental activist, but I go on vacation via airplane.
However, I do not own a car, and do not eat meat.
If everybody does the things which are in his power, we can be hypocritical and "sin" from time to time, and still help save the environment.
Regarding government the case is simply that government is the most effective way to change peoples behaviour.
Only government can build good public transport and charge people a CO2 tax.
TO PARAPHRASE THOREAU, Most people live lives of quiet desperation. TS Elliot said, I have measured out my days with coffee spoons. By contrast, David Brooks has found members of Generation Z to be defining themselves in a more socially engaged way. The news has trickled down that we're reaching a tipping point for global climate change. The Z'ers see the floods, fires and other destruction in the news media. So they set their sights on ideas that are larger then they themselves. Some might say that the youth are exhibiting the idealism that is part of adolescence. So much the better. Ben Franklin was asked what sort of government the delegates writing the Constitution had designed. His response was, A republic, if you can keep it. Free societies survive only when the people who form them thrive. We would all do well to remind ourselves, no matter our generation, of the most urgent issues of our day, which are existential. Meaning global climate change.
8
It appears more by the day that it will be impossible for any generation to save the world, or at least the world as we knew it. My dysthymia is caused by what I read and hear and experience every day of my life with regard to global warming. Surface water has become so scarce in India now for years due to rising temperatures, less rainfall and a growing population that wells have proliferated everywhere to support the drinking water needs of the people. The best estimates are that the wells will be completely depleted by 2030, leaving 40% of the population, or 600 million people without drinking water sufficient to survive.
When I was young, my Dad bought me an ant farm to watch the ants scurrying around building their dwellings and multiplying. One day I noticed the ants were dying and I asked my Dad why that was. He told me that there were too many of them and they could no longer survive within the confines of their environment. A couple of weeks later they were all dead.
Watching American leadership and a huge swath of the population here just simply ignore this impending doom, accelerating towards a day when life is no longer possible for us or so hellish we won't want to be here just has to affect anyone with a conscience in a negative way. If you are not depressed these days, I would suggest there is actually something very wrong with you.
Watching all those ants dying, I thought what a tragedy they did not have the intelligence to stop their own demise.
25
@Rich D I think you said it really well. I say this as a "Boomer" and I'm trying to track through the complex societal interactions and reactions over the last 50+ years that has created such a rigid world view that suppresses any impulse to think outside the way one identifies politically, which means that, as you say, a large swath of the U.S. including the current leadership, can't even acknowledge the science and the dangers of global warming, because somehow it compromises their beliefs. But such belief systems have to be so fragile and brittle if they can't even look at or acknowledge the environmental facts staring them (us) in the face.
4
Once again, another story that at it's core stems from sapiens blessed with the security and the time to contemplate issues that surely do not occupy the time of people outside the Zardoz of North America. Takes this topic to the Sudan, or Cameroon, or Myanmar and see how they react. Most sapiens struggle, every day, to survive the day they wake into, and we should know full well they would gladly swap their concerns for this new generations concerns. There is a massive storm approaching, and its effects will be horrific. These kids will be facing hard choices it will be their ancestors survival genetic instinct that will determine if they live or die.
8
@L.C. I had a similar response to this article though not as colorfully.
David,
Please - they are going through that introspective time and soon they will sell out too. Happens to every 'generation'
They have been handed a true mess, however. I'll give them that much. So, they turn to each other in social media and now they are finding that even that will betray them.
10
It is not unexpected to find such sadness after 40 years of greedy republican policies that have decimated the American middle class that has to put up with crumbling infrastructure, stagnant or reduced income, the necessity for at least two incomes for a family to survive, declining health, medical bankruptcy, and little hope for a peaceful old age.
Generation Z better buck up because they are going to have to fight another American Revolution before they get justice.
67
@kirk
This amazing President has saved the workers from the terrible no-growth, big-government ways of the Democratic Party.
While Dems go for a more powerful government able to control people, conservatism insists that gov't only do what it must and leve the common man and woman free to choose how they will live.
2
@The Observer
This president only cares about himself. Who are the workers he has "saved" exactly? Was he concerned at all with the hundreds of thousands of public and private workers affected by the shutdown? In short, no he wasn't. He used the power of big government to hold the country hostage over funding a wall. He's a billionaire, he can put up half money himself! The dems are just as responsible for the shutdown as trump, but he didn't need to initiate it and could've ended it a lot sooner. This is just one glaring example of how much he cares about the workers. He's let down the people who voted for him too many times.
11
Save the workers for what, pray tell?
2
Let them take on real responsibilities, live within their means, face their own personal limitations, and we'll see how much of the holier-than-though attitude remains.
16
Toddlers display a strong sense of fairness, initially about unfairness to them. Good parenting and education help expand that to a larger sense of unfairness that includes others. Then there are forces to beat back the reaction to unfairness and push it back into other factors. At high school and college age, many young people have that uncompromised reaction to unfairness. Perhaps unreasonable. Perhaps unrealistic. But accurate and passionate. Sadly can fuel revenge, terrorism or positively can propel change. Many of those who struggle on, despite depression, despair and disappointment continue to propelled by that faith in fairness.
5
I can't help but think that Rousseau died July 2 , 1778.It was Rousseau who gave us a Social Contract an an ability to write a Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
I am a Canadian and watched as we adopted our very own constitution but we always had a social contract.
I was 16 in in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act became part of America's Social Contract. In 1964 America had a Social Contract and a constitution. I watch the 1964 GOP Convention which can be called up on the internet. One can still watch as the GOP leadership Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan promise to destroy the new Social Contract.
Funny thing about countries they thrive without constitutions written or oral but without a Social Contract there is no society.
The GOP promised to burn down the village in order to save it. Now what?
I am a boomer and I'm supposed to believe What???
For my friends and I there is nothing better than intellectual debate and informed opinion and the best possible moral debate of nature or nurture.
Maybe July 4 is the time to ask whether America is worth saving.
