The Next Greatest Generation

Stop complaining about how bad things are and start inspiring the next generation to make things better.

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2016 Election

Growing up, I was a little bit of an American president nerd. Such a nerd in fact that I dressed up as George W. Bush for Halloween when I was in first grade because that’s just what kids do. This was in the midst of his 2004 reelection bid against John Kerry so I even told everybody to “Vote for Bush.” I should add that my parents did not goad me into doing this but I wanted to dress up like him because, well, he was president and presidents were awesome.

I even remember my elementary school doing one of those mock elections where the students “vote for president” and then they announced the winner over the intercom. Being the president enthusiast that I was, my excitement could hardly be contained that the candidate that I voted for (George W. Bush obviously) won by an overwhelming margin. This was a whole 12 years before I could even vote but even then I understood the value of voting and was so excited that I could cast a vote even if it didn’t count.

Then, 12 years later, my once meaningless vote suddenly took on an entirely new meaning after I turned 18 and could cast a vote that actually counted towards who would be president. While my childish naivety about the greatness of the president had been shot through, I was still excited to finally go through the process of voting and have my vote actually count.

However, the year was 2016 and I’m sure everybody remembers what that election was like. It was Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, the two least liked candidates in history, vying to be just a little less hated than the other and get elected to higher office. I had paid attention to previous presidential elections cycles but was either previously too young or not interested enough before to really understand how different previous election cycles were from the one in 2016. I was just excited that I was finally getting to vote, I didn’t necessarily care who the two candidates were.

Almost every time that I expressed that excitement or mentioned my newfound ability to vote, it was met with some form of regret regarding how awful that election was to vote in. It usually took the form of something like, “Man, I’m sorry this has to be the first election you get to vote in” or “That sucks that this is your first election.” Now, imagine my excitement level every time this response was given. My excitement soon faded as I was constantly reminded how much worse those two candidates were than previous presidential candidates. Once a solemn duty to be thankful for, I quickly came to view voting as the painful process of choosing between two evils.

1980’s/90’s

The reason that I bring this up is that I think the same thing that happened to my excitement to vote in 2016 has been continuously happening since and it’s beginning to make me immensely frustrated. All I, and others in my generation, hear all the time is how awful everything is right now. I constantly hear that “we are so divided, polarized, spiteful, etc. right now and it looks to only be getting worse.” Just like the 2016 election, the underlying reality expressed may very well be true. However, constantly being reminded how much everything sucks right now is rather deflating and pretty quickly leads to disillusionment.

I understand that most people who make these comments are not meaning to make the world out to be worse than it is. A lot of these people bring these issues up as a means of trying to identify and address what may be causing our times to be the way they are. I think this is a valiant exercise worth doing because it helps us figure out ways to improve our situation. With that said, I’m beginning to think that the conversation has devolved into mere reminiscing about the way things used to be and how much worse they are now.

By “the way things used to be,” I am primarily referring to the 1980s/90s when American spirit was high, politics were more moderate, the economy was booming, and the world was less chaotic. I’m not saying this time period was perfect or that it felt like all of this in the moment, but it seems to be most people’s point of comparison to today. I understand that the classic trope of older generations talking about “back in my day” and younger generations complaining about older generations being out of touch may very well be at play here. I may be merely playing my role in that age old narrative, but I think the generational differences need to be discussed if progress wants to be made in fixing the problems frequently cited.

I think it’s worth considering whether the 1980s/90s were the aberration instead of our times today. Maybe the economic prosperity, political moderation, and high American pride that people fondly look back on was the exception instead of the rule. If we look at the two decades before, then it seems to suggest that this is the case. The 1960s/70s saw political assassinations, intense racial tensions, and economic malaise capped by high inflation. The two decades since the 1980s/90s have seen 2 recessions, racial tensions enflamed again, and political speakers shouted down and threatened.

Not only that, but America’s standing in the world was substantially different in the 1980s/90s than in other times. The Cold War was raging in the 1980s but came to a close with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Then, the United States, along with its allies, pummeled Iraq in the Gulf War and stood as the sole and clear world superpower. Conversly, the 1960s/70s saw the United States enter a decade long and divisive war in Vietnam that was ultimately deemed a failure. Tens of thousands of Americans died and massive amounts of money was spent only to see the country in which we were fighting take over quickly after our departure. Similarly, the 2000s and 2010s saw the United States fight two wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, that were a decade plus long, divisive, and ultimately deemed a failure as well.

Gen Z

Today, the people who came of age and grew up in the 1960s/70s made it through and then got to experience the high tide of the 1980s/90s. While they did experience times similar to our own, this cohort of people have also gotten to experience the potential and greatness of America in practice. Likewise, the people who came of age and grew up in the 1980s/90s have experienced America at one of its finest moments. When these generations critique today, they can do so with an understanding that America is capable of greatness because they lived through it.

However, my generation did not get to live through the 1980s/90s with any conscious memory and thus has never experienced a world apart from the one that so many complain about. Like me voting in the 2016 election, we grew up hearing how great America is only to grow up and get constantly told how much it sucks now. That doesn’t necessarily inspire a new generation of Americans to love their country and fight to protect the institutions that are apparently so great that they create such a crappy situation as we are in today.

I’m not known as an optimist and I am not a huge believer in the “power of positivity” or “speaking good things into existence,” but I fail to see how preaching only about how awful everything is today will do anything but enhance the disillusionment of an entire generation towards the American experiment. While it’s easy to complain about the “kids these days” as being fragile, it’s also easy to forget that they have been raised hearing all about how much worse they have then their elders in the glory days of the 80s/90s. At the same time, the older generations are also doing nothing but complaining about how much things suck now, so why would the younger generation do any different? I’m not even saying that my generation has had things uniquely tough. In fact, I am actually saying quite the opposite. My generation is merely one of many generations before it that has had to face the reality that the world is hard and holding a civilization together is near impossible.

The Greatest Generation knew this probably better than any generation in the last century. Born sometime in the 1900s-20s, this generation grew up in the Great Depression and then spent their coming of age years overseas fighting in the deadliest war in human history. If there was a generation that had an excuse to complain about how tough things were, then it was certainly this generation. They didn’t do this though. Rather, they went on fuel one of the greatest economic booms in U. S. history during the 1950s, get elected to political office and pass civil right laws, and fight communism domestic and abroad until the Berlin Wall fell and they could retire. All of this while establishing steady families, raising children, and creating institutions that helped build social capital.

The Greatest Generation was able to do this (apart from uncontrollable historical factors) because, as G. Michael Holf said, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times.” Adversity and struggle strengthens people and equips in ways that good times just can’t.

While recognizing the differences, the post-9/11 generation or Gen Z has the opportunity to be the next Greatest Generation. The only world we know is one in which the threat of terrorists from across the globe attacking the homeland isn’t a hypothesis. Though we don’t remember the attacks of 9/11, we only know a world in which the ensuing paranoia was dominant. We grew up in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression after the housing market crashed in 2007. In fact, the first time I remember someone talking about the economy in terms that weren’t negative (“can’t do that in this economy”) was when I got to college. We have now experienced a once in a century pandemic that literally shut down the economy.

If it’s true that “hard times create strong men” then surely this younger generation of Americans qualify as having experienced hard times. The question remains whether those hard times will produce strong men or weak and defeated men who only know how to sulk and play the victim. In order for them to become strong men, they need to be inspired and encouraged to do great things, not reminded how much the only world they know sucks and how much worse things are now.

God Bless,

Hunter Burnett