A recent posting on MSN, by Societe US, titled “20 Social Issues Gen Z are Determined to Cancel” listed many things that Gen Z want to cancel in American society. Gen Zs were born in the late 1990s and into 2010s. Every generation has its values. Most of the time, new generations tend to shun at least some of the values and mores of the generation before them. Culture wars aren’t violent, but can be disturbing to the elders who do not understand or accept the new philosophical positions of the next generation. That is, of course, assuming that the philosophical position actually has logical, empirical information that supports their position. Just saying you disagree is not a defendable philosophical position. And rejecting the values of the present society because you are lazy or you find those values inconvenient is not a reason to reject them as well.
The Baby Boomers were born from 1946 to 1964, and from that generation came the hippies; let’s look at them first. The hippies (according to Time magazine) started a counterculture, described by Time as “At the heart, the counterculture was about three things: a search for authenticity, an insistence upon individualism, and a desire for community.” Deeply distrustful of the Establishment, at least at first, many hippies went their own way, at least until their “trust funds, parental checks, or welfare payments ran out.” Suffice to say that many of them returned to the U.S. economy, re-enrolled in college, got degrees and joined the middle and upper classes. The hippies left their jeans in the closet, put on suits and ties and became part of the greatest economy ever known once again.
If the hippies were so successful, how is it in 2024 we had two presidential candidates of at least two generations earlier, Trump born in 1946, just after WII and Biden, born in 1942 in the middle of the furious world conflict of the Second World War. Were the Baby Boomers just too stoned to find anyone else to be president except two rusted-out, bottomed-out seniors? This really doesn’t look good for them, or for the political system for which they inherited and assumed responsibility. It’s looking like not inhaling would have been a good choice.
And then there was peace, a very important principle to the hippies, since many young American men were being drafted and going to a war on the other side of the world, fifty-eight thousand young American men who gave their lives. The hippies were able to stop the Vietnam War, according to them, though it was President Richard Nixon who directed the U.S. military to leave that divisive conflict. Isn’t it a bit strange that the peace-loving hippies of the 1960s would find the world of 2024 filled with furious wars in both Europe and the Middle East? What happened to the “peace movement?” Were the hippies unsuccessful in their peaceful tendencies, or is war just too attractive to the populations of the world.
Legalizing drugs, which the too-stoned to notice hippies couldn’t achieve, at least finally got to government to legalize an herb that you could grow in your back yard in every state of the union. Oh, wait, it was the WWII relic Joe Biden who finally got marijuana moved from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance; and Biden’s no boomer by any stretch. But then, Biden, and now Kamala Harris need the boomer votes.
The Gen Z’s want to end the nine-to-five schedule that created one of the largest, most flexible economics that ever existed. They want fewer hours to the workweek, which I am happy to oblige them, as long as they take the part-time pay that a less than forty hours a week brings. They wish to have a freelancing domain that will “embrace the creativity and flexibility it brings them.” Freelancing is fine, as long as you have the talents and abilities that can generate a significant profit. I’m afraid that all of the praise that their teachers and parents gave them will not pay off in the marketplace. The small percentage of the workforce that can generate and improve powerful products will not support a majority of the workforce. The other facet of this employment concept is that those who possess the creativity of which they refer are generally experienced professionals, not would-be influencers and creative types who have spent most of their working life in their parents’ basement. Your handsomely compensated freelancers to which they refer aren’t twenty-something wannabes with no background of successful contributions to an organization.
The Gen Z’s want to eliminate paper records, as well as make payments on their mobile phones as opposed to the documents and paper money of the deep dark past. The problem with this scenario is that paper documents only face destruction mostly because of fire, and that danger is held to a minimum. If a Gen Z loses their phone, their entire life’s records, as well an mostly all of their financial records disappear forever, not to mention if that phone comes into the possession of someone wishing to steal from them. Along with losing all records with the loss of a single device, the CrowdStrike failure of July 2024 teaches them nothing of just how vulnerable all computers are to just one mistake. Apparently the Gen Z’s aren’t aware of the vulnerability of computers, where hackers have stolen gigabytes of information and held them for ransom, all in one single failure. I’ll keep my money in my pocket, and if you can’t take cash, I will shop elsewhere, thanks anyway. When losing one phone can mean losing thousands of dollars and irreplaceable documents, I’ll stick to those copies I have in a file at home.
Gen Z is all about comfort over vanity.
“Many Gen Z’s are opting out of a college degree, however, in favor of apprenticeships, trade schools, and entrepreneurial conquests.” I am all in favor of trades, for which compensation is rising quickly. But college, (at least it used to) enhances one’s knowledge well beyond what simple life experiences can teach. It is quite apparent that history class was the class where the Gen Z’s just looked at their social media, ignoring the lessons it provided. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it, and that will be a brutal lesson for them.
The Gen Z’s want to take away the stigma of mental disease. While I am for removing the stigma, there are professional positions where the mentally ill can do grave disservice to those of which they are in contact. The number of people who were unnecessarily damaged by mentally-ill people in positions of authority and responsibility is too large to ignore. Some people, by mental defect, are simply not capable or qualified for responsible positions; no stigma is one thing, responsibility is quite another.
“Gen Z is all about comfort over vanity. They believe that comfort in the workplace is akin to productivity and creativity, and social activities are about kicking back in sneakers and jeans.” The Gen Z’s, by their demonstrative behavior, are not very big on respect. You don’t walk into a courtroom wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and you don’t wear the same in job interviews. The Gen Z’s have confused clothing and respect, and the coddling that they have been subjected to has confused the notions of respect. The result is a generation of sloppily-dressed cads who take the fact that they don’t have to dress up as a license for all other kinds of disrespectful and corrosive behavior. This is just another excuse for laziness, nothing more.
All generations learn from experience. There are many things that look quite simple and easy, until you are the person who has to perform. We have an incredibly spoiled generation who wish to skip all of the hard lessons and move straight to the top. This will not work, and the failures will not be just with the one rancid generation; the failures will reflect through society. The Gen Z’s are twittering in the shade of a tree planted generations before, and they are deliberately denying the lessons of those before them, with an insolence that many older citizens find abhorrent. But like the Boomers, not all of their perspicacious goals will be realized. We can only hope.