9
When I go grocery shopping and survey the display of plastic objects, I get a sense that the world is already gone. I have been hearing since I was a little kid that we need to develop or discover a substance or a creature that will eat plastic.
Nuclear waste gives me the same sense of doom.
13
@Liz stop shopping at that store for a start
I wager one of the biggest factors depriving contemporary life of meaning is global warming. That reality makes it possible, for perhaps the first time, to foresee a clear path to human extinction. Global warming is like a rolling wave of small scale thermonuclear explosion that appears unstoppable. It will in time take us all down. I think it is the sense of approaching collective doom, even as we whistle past the graveyard with climate change denial, that has sapped life of meaning and made the idea of legacy and building a better world increasingly vacuous.
67
David has discovered that young people are idealistic. Truly groundbreaking work.
201
@Mike
You win!
2
David Brooks's column is reminiscent of Jimmy Carters " malaise " speech. The validity of David turning his subjective, anecdotal, experiences into universal generalizations must be called into question. Recently he has been writing about isolation,despair, and a certain lack of community. He seems to be searching for something. It's certainly fair to postulate whether or not David Brooks is subconsciously describing his own subjective reality, rather than a significant segment of American society.
91
@Don Shipp. Excellent point. I think Brooks is searching, and using his column as personal therapy.
6
@Don Shipp. Mr. Brooks seems to be experiencing some sort of existential or spiritual crisis. Perhaps this is connected to the conservatism he has long believed in being exposed as a vicious fraud.
9
I don't know what boomer generation you're talking about, but the one I know can't be accused of quietism. According to my dictionary, political quietism involves calm acceptance of things as they are without attempts to resist or change them.
Has there been a generation in recent times more intent on changing things than the boomers? The march from Selma to Montgomery happened in 1965, when boomers were coming of age. Many of them marched in sympathy to protest against injustice. They demonstrated against the War in Vietnam and resisted becoming company men in grey flannel suits or subservient women wearing pearls. Campuses were hotbeds of political activism.
Some may have rejected mainline religions, but many undertook journeys that widened their vision of spirituality. What you call the privatization of morality seems to me to be more a byproduct of the might-makes-right gospel of unfettered capitalism -- an excuse to do as you will -- than of a generation that rejected simply spouting doctrine in favor of trying to discern what true morality really is.
The path to where we are now was paved not by the boomers, but by the Reagans and Cheneys and any number of others who degraded government and championed individuals over everything else -- to the detriment of society. That so many boomers lost their passion and ended up following that path is a shame, but many -- like Robert Reich -- are still out there fighting the good fight.
213
@Elizabeth Fuller. I agree with you, and I do not understand why Boomers are being blamed for our country’s condition. Now, certainly the government can be blamed: since Reagan the rich have gotten richer and due to no growth in wages, the middle class is diminishing. If we do not have a strong middle class, we will not have a democracy. A banana republic (or worse) yes.
In addition to the causes you mentioned, the Boomers started the second great Women’s Movement of the 20th century. They began the fight to protect our environment. The gains made in these areas are now being turned back by Trump and his puppeteers, I mean the GOP. The Boomers continue to fight for these and other causes.
It’s the huge wealth gap and income disparity that are destroying our country. Too many in Congress no longer care about the American people, only about their donors and themselves. Vote them out.
TGIO (Thank God I’m Old). This country and world are going to become very tough places to live in the future, especially as we continue to lose our humanity.
27
My understanding is that those marching on Selma were primarily the “silent generation”, not the largely adolescent and pre-adolescent boomers of that period.
And it sort of fuels the narrative when a boomer now says that it was their march. (And of course, the silent generation isn’t of a personality to shout from the rooftops about their own contributions.)
From my GenX point of view it was the boomers that gave us the Reagan years, not the March on Selma. So many of them young, privileged idealists who went on to be the finest self-serving mass-capitalists our species has thus known.
8
@Elizabeth Fuller
The early morning bus to the first Women's March on Washington was filled with women pushing 70. That freezing January day was physically taxing beyond words. The crowd of peaceful, 70 year-old women was memorable.
13
I disagree with David’s premise. Yes there is a tide of wokeness and concomitant spiritual seeking in the young, but for most the searching hardens into dogma and then it gets old. Every generation needs to rebel and redefine themselves to be distinct from their elders, at least for a few years. It’s a rare person whose private inspiration grows to become a cultural phenomenon.
20
"The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair."
Absolutely. At least they are looking past the material emptiness of their parents and grandparents. But, this is partly because it is necessary. Gen Z doesn't have the luxury of knowing that their state or the US government will sponsor social programs to take care of them or knowing that the economy will reward them for hard work. They have grown up in an economy that is depressed and does not necessarily reward those who play by the rules or work hard. The deck is loaded against most people in society.
15
It’s very simple. Baby boomers have not done much of a job raising their kids. Although, it is not completely their fault. Rampant commercialism has led our poor young children to not fully appreciate what they have.
This is not a criticism that has me pointing the finger at others. I am a baby boomer, and I can see very easily how our children have had it too easy, and have been distracted by commercialism that clouds our judgment on what is important in life.
13
@K. Corbin Gen Z's parents wouldbe Gen X, not Boomers. Boomers are parents to Millennials and they are VERY alike.
It’s like the idea of finding ‘purpose’ in life. When I figured out I was to busy, didn’t have time to look for a ‘purpose’ because I had to work, take care of the house, walk the dog, cook dinner, etc I realized that like most of the people in the history of the world those things were purpose enough. By definition most people were and are just average - it’s crazy for them to think that they all have to be more than ordinary.
28
David give me a break, inner work, growing in holiness, transformation through right action. That may be true of those lucky enough to have acquired some common sense, but the behavior among the large numbers of the woke seems to indicate that they missed the memo that those who are without sin should throw the first stone. The woke's biggest contribution outside of attempting to create some sort of new age purity test of held ideas, is to turn public discourse into an ongoing food fight that fuels the outrage industrial complex. On the other hand I could be entirely wrong and they are just astute marketers of their personal brand, with the aim to be a regular on those big CNN panel shows.
