This post is aimed primarily at my fellow millennials, though I suspect those both younger & older will likely relate equally well. If I had to choose one word to describe my generation it would be disillusioned. This isn’t meant to be a full blown thesis on the subject, though I imagine with enough time & effort I could write one, but here’s a quick list of WHY I think so many of us millennials are disillusioned. (I’m sure I’ll think of more as soon as I hit publish.)
- The impeachment of President Bill Clinton for sexual misconduct with an intern
- Sept 11 – this is a BIG one that hit at a very crucial time in our lives (adolescence)!
- Election scandals – starting w/ George W. Bush vs Al Gore, continuing to this day
- Increased awareness of police brutality, particularly against black men
- Increased awareness of persistent racism in our culture
- Almost continuous economic downturns & recessions, now coupled with rampant inflation
- The exposure of rampant child abuse in the Catholic church, as well as in other religious institutions
- Increased awareness of sexual assault/rape (the #metoo movement)
- The disappearance of manufacturing jobs from our country
- Urbanization/the death of rural America
- Just when we thought we’d seen enough- COVID!
- Presidential elections that become more & more embarrassing every election cycle
I could go on & on but I think you get the point. All of these, & many other, events have culminated in a generation who is constantly aware that the institutions that are supposed to protect & serve are often doing the exact opposite– whether that is churches, law enforcement, schools, or government/politicians in general. The major lesson that our generation has been sent over & over & over is that institutions & the people who represent them cannot be trusted. In some ways we may be better off because of this knowledge. Theoretically it makes us less likely to be taken advantage of. But it also breeds a lot of negativity & general malaise with life. Take note, I am NOT saying we have had it harder than any other generation- but we haven’t had it EASY either, despite what some folks think.
It’s not just institutions though- it’s every day humans too. I don’t know about y’all but I am constantly disappointed in humanity. A lot of it is nonsense I see on social media which is why I’ve made a conscious effort to limit my use of social media as well as to limit what I post there, so that is doesn’t become any more negative than it already is. But sometimes, like right now, I just can’t keep my mouth shut in the face of the constant flood of absurdity.
For example, suddenly everyone is all up in arms about women’s boxing at the Olympics. And for good reason! We’ve just seen heartbreaking pictures of an Italian woman who quit a match after just one or two punches because of how brutal those punches were. But almost everyone is running with the narrative that her opponent is a transgender woman when in fact she is NOT. Her opponent has XY chromosomes & is most likely intersex. This is a very complicated issue & I have a great deal of empathy for people who are born with this extremely rare & admittedly confusing condition. I do think it is wrong to allow such women to compete against XX women as they clearly have unfair advantages over XX women. BUT calling her a man masquerading as a woman isn’t accurate either! We shouldn’t be villainizing HER. It’s totally legitimate to ask questions & fight for “justice” but we DO need to get the facts straight. And frankly, most aren’t even bothering to find out the facts in the first place! (Sighhhhhh…)
Then you’ve got the overturning of Roe vs Wade which has created all kinds of horrific situations for women who never even wanted an abortion in the first place but just had the misfortune to suffer a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy or some other medical complication that suddenly required an “abortion.” Just this week I read about a woman who is suing Kansas because they refused her medical treatment when she lost all of our amniotic fluid (i.e. her water broke) at just 18 weeks. Now anyone with half a brain ought to know that no baby is going to survive that. In fact by the time she got to the hospital the baby was likely already dead. She just needed a medical procedure to remove the dead baby from her body so that she wouldn’t become septic & die. But no, she had to travel hundreds of miles away to Illinois to find someone to save her life. And of course she got sicker in the process of waiting! These kinds of stories are becoming far too common. I never dreamed that I would have fewer rights than my mother or grandmother. Or that my daughter would grow up to have fewer rights than I have had. But here we are, in the United States of America, allowing women to suffer & potentially die because medically ignorant politicians, who are mostly old men, are preventing doctors from providing life saving medical care! But if you speak up about it you risk being called a “baby killer.” Appalled doesn’t even begin to cover it.
However, what is equally appalling is the absolutely insane division I see in this country where so few people have true compassion, particularly for anyone with a different point of view than themselves. Now, in real life, I find people are often a bit nicer. But online is a whole other story. It seems humanity goes out the window, the gloves are off, & we can call anyone who doesn’t agree with us all kinds of horrible things, essentially deeming them animals who aren’t deserving of love, respect, or even basic decency. This kind of division is horrifying to me because even if it’s worst online, it CAN carry over into real life. This is the ethos behind the propaganda that has been used to carry out genocides throughout history! When you erase someone’s humanity because they disagree with you, even on a serious issue, you have to ask yourself if you’re becoming the monster you’re trying to fight.
I’m not sure that there’s any real point to what I’m saying other than that I’m struggling trying to cope with so much negativity in the world. And I know I can’t be the only person feeling this way. Now I 100% believe that the world is not actually a worse place today than ever before in history. If anything, it’s probably better. We’ve come so far as humans these past few centuries- abolishing slavery, desegregating schools, legalizing inter-racial marriage, legalizing same sex marriage, granting women the right to vote, etc. But there are still some very real problems out there, yet we’ll never be any closer to solving any of them if we continue this race to the bottom of the bucket. Let’s not allow deranged politicians, polarized religious “leaders,” or misguided social commentators to convince us to throw away our humanity. They may have already discarded theirs- but we don’t have to follow suit.
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