Two Young Americas

Boomers and billionaires aren’t alone.

I, too, as an Elder Millennial, have been dumbstruck by the superpower of the “brightest” young Americans: their ability to win every argument and settle every issue with strange logic, word salad, and utmost certainty. ?Though just 10 years apart, we '80s babies Elder Millennials differ wildly in education and approaches from the '90s babies Younger Millennials and Gen Zs who followed.? Let me explain.

Eldennials: Elder Millennials

Elder Millennials were 10 to 17 years old on 9/11.? We Eldennials were shaped by Columbine, September 11th, the War on Terror, troops deploying to Iraq, bodies flown home from Afghanistan, and the American way of life under attack.? Across party lines and generations, we embraced patriotism, courage, and respect: we understood the price paid for our liberties. ?

With the internet, Google, and Wikipedia in infancy, digital self-education was less accessible: learning required reading primary materials and books, including philosophers. ?The iPhone didn’t exist. Without 4G, Khan Academy, or social media at our fingertips, we relied on physical libraries and face-to-face discussions beyond the classroom.? Families across the socio-economic spectrum encouraged 4-year college, nightmares of student indebtedness not yet mainstream.

We graduated college circa the 2008 financial crisis: high unemployment, frozen salaries, and persistent promotion stagnation forever shaped our lifetime earnings, home and family building trajectories, and concept of adulthood.?

iZennials: ?Fragile but Loud Activists

In contrast, younger millennials and Gen Zs watched their 16-year-old contemporary Greta Thunberg boycott high school over Swedish elections, bob across the ocean for climate change, and later find herself applauded at the U.N. and on the cover of Time magazine.? They graduated high school into an America with student debt forewarnings, 4-year college skepticism, declining unemployment rates, the economic fuel of tax cuts, quantitative easing, and unprecedented U.S. government spending on social services.

Whether for climate, gun control, policing, or bullying, this cohort embraced “showing up” by “speaking truth to power”; soon, however, they expected incumbent authorities to flip at their demand.? After all, being early, loud, and proud elicited praise from parents, educators, and peers alike—admission essay gold and a belief that they’d done courageous or thoughtful hard work. ?Covid further conditioned many to the expectation of lower performance standards and accustomed them to excuses over responsibility.? Every issue had a right and a wrong, no nuance; toxic partisan politics and less-centrist media reinforced this dichotomy.

At the same time, helicopter parents insulated them from uncomfortable situations and interpersonal conflict resolution.? When uncomfortable or frustrated, they could call adults to intermediate, gather peers to protest, or effortlessly flood the virtual world.

iZennial Toolkit of Logical Reasoning

With this new modus operandi firmed up in school yards and Snapchat, the iZennial Toolkit of Logical Reasoning fueled their deep reach into broader American society. Their tactics were to:

• respond via knee-jerk matter-of-factness over research or contemplation (e.g., unlearned in history, yet first to repost uncredible TikToks on the then-emergent Israel-Hamas conflict)
• raise some tangential fact or point with a sprinkle of first-level thinking (e.g., “You want to secure the Southern border, even though all non-Indigenous Americans got here by immigrating. And, Ellis Island.”)
• mischaracterize an opposing viewpoint/statement in order to transform it into an easily dismissible argument (e.g. “Pro-choice politicians support abortions up until the day of birth.”)
• deny and distract from a problem's existence (e.g., “Harvard doesn’t discriminate against Asian American applicants; admissions isn’t just about 1600 SATs, and there are many qualified applicants.”)
• win by ad hominem attacks, labeling the speaker rather than examining her arguments (e.g., “You’re cis and unconsciously transphobic: you can’t have a view on transgenderism in pro-sports”)
• diagnose the speaker as self-loathing, blind, ignorant, or an accomplice (e.g. “Candace Owens isn’t really black – she hates black people.”)
• dismiss because of ulterior motives, irrespective of the merits of an argument?(e.g. in 2023, “Edward Blum is a white supremacist using Asian Americans as puppets for his anti-affirmative action and anti-minority agenda.”)
• claim to be emotionally distressed by the very subject (e.g. “Thinking about colonialism is a trigger for me; my BIPOC friends and I should be excused from classes on colonialism.”)
• be offended on someone else’s behalf (e.g., random twitter person: “I’m so offended that this blonde girl Aussie colonizer opened a sushi counter in NYC; it’s cultural appropriation and so offensive to Japanese chefs.”)

There are 3 Curiosities behind the Veneer of Altruism, Truth-seeking, and Inclusivity.

1. Their megaphone has been reserved for peer consensus injustices, those guaranteed to receive affirmation from their classmates.? Would-be unpopular views never receive their association or such ferocity.
2. Cameras recording and probable media virality were pre-conditions to their activism. Their vehemence was on display for camera phones and social media followers with one-to-many messaging and no real-time public retort.
3. For all their focus on inclusivity and diverse identities, their censoriousness muffled broader, diverse views. And, individuals self-censored potentially unorthodox views for fear of being canceled.?

Tune in next week for Part II.

As a preview, there are 3 significant casualties of their social norms:

1. Stifled independent thinking
2. Canceling individuals
3. Chilling civil society and American tenets.

*Notes

1. Of course many individuals fall outside these generalizations.
2. Wait for Part II!