25
If I place “Gen-Z” in the title, I’ll come across as relevant. If I wax philosophic, for even one brief moment, I’ll look profound. To answer the titular question— No. Our species will be hoisted by its own hubris. This planet is not in need of saving, we are. Rather than learn from the robust set of biological solutions that were once in greater abundance, man is under the labored delusion that whole ecosystems can be replaced, wiped out by untenable monocultures. Coincidentally, too, it is this modern commerce that has so many feeling dead inside. Breaking people into a thousand tiny pieces through advertising as psychological warfare, then attempting to plug their hollowed-out psyches with junk for sale, is a very toxic business model. Our corporate society will only continue to punish non-participants in frighteningly new ways, sometimes resorting to criminalization where the powers that be see fit. Why should anyone feel upbeat in the face of such absolute powerlessness?
17
This essay is so incoherent it's not even easy criticize. According to Mr Brooks, he's unhappy with Boomers' small bore improvements, and then describes youth as trying to change the world by becoming a better person, which seems like the ultimate small project; it doesn't even involve others. It sounds like the same thing to me.
The fact is, most people make a small contribution to improving the world, at best. Some, like the people in the Trump administration, are instead making a small contribution to making the world worse.
None of this matters, anyway. Most of the big issues people need to solve are *not* small bore problems. They're things like "How do we improve the health care system?" "How do we generate power without generating CO2." More importantly, how do we get a consensus on these solutions?
37
In my experience, younger people who grow up in privileged conditions are frequently idealistic because they think they have a lot more power to change the world than they actually do. This is because their parents tell them this, and because they live in mostly-benevolent institutions such as elite universities.
However, once those idealistic young people get into the real world, they frequently burn out because they read about injustice after injustice, and realize that these injustices are mostly caused by large impersonal institutions like the US government that most individuals, barring exceptional amounts of talent, dedication, and luck, will never have any meaningful influence over.
The lucky ones develop this cynicism early, when they still have time to pursue a high-paying profession. They can then find meaning in providing a nice life for themselves, and their friends and family (which is, after all, how humans found meaning for the 99% of our history when we lived in small bands), and maybe donating a little money to relieve their remaining first-world guilt.
17
@Aoy
The relentless onslaught of injustices performed by faceless conglomerates is understood by the vast majority of "idealistic young people" much early than you espouse. WE don't exemplify, and furiously pursue, change because our parents instilled us with confidence, or because we are lucky enough to go to schools with billion-dollar endowments. WE do it because from a very young age we understand that societal pain is extant, and the verse "standing upon the shoulders of 'giants'" isn't a choice; but, rather an ultimatum. A test of OUR humanity, that might just kill us and/or repress us into oblivion.
6
One group of people may burn "us" (that sounds like me) because of their zealotry. Another group of people are sad for personal reasons that I probably can't affect. The first group affect me directly, the second indirectly. I don't understand how you can see any sort of "balance" in this situation.
I find all of this completely foreign. I can't imagine why loneliness and quiet despair, as you say, should be any more prevalent now than in any previous era. A good deal of life is about keeping busy. getting on with it, taking pleasure in learning new things, with the regret being as you age that perhaps you won't have time to read as much or try to master as many things as you had always rather quixotically imagined. You mention William James, exceptionally brilliant, exceptionally privileged, exceptionally white and all that, but someone who kept learning and searching for meaning his whole life. Doubtless there are plenty of other similar exemplars. That's the way one should wish to go about things.
17
Recap:
Brooks classifies people according to their birth dates, then tells the older and less fortunate people's justified and learned powerlessness is a shame.
How come they would not find more meaning in their families, if that's basically all they have going?
He's fixated in this metaphysical meaning through patriotism (~tribalism) and religiousness.
Then mentions that the younger folks don't classify themselves, which is then ok, and that they have high goals. But then, they are young, without families of their own, and most importantly, the economic system (which Books loves) hasn't beat them yet.
19
Brooks is part of the same crowd that views children as expensive and optional pets.
I hear over and over that people should not have children they can not “afford”.
As if the poor have any other consolation.
3
I don’t see the rich as any happier. Indeed, their relentless drive to have more and more to the detriment of the future suggest otherwise. In pursuit of riches and power, the rich have become very practised in deception and duplicity. I believe that their claim of happiness and satisfaction is just another one of their deception.
9
This generation of wealth has sacrificed its children’s very childhoods, in their mad race to get ahead and hoard every possible social resource.
Helmeted and harassed with never a spare moment to wander off or daydream or screwup or solve your own disputes.
Pure ego- as if money ever determined who is born to whom, wonderful people have been born poor and horrible scoundrels rich and vice versa, you cannot déterminé virtue by income, however much the meritocrats mights wish it so.
1
If Brooks had really researched this malaise he would do what any good researcher would have done: find a society where this degree of depression is or is not happening and ask why. All he had to do is compare Boomer and GenX generations with like generations in countries similar and different. Take some of the European countries where the happiness quotient is reported to be much larger, where the societal safety net is greater, where health care is unquestioned, where there is no Trump, where there is better income equality, and ask how the various generations feel. There are answers to some of these questions but just posing the question and not trying to understand why is not good research. Perhaps Mr. Brooks is just trying to sell his new book. Brooks cites a Pew report but where are the one or two other "intellectual" references he usually gives to make his case.
51
@Marty
Many European countries have a Trump-like figure or group prominent in their politics.
The larger problem with such comparisons is that we are the only, for lack of a better term, democratic military empire in the world and have been for about 75 years. The psychology of being American is fundamentally different. We are not a nation defined by a "Volk" that measures success by improving its quality of life. We tend to measure success mostly by economic growth. It is a rougher system, but it also has advantages, one of which might be we have no alternative.
