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| Joel Stein (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The
Generation Gasp
May
18, 2013
“We
have met the enemy and it is us.” --- Pogo, circa 1965
By
Claire and Jim Castagnera
Claire:
There’s
yet another article disparaging my generation making the rounds these days,
this one written by Joel Stein for Time Magazine. The title? “The
Me Me Me Generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live
with their parents.” The cover is
emblazoned with a picture of a young woman taking a photo of herself with her
iPhone. Ouch.
I’m
going to go out on a limb here – a very un-narcissistic limb, if I do say so
myself – and guess that the story isn’t all about me, or my generation. My theory? That article (and numerous others like it) has so much more
to do with the author himself than the people about whom he is writing. How’s that for narcissistic?
Let
me elaborate. As many others have
pointed out already, every generation has, at one time or another, been labeled
selfish, self-absorbed, and inconsiderate by an older generation. The WWII generation said it of the Baby
Boomers, the Boomers made the same claim about Generation X, and now Generation
X is merely picking up the rusty, time-worn baton. Writers like Stein prefer to imagine they’re making a bold
statement, saying what no one else dares to say, but that thinking is truly
narcissistic. In fact, every
middle-aged person has said something to the effect of “get off my lawn!” – probably
dating back to prehistoric times.
Doesn’t
this oft-repeated pattern seem to say a lot more about the aging authors than
it does about the flavor of the month (i.e. the currently lamented
generation)? Twenty-somethings
throughout time could have written similarly structured articles, stories along
the lines of, “Crotchety Older Folks Continue to Be Grumpy, Averse to Change.”
But
time marches on, and the world continues to change drastically, year by
year. We Millennials are adapting
– are you?
Jim:
I used
to wonder why tenured faculty at my university ever retired, so long as they
were healthy enough to drag themselves into work. They only have to teach three courses a semester. The smart ones often manage to arrange
schedules in which they teach all three courses twice a week, all on Tuesday
and Thursdays. This means, barring
a department meeting or the like, they can get away with appearing on campus
just two days a week. (And you
wonder why a college education is so costly?)
The answer to
why they retire is that, eventually, they lose touch with their audience. They no longer understand their
students. They become the
“crotchety older folks” to which Claire is referring. Facing those “kids,” if only just six times a week, becomes
intolerable.
Little
things really start to irritate them.
Is that student with the laptop taking notes or is she surfing the
web? Is that guy in the back of
room texting on his iPhone? If so,
should I confiscate it? “No eating
in class, you people! It distracts
from my brilliant lecture.”
When that’s your workday, it’s time to retire.
Me? I still teach a course
every semester. And I still like
the students I teach. They may be
addicted to their smart phones and iPads.
But behind the gadgets, they are recognizable. One of my students got into a fight at a frat party this
past semester. He asked me to
represent him in the college’s disciplinary process. Thanks at least in part to my efforts, he got to graduate
with his class yesterday.
Others asked me
to write letters of recommendation… to law schools and prospective
employers. That was a pleasant and
easy task. I found plenty of good
things to say. Still others
stopped by my office for career advice.
They know, as do I, that they face a flat, competitive world.
Are they a bit
narcissistic? I’d put it
differently. They’re focused on
their own futures. So was I, 40
years ago. Do they need to live at
home for a while? Often, yes, they
do. It was so much easier to get
by on our own when I was their age.
If that weren’t true, there would have been no Hippies.
In a class called
“Theories of Justice,” a colleague and I teach Plato, Aristotle, and Marcus
Aurelius. The reason they remain
relevant after thousands of years is that human nature has not fundamentally
changed in all that time. The
world, as Claire has noted, changes drastically, year after year. Homo sapiens does not.
A cave woman,
taken to a mall, would be shopping in 30 minutes. For a caveman, the NFL in HD would be love at first
sight. If that other generation
makes you gasp, look a little closer.
You’ll see yourself looking back.
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