3
@Alan, it's more like the "pathology" of being American makes the people fundamentally different from their European counterparts. I live in Italy and despite your notion that keeping it a bit "rougher" is better, my country of choice has a far more reasonable sense of what's important. In the U.S. all you do is worry about being bankrupted by your medical system, shot at the mall or not having a big enough truck. Is it any wonder that the youth in the U.S. are confused about what's important?
24
We have an alternative if we recognize that change is necessary and fight for it. The founding fathers said that we need to always work to keep a democracy functioning. Some are trying to do that work, others are too despairing or indifferent. If enough of us come together and decide to take back our democracy and even out wealth and social inequality we might still have a chance.
3
When people think they've found meaning in a great cause, what they've really found is a preoccupation. Should they live to see the cause reach a successful end, they must immerse themselves in a new cause or go mad with ennui, like commandos who must follow victory in war by re-packing their kit and setting off for other wars.
Service to a cause can be necessary to survival, as with the cause of arresting climate change; but as for personal meaning, it's an evanescent simulation.
In contrast, genuine meaning persists. It persists because it has its roots in the everyday. If the everyday seems insufficient, it's because we've lost sight of the magnificent fabric of nature and humanity within which we live our lives. If life seems inappropriately miniaturized, it's because we can't see the forest of nurturing moments for the giant redwoods of history in the making.
William Blake got it right:
"He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars."
Great services to general Good may be indispensable as a practical matter, but the Minute Particulars are the forest in which we gather meaning.
43
Perhaps it is much easier to blame previous generations for the problems of today.
I think the real problem is that people in every generation have been less involved in voting, community service and spiritual endeavors. And this has left a huge vacuum in our lives.
No point in wagging our fingers at the past. It is time for all of us engage, vote and realize that we are our brothers and sisters keepers.
11
The young people in the Sunrise Movement seemed to have found meaning. When you are young and find your future will likely be ruined because of the way your parents' generation and the generation or two before that lived and the way the fossil fuel industry hid the truth from the public it is not hard to find meaning. You are literally in a fight for your life. And the future kids of these young people will face an even worse situation.
7
@Bob
Looks can be deceiving. Such entities tend to become hyper-focused on purity (at the expense of objective scientific and economic assessment) and can turn into vehicles for corruption (if they are not that from the start). Consider what happened to the NRA.
There is always a chance that the Sunrise Movement will achieve something positive without these nasty side effects, but I am not particularly confident in this case.
1
I forgot that the Sunrise Movement were the people who cornered Senator Feinstein with a crowd of people, accused her of being unable to care about climate change because she is old, then tried to go back en masse claiming they wanted to "deliver a letter".
These are tactics one would expect from a criminal group. Please allow me to revise my more general conclusion of pessimism with near-certainty that this group will do far more harm than good even if some participants are motivated by a sincere interest in the environment.
2
Every generation has been blasted by the previous one for what they perceive as, “deficiencies”. As a recently retired teacher, I have seen amazing things being accomplished by our youth. Their activism is what defines us as a nation. After all, it’s the basis of what we celebrate today.
4
"Less educated people were less likely to say that friendship was a source of meaning in their lives. They were less likely to say hobbies were a source of meaning, nor was learning, nor good health nor stability."
This would seem to imply that more education, i.e. also a better education, and one would hope an affordable education, would offer the opportunity for more meaning in life.
"Only 11 percent said learning added meaning to their lives."
That is rather depressing.
"Everything feels personalized and miniaturized."
The final victory of the "me generation" .
"But the people in this movement have a sense of vocation, moral call, and a rage at injustice that is legitimate rejection of what came before."
But often skewered and out of touch with any reality; I am surprised Mr. Brooks sees anything positive in this.
"It’s often uncomfortable and over the top, but we’re lucky to have a rebellion against boomer quietism and moral miniaturization. The young zealots may burn us all in the flames of their auto-da-fe, but it’s better than living in a society marked by loneliness and quiet despair."
This is good, Mr. Brooks? Let me remind you that those flames of young zealots who burn us in their auto-da-fes cause lasting and irreparable (!!) damage. Humpty Dumpty only fell off the wall; he did not suffer the flames of zealots.
But rest assured Mr. Brooks, after the zealots finish destroying, they too will eventually suffer loneliness and despair.
7
@Joshua Schwartz-Another possibility? Less-educated people may be working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet and stay afloat. With that much time and energy going out, what's left over?
2
I take issue with Brooks' statement "rebelling against the privatization of morality so prevalent in the Boomer and Gen-X generations". Civil rights workers, Peace Corp volunteers, and environmental and economic activists just to name a few can not be dismissed as "private morality". Perhaps Brooks' spent his younger years associating with Reagan Republicans who gave little or no credence to the aforementioned work done by Boomers on the other side of the aisle. Moreover these generational classifications are nothing more than identity politics that further division. I'm on the younger tail of the Boomer generation (Brooks' age), and I have worked with people from the Millennial generation back to the Greatest Generation. There were mostly good in all of the age groups who favorably touched my life, and contributed to something larger than themselves. There were also some that were not so good but that is the human experience.
35
Some commenters are saying all generations start out idealistic and then remain idealistic or become more pragmatic (or jaded). That's true, but ignores what kids today are facing: the possibility of being shot with an assault rifle be a fellow student while in math class; the possibility of climate change impacting their lives in unknown but not good ways; the fear of not being able to get a job with a liveable wage even if they went to college and have lifelong debt; the idea of ever owing a home becoming more impossible; the lack of health insurance; the lack of pensions and job security. Past generations faced challenges too, but I'm not sure the larger external reality ever looked so grim on a personal level.
15
@Anne
Sorry Anne, but past generations faced WW1 and 2, the Great Depression, Korea and Vietnam. Those generations faced the draft and involuntary military service. Many died. Civil rights were denied to millions. Health care was just as unaffordable for most and primitive compared to today’s standards. The air and water was dirtier and the good old boys had their way in all things. I hate the fact that guns are so prevalent in our country today. I hate the fact that the right wing is in denial on climate change and sabotaging the good efforts of many to do something about it. But, let’s keep a balanced perspective, please.
38
You are right about what previous generations faced. However, we faced it together as a nation and we had communities and more intact families. They have always been problems and tragedies but without community people fall apart.
1
@Anne Barf. My parents' generation faced Nazis and Imperial Japan. My generation faced a brutal and insane war in Vietnam, where the likelihood of getting shot with an assault rifle was *lots* higher than today, pollution (and started the environmental movement to ameliorate it) and civil rights challenges.
Lack of job security? Compared to the Great Depression?
And somehow home ownership has managed to stay relatively constant when you look at the numbers.
Author provided nothing but feelings and anecdotes and failed to make what may be a real point. I live in a thriving and very liberal community where we continue to have high levels of civic engagement, a lively music scene and avid volunteerism. We are a sanctuary city, a gay friendly city and a legal cannabis selling city. We have good schools and a destination downtown. Things aren’t perfect but we keep at it, individually and collectively. Just this week our community food cooperative successfully closed a $5 million fundraising campaign to build a second location. Americans used to move if they weren’t happy but current data shows that migration within the US has largely stagnated. I encourage discouraged people to get up and go if they can. Life can be better elsewhere in these United States.
10
The Internet. You're connected to dozs, hundreds (?) of people all day, but you never look up from your phone and see or talk to another human. It makes being alone in a crowd seem warm and fulfilling. You know a ton of worthless facts about A listers but can't find Russia on a map. People are lonely now and they should be depressed about it. We seem less connected to each other and the world than in the past. If we do have a connection it's to some group that thinks and talks exactly as we do. It's a "safe" place that allows us to shut everything out that doesn't reaffirm our prejudices preconceived ideas. I think it also fosters the belief that there's nothing that can be done about anything. The bad guys, pick your group, are too strong and we're all just victims now. In the meantime co2 has risen to 415.
13
@Al. Plant trees.
1. The young who are working to repair the world are to a great extent working to fight against Republicans and their policies, such as the kids from Parkland working for gun control.
2. Many young men and women are unable to be spiritually or bigger-than-self directed because of the way republicans have rigged our economy against ordinary workers, including some of the most idealistic workers like teachers.
32
@Daniel Mozes And yet they have one of the saddest voting records of any group in the US. We used to say that, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Grandstanding without substantive action is worse than meaningless.
Great piece, David. I would like to add to your final sentence the word 'apathy' when you state "...it's better than living in a society marked by 'loneliness' and 'quiet despair.'" You use both the Baby Boomers and Generation Xers in your piece. I am of the former, our daughters the latter. While my older daughter and I were conversing one day on the differences between our individual eras, she stated that the Xers' characteristic was that of entitlement. And she added it was my generation - as parents - who triggered that. I at first was taken aback but then realized she was right. I will not take up time or space as to our thoughts re the reasons for the above. But what I will do is fast forward to our Gen-Z's. I first noticed that passion and sense of social justice when I listened to those young activists, teenagers all, after the Parkland school shooting. I was proud to see that this country is still capable of gifting us with future leaders who understood service to others, morality, compassion, and empathy. When we experience what is now happening in DC and witness the hate that emanates from there and creeps into too many adults' psyches, we need to learn from our Z's, nurture them, and embrace them.
15
@Kathy Lollock Your generation had it all, then took it away because Civil Rights passed. Your generation went to war on every continent, then left nothing but a scorched planet for your grandchildren.
You should be ashamed of making it about culture - it's your generation's scorched earth policy that was so out of control, it will haunt future generations for eternity. There is no recompense, and no conversation about the differences between generations will change this unalterable fact.
As usual Brooks sees the past through a distorting lens. The generation of the 60s was activist (everything from the Peace Corps, to military service, the anti-war movement to working in elections for McCarthy, Kennedy, and McGovern, to pursuing education, idealistic careers in social work, community service, and teaching Head Start and low income students). If anything Mr. Brooks himself, the product of a high degree of entitlement, was not a particularly strong representative of his generation. This grim view of boomers (many of whom are still politically active and active in their communities) and gen-Xers who have overcome economic challenges, a high student loan debt, etc.) is also uncalled for. In every generation there have been people of all levels of involvement, idealism, laziness, and despair. Get some balance and perspective.
146
Mr. Brooks also, I think inadvertently, makes Gen Z sound rather "holier than thou". They would not be the first.
But (respectfully) I am not too sure there is anything terribly new about much of this. I grew up in the fifties and became immersed in existentialism: "there is no meaning". People have to make their own meaning-- from within. Not because parents said it or the pastor advised it.
My own sense of what was vital grew, oddly enough, out of a summer job as a hospital orderly. (Talk about scut work!) Because surely, if anything had meaning, it was the relief of human suffering and fighting off-- when possible-- the savageries of disease and death. It lit my existential fire: I became a doctor. For me, if anything had meaning it was this.
I realize that writing a column demands fresh insights each week and I respect Mr. Brooks' efforts. But this week's issue may be an occasion for an Ecclesiastes moment. I am not too sure that what is described is a new thing under the sun. People have been up against these issues forever.
33
The interesting question is whether we are becoming less materialist. Most of our political issues are defined in materialist terms. Our solution to racism is reparations or affirmative action in certain jobs. Climate change is seen as primarily an economic problem. Healthcare is a largely a question of dollars. Inequality is bad because we envy those who have more than we do.
.
I don't see any changes. People still spend their childhoods trying to get into the best schools so they can get the best jobs and make the most money. People spend their adult lives trying to give advantages to their children so that they will make as much or more than them. I don't see many abandoning materialism for more spiritual pursuits. Greenery and religion are hobbies, not vocations. Very few devote much of their lives to serving anyone other than their blood relatives. We tell our children that they should be idealists, but we show them that they should be materialists. I don't think the idealism is more than skin deep. Being "woke" serves no ideal or person; it is petty puritanism, narcissistic self-righteousness. I'll believe there is a spiritual awakening when people form movements devoted to living simple lives of service. A few people spending a couple of years in the Peace Corp or Teach for America is a youthful adventure for the upper middle class, not a spiritual movement.
19
@Tom Meadowcroft
"Inequality is bad because we envy those who have more than we do."
Tom, people aren't envious of those driving luxury cars, they just want a car that runs well enough to avoid breakdowns & interminable repairs. They aren't envious of those living in penthouses, they just want to be able to afford the rent, house payment or property tax. They aren't envious of those consuming porterhouse steaks, they just want healthy, fresh food.
And they want a job that gives them some security, benefits, health care & safety.
If you can get these things helping others, bully for you.
11
@Apple Jack
There are plenty of people who own a car, have a place to live, eat healthy food, and have the skills to retain a job, and yet complain bitterly about inequality. Read the comments at the NYT and count how many times people state that taxes should be raised on everyone who makes more than them, because those rich people are greedy and evil and need to be taken down a peg. I see it every time I come here. Often these are professionals, with 6 figure incomes. It's much harder to find someone who thinks taxes should go up on themselves.
1
Interesting perspective but if you changed most of your pronouns to the first person your comment would likely be more honest and more poignant.
2
Saul Alinsky is remembered for stating:
"People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people. " What generation one belongs to is not the imperative factor. What is critical is one's dedication to protecting the rights / freedoms of all people.
76
"But the meaning of meaning seems to have changed. When people in this survey describe meaning, they didn’t describe moral causes or serving their community, country or God. They described moments when they felt loved, satisfied or good about themselves. They described positive personal emotions."
Periods of fundamental transition unsettle the established order, which means that traditional reward systems change. What used to make you feel good now falls short.
That suggests two possibilities: either you find new things to feel good about or you redefine your values away from a criterion of simply feeling good. Both seem to be happening now.
7
Mr. Brooks says college students are finding "that one calling in life is to become a better person," a concept "buried for a few decades." College students have always felt that way; it's a part of being young and living a life of the mind. The only time such feelings extended beyond that age was the 1970s, when it took selfish and often silly forms, most of which are now crossword puzzle answers (EST). The most notable vestige of such movements last seen nationally was Marianne Williamson during the second Democratic debate, which had veterans of the era shaking their heads with embarrassment.
Once out of college, the huge majority inevitably pursues the path to material success.
8
Mr. Brooks, in case you don't remember, the early baby boom generation was quite similar to these young people. There were hopes and dreams for change. Some of those hopes were quite radical. Remember the song "We Shall Overcome"? Remember another one "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"? I do. I remember these songs because, although I'm part of the back end of the baby boom, just like you, these songs infused my days. I had hope of a better life. However, once Reagan was elected and I saw the policies he was putting in place I realized that things were not going to be that good for us in our later years. I had wanted to be wrong. I was not.
This is not about setting one generation against another. You do excel at that sort of nonsense Mr. Brooks. What's happened in America is that our politicians, especially those in the GOP, have spent their time in office serving their richest patrons, spending time around those rich patrons to the point where they are no longer connected to the average American. There is no other explanation for why Paul Ryan said this about unemployment benefits: "turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency."
I suggest that Mr. Brooks stop playing the generation game and the simplistic answer game. I suggest that he stop patting himself on the back and start interacting with real people to understand why America is driving so many to despair.
7/4/2019 9:15pm
423
@hen3ry
As long as you are in a treadmill all day long there is no way there is no big opportunity to do all the things Mr. Brooks is advocating for. As long as you are working full shift and some overtime on top, maybe an additional job, there will be no free capacity left for personal vocations beside this. Many Boomers were fully occupied just like the war generation before in a time period when automation wasn´t as wide spread as it is now, many jobs were available, conditions were frequently back breaking and economical constraints often self imposed by the chase of the almighty Dollar kept them in the rat race. This is not so much a question of personal character even even in consideration that such external conditions surely have impacts on personal characters in the long run.
When Boomers retire many of them - those who are not completely deformed by this system or abraded by a permanent experience of the same old, same old - start to diversify theirselves as persons. Look at these numerous old folks in action groups, the so called "enraged citizens." A lot of them present themself like a pocket Bernie Sanders and look this way....
So I fully agree to stop the generation game not only played by Mr. Brooks by by a lot of authors in particularly in US.
In Europe the assignment to specific generations to characterize individuals isn´t so popular and I think this approach is a better one.
17
@hen3ry I love this comment. I am a boomer who lived through 1960’s protest movement, the Jesus Freaks, the love-ins and the thirsting for a eutopian works. Talk about idealism!
How does one even attempt to top the Peace Corp’s creation, the War on Poverty and Civil Rights revolutions of the 60’s?
I am simply baffled by David’s column. Did he miss the Flower Children? Woodstock? The Peace marches? Point to any single movement today that matches the intensity of the anti-Vietnam War protests? Why aren’t David’s hallowed young people in the streets calling for withdrawals from Afghanistan? Where is the anti-Trump movement?
54
@hen3ry
The real kicker here is one more 'lifelong republican' who laments loud and long about the horrible, horrible state of Americans and how they are depressed, beaten down and on and on...
This from the very people who championed and still support the exact policies that predictably produced the situation we all find ourselves in right now. Then pretend to be clueless, or not, and oblivious, take absolutely no responsibility for what the y have done to us.
Then run a corrupt campaign with voter suppression and stay in office to continue the cycle. Sweet.
14
As usual, the use of generalities and trite conclusions to obfuscate the facts. The meritocratic, Neocon, neoliberal society that has become the US is not good for anyone in its current structure. Capitalism with rules, imperfect though they may have been until Regan began deregulation, worked. It can work again. Scientists are finding that bacteria play a huge role in regulating our bodies. Perhaps it even impact conditions like cancers , moods and more. Talk about the va.ue of miniaturization. Talk about morality or lack thereof when it seems OK to poison kids with opioids like OxyContin, courtesy of Purdue Pharma. The country will overcome the current nightmare.
3
@Ted
We have a much bigger footprint by the federal government than ever, whether you think things changed drastically under Reagan or not.
1
I don't see it up close much in my own life, but I'm worried about the seeming prevalence of "pogromistas".
I notice them reported daily, with their moral crusade of the week, getting closer and closer to killing people who offend them, getting a lot of uncritical coverage in some media, seeming not to think deeply on anything and using the herd-mind in preference to their own.
I draw strength from the realisation that I've always seen people like this around. Now they get publicity, now there's all too often no adults in the room, but they're not a new phenomenon.
I also draw strength from the fact that I don't see the extreme examples painted by the media in my daily life.
I gain strength from the realisation that any generation is not a massed array of clones, matching the fairy tale used to describe them all.
8
I see a Gen-Z addicted to their pocket technology, which has diminished their every human interaction even if they don't know it. They are post human. They mistake online selves for the real deal. "Value" for this crowd equals "whatever gets the most likes," as though 'most likes' was the apex determiner of what is authentically valuable, ethical, moral, and worthy. Such nuances of meaning and application are the first casualties of the fully lived digital self, for which all must be watered down, all made benignly and socially enticing to 'likes.' This Gen-Z generation's lives exist online---and no where else. Are they going to save the world? Only if the real world, the one authentic world of connection between all authentic people, secedes to the branded and marketed personhood of the digital world, the fake creation of what is and what should be. And goddess help us if that inauthentic humanhood achieves totality .
29
Note bene: I think Gen Xers have chosen to remain both sidelined, but also committed to higher ideals than a scheming capitalism reality that seeks to bully and defeat the other. Our lives were negatively impacted by the dishonest realities of Vietnam, Nixon, Reaganism, Cheney and Trump. There are obvious solutions to our problems, if only grey-haired businessmen would give the world a fighting chance.
11
" Less educated people were less likely to say that friendship was a source of meaning in their lives. They were less likely to say hobbies were a source of meaning, nor was learning, nor good health nor stability."
I was originally tempted to leave this paragraph as self-evident, but then thought better of it.
So less educated people don't find that learning provides a source of meaning in their lives?
Now there's a positive feedback loop that needs to be interrupted.
61
Reading this gives me encouragement. I can clearly understand the disillusion many suffer from today - one need only look at the dysfunction in our government, the growing wealth of the super rich and large corporations, the loss of meaningfulness in a career that is threatened by automation and over population.
Perhaps the young refuse to accept a meaningless existence and strive to find purpose where older people see only chaos and hopelessness.
Few if any of these people are going to support Trump and a dysfunctional Congress. I believe (and hope) that they are going to turn out in droves in next year's election. It certainly would be wonderful if the Republicans lose both the Presidency and the Senate.
Our country is in crisis and the Democrats need complete control of the government in order for change to occur.
15
@Richard Phelps
Agree - I see the young generation as looking around and questioning why the environment is not on the radar of this president. The youth are woke to the legacy of environmental destruction enabled by unfettered capitalism. Bernie helped in awakening them over the past 5 years. Though his time has passed.
They see and hear about the racism and the youth don't share those views. The young people are exposed to so much diversity and globalism via the internet and social media, they are naturally not drawn to xenophobia.
They are multicultural and open to LGBTQ because it is trending toward being the norm. The shame and stigma of being 'the other' are falling away.
As the older generation dies off, the youth of today and tomorrow will delight in the diversity of the earth.
It's their normal.
1
“. . . against boomer quietism and moral miniaturization . . .”
Oh, it’s more than quietism. We boomers in the US have left the coming generations an awful legacy, from a fractured political landscape to an infrastructure almost beyond repair to a whole set of energy-related and environmental problems that threaten our species. We still buy oversized vehicles and we still argue for an incrementalist centralist approach to politics.
I’m hoping for a generational shift, as quickly as possible, at all levels of government. I ignore the young zealots on liberal campuses; they are just a small fraction (albeit with far too much media coverage) of younger generations that seem to be sensing their growing political power. They seem to be able to embrace idealism and pragmatism at the same time (the Parkland students now touring the country to register young voters). These younger generations understand the nature of 21st century technologies in a way boomers never can and they can adapt quickly as they change. They are connected with peers all over the world through social media and platforms. They have grown up understanding the fragile nature of ecosystems and have, through economic burden, been forced to seriously consider living in smaller spaces and, when possible, live without vehicles.
The more I meet and talk with them, the more positive I feel. As late in the day as it is, I think they can drag us boomers kicking and screaming into a better world.
28
@Gerald
Your comment is more right-on and inspiring than David's column.
1
@Gerald Until they become bored, tire of it, and hop back onto Twitter, convincing themselves that yelling into the void of cyberspace is the same as community action.
I strongly recommend that boomers seek quality time with millennial and Gen Z youth - not the demographic sliver that are children of professionals, sequestered in private schools and expensive camps, but a more representative sample. As in the photo, seek those for whom public school and multiracial and mixed-race cohorts are the norm. I've had the honor of such time as a parent of millennials, raising them in a middle to lower-middle income neighborhood and as a public high school teacher for 20 years. I continually reflect on the high standards of civility displayed in their personal interactions (don't let sensationalist exceptions poison your views) compared with the norm in my youth, which was spent in similar neighborhoods and schools. I'm in awe of the dedication of young teachers who, despite being severely under compensated, dedicate their lives to awakening the responsible, global citizen in these children. May they vote in increasing numbers. I am a natural cynic, but our youth give me hope.
55
@Yojimbo. Wish I could recommend this 100 times.
1
@Yojimbo
Yes, yes, yes. I am a "boomer", a high school teacher and a parent of millennials and later-- I could not agree more. Every day I am struck by the horrible challenges we've left to these kids and the emotional intelligence, passion, and dedication with which they meet them. I am truly hopeful.
Epidemiologists know the difference between what are called age, period, and cohort effects; Mr Brooks does not. When “boomers” were the same age as the wildly unrepresentative sample of Gen Z young people Mr Brooks spoke to, it was just as easy to find plenty of individuals who were every bit as idealistic and determined to make the world a better place, some of whom have kept at it for the last 50 years, while others changed their priorities. What basis does Mr Brooks have for thinking this generation will be any different?
242
@Arthur Reingold
It doesn’t matter what boomers did when they were idealist youth. It’s what they neglected to do since. As a boomer myself I see stark contrasts between the current young populations and ours in their earlier days. The 1960s and 1970s still promised social mobility. Today’s young people face a very different world. They are adept with the technologies that run our lives. Plus, they are witnessing (even young striking schoolchildren all over the planet) a rapid degradation of the means of our survival. That would probably be part of the basis you are wondering about.
23
@Gerald I’m willing to bet the constant perceived threat of nuclear warfare had a similar effect on the Boomers to climate change today. (But by no means confuse me as a fan of what the Boomers became.)
I do agree there is a big difference between the Boomers and Gen Z: Gen Z get financial support from their parents. (See young people buying houses) Such is a privilege that allows you to pursue its passions. As a Gen X-er I wish I could’ve followed my dreams. But I had to pay bills, loans, mortgages. No parental support, no Elizabeth Warren to turn to. But I’m trying to get where I always wanted to be now—better late than never I suppose.
Good luck Gen Z. Take advantage of the opportunities as you get them.
11
@Arthur Reingold In what way is Mr. Brooks' sample "wildly unrepresentative" and how are you qualified to make such a judgment without statistical evidence or some statement of personal qualifications?
"The Pew survey reveals a large group of Americans down the income and economic ladders, who are suffering from economic scarcity, social scarcity and spiritual scarcity all at once."
Ah, Mr. Brooks, and why do you think that millions of Americans "described lives of quiet despair." No ideas? I'll help you out.
Who is the president of the United States?
Where is the minimum wage of a rather chintzy $15.00 per hour?
Where is our national health care, now living on the last threads that could end with a larger Republican majority in the Senate after 2020?
The president and the Republican-heavy Senate and the (then-majority in) the House passed the fraudulent Jobs And Tax Cuts Act in 2017 which was nothing more than a transfer, or theft, of the national treasury to the already-wealthy.
The Supreme Court just took a pass on gerrymandering, essentially blessing the Republican Party's rather blatant show of locking up electoral victories permanently.
Oh, the president wants a war with Iran. He single-handedly unstitched an imperfect but working agreement that kept Iran away from nuclear weapons. A national draft is coming if Donald Trump is re-elected.
The cost of college has discouraged many brilliant students, especially those whose parents cannot afford to pay for it. The legacy wonks, like Jared Kushner and W. Bush and Trump have their "educations" paid for by wealthy parents. And they don't even have to go to school.
And gender and racial hatred rule the day. There.
541
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18, it may seem so to those who bravely, like you, fight for a better nation and world. The troubles we have are grave and scary. But I remember the last days of Jim Crow, real crosses afire on lawns. I remember St. Louis and Oklahoma, with children segregated, and danger for any black person going into Kaiser's Ice Cream for a cone. Our parents fought WWII, and we lost 58,000 of the "boomers" to the Viet Nam war. Our grandparents went through a great depression, fathers having to leave families so they'd have one less mouth to feed. Now we have problems, yes, and serious problems. We have angers and hatreds, yes. But they don't rule the day, not really. Families at picnics, people alone in small apartments, spouses and children vigiling at bedsides, emergency workers on call tonight. Most people are not hating, though it seems so sometimes. Most wish the best, flawed as we are, and every one of us needs love. A list of troubles can persuade us that evil rules the world. Another list that love does. We do what we can, in every troubled generation, we stand as we can. We will now, too. Courage, friend.
81
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Don't forget, the destruction of planet earth as a result of poisoning our air, water, and land; along with global warming doesn't make people feel positive about the future.
35
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Agree. The "quiet despair" begins and ends with the pretender in the white house. And in true "the center cannot hold" parallels, there are no authentically honorable or true politicians left to lead any viable opposition to the pretender, the fake "president" who has stolen the oval office with foreign adversary assistance. The white supremacists, who have been meeting in fabulously secretive conferences over several decades, have a blueprint for reversing the fortunes of immigrants and the poor. They have created the right-wing fad of "acceleration" for transfer institutions, a plot designed to exclude anyone needing remediation in reading or writing English by eradicating those remedial courses from college curriculum previously meant to serve the needs of the community (which pays for that transfer institution through property taxes), to restrict the bridge to higher education and degrees for both the poor and the immigrant. I see a long term nefarious plot to exclude those in the lower rungs of wealth and privilege, a plot to return the economic benefits of college education to the privileged WHITE class of yesteryear.
11
If everyone born on the same day of any given year is different, in various races, family class, religion, ethnicity, will be in any event different in along--with those who are kind, cruel, optimistic, funny, of various talents, goals, sexualities, crimes, acts of heroism seen or unseen, various sports, illnesses, with various friends, siblings, spouses, and fates--
If that's so of the children born today even in one hospital nursery today-- then what are the odds that everyone born in a ten-year period is the same? This advertiser slogan shorthand for all those millions is an invitation to stereotype and division. The line between kind and cruel, or good and evil, doesn't cut that way. As some poet said, it cuts through every human heart.
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@jb
Wilfrid Sheed nicely skewered the “Generation …” nonsense: “I was born in 1930. We didn’t have a Generation then. We couldn’t afford one.”
2
"... what are the odds that everyone born in a ten-year period is the same?"
It sounds like you are criticizing age-based demographic categories as gross oversimplifications of reality.
In fact, the Pew survey summary that is linked in the OpEd is more nuanced than Brooks suggests. Indeed, the summary never uses the word "generation".
However, that same Pew web page has links to other summaries that do use the word "generation":
* "Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins"
* "Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues"