A commenter on my recent review of definitive Gen Y high school movie Clueless writes:
How tied to is gen y. I mean, I’ve experienced and seen a lot of failure in my life and others. Is it a trait? By what means can it be overcome if it is?
I dont mean this as despair, just something you pointed out “being Gen Y, she’s incompetent, and her project blows up in her face”
Reader Heian-kyo Dreams answers:
Failure is a common theme in everyone’s life. It just means you’re still breathing.
Those movie montages did a huge disservice by making people think that 5 minutes of effort and practice make you good at something. And if you don’t learn effortlessly like the movie characters, you should give up entirely.
I answer:
The association isn’t failure and Gen Y. It’s incompetence and Gen Y.
Ys are the gaslighted generation. Boomers taught them a false vision of the world but failed to teach them practical skills. As a result, Ys tend to have difficulty dealing with the real world and often have a “mugged by reality” experience–which happens to Cher in a literal sense.
As for dealing with these deficiencies, Heian-kyo Dreams has a solid point. Failure is normal. Ys tend to fear failure and get easily discouraged because they were taught to avoid conflict instead of facing it.
Like all bad habits, overcoming counterproductive Gen Y behavior patterns takes work. Luckily, the internet makes it easier. Don’t know how to cook a meal, balance a checkbook, or change a tire? A world of knowledge is just a click away.
TL; DR: It’s a technical problem that admits of technical solutions.
On what may seem like a tangent, but bear with me, reader Desdichado comments:
Keep in mind that nothing about the plot itself can be pinned to generational cohorts, only the details surrounding it. The movie is a transparent reworking of Emma by Jane Austen and the plot follows that novel point for point.
Which maybe is worth an interesting tangent or so all it’s own; in spite of the obvious generational cohort differences, at the same time, at a broader level, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Clueless writer/director Amy Heckerling’s admitted cribbing of Emma is why I didn’t directly address the movie’s plot. However, Desdichado’s comment gave me a hunch that a connection existed between Cher and Emma.
I did some research on Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning generational theory. In a nutshell, they assert that generations come in cycles of four archetypes corresponding to four repeating historical turning points.
- A cultural High fosters a Prophet (Idealist) generation.
- An Awakening brings about a Nomad (Reactive) generation.
- An Unraveling gives rise to a Hero (Civic) generation.
- A Crisis brings forth an Artist (Adaptive) generation.
However, they immediately veer off course by labeling Generation X, the Millennial, and Generation Z as Nomad-Reactive, Hero-Civic, and Artist-Adaptive cohorts, respectively.
Strauss and Howe’s mistake is easy to see. While they correctly define their generational archetypes based on shared formative experience:
They say the generations in each archetype not only share a similar age-location in history, they also share some basic attitudes towards family, risk, culture and values, and civic engagement. In essence, generations shaped by similar early-life experiences develop similar collective personas and follow similar life-trajectories.
They erroneously stick to an arbitrary definition of a generation as a twenty-year period.
As I’ve argued previously, the Awakening sparked by the Boomers has led to such a rapidly accelerating societal Unraveling that people born just twenty years apart no longer have anything close to the same formative experiences. Shortening the duration of each turning after the Boomer High corrects the problem.
This correction also gives us ten extra years between the Boomers and the X-ers into which Generation Jones fits snugly, plus ten more between the Xers and Millennials perfectly sized for Generation Y.
Making these adjustments gives us:
- High: The Baby Boomers: Prophet-Idealist
- Awakening: Generation Jones: Nomad-Reactive
- Unraveling: Generation X: Hero-Civic
- Crisis: Generation Y: Artist-Adaptive
Artist (Adaptive) generations enter childhood after an Unraveling, during a Crisis, a time when great dangers cut down social and political complexity in favor of public consensus, aggressive institutions, and an ethic of personal sacrifice. Artists grow up overprotected by adults preoccupied with the Crisis, come of age as the socialized and conformist young adults of a post-Crisis world, break out as process-oriented midlife leaders during an Awakening, and age into thoughtful post-Awakening elders
The generation that entered childhood with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over their heads, grew up during a brief return to conformity and consensus in the Reagan and Bush years, were propagandized by the converged post-1980 entertainment industry, had overprotective parents, and grew into adults looking to go along to get along has been well documented on this blog.
Their name rhymes with, “Why?”
Now, there’s a fair objection to be made to my modification of Strauss and Howe’s theory. My X-er readers have probably spotted it, but for everyone else, here’s the Fourth Turning definition of a Hero generation:
Hero (Civic) generations enter childhood after an Awakening, during an Unraveling, a time of individual pragmatism, self-reliance, and laissez-faire. Heroes grow up as increasingly protected post-Awakening children, come of age as team-oriented young optimists during a Crisis, emerge as energetic, overly-confident midlifers, and age into politically powerful elders attacked by another Awakening.
Members of Generation X will probably nod along to the first sentence of that definition. They grew up post-Sexual Revolution in the rugged individualist early 80s. Where the wheels come off is at the “increasingly protected” part. Gen X is notorious as the “Thrown to the wolves” generation.
As a result, they’ve hardly come of age as overconfident team players. And we know Gen X will never be given the reins of political power. They and Gen Y will be skipped over.
What could possibly have gone wrong? How did a cycle of each generation passing the torch to the next suddenly get derailed after working smoothly for hundreds of years?
I wonder.
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| “Hey. Hey, Boomers, c’mere. We…we just wanna *talk* to you!” |
Before discounting my variation on Strauss and Howe’s theory, keep in mind that they originally listed the Millennials as a Hero generation. Others have argued that this classification is accurate, but the Millennials’ heroic destiny has been thwarted.
I argue that the evidence much more strongly points toward the X-ers as the Hero generation whose collective vocation was ruined by their parents’ failure.
The anomaly which explains all subsequent aberrations in the Four Turnings theory is that no prior generation in recorded history actively hated their own children–until the Baby Boomers.
Think that’s hyperbole? Keep in mind that the Boomers murdered half of their children in the womb.
Sincere condolences, Gen X. You were supposed to be the heroes we needed. But like hack authors who purposefully subvert the hero of prophecy in their postmodern Tolkien ripoff novel, the Boomers’ neglect and abuse killed your optimism and patriotism. Along with half of you.
The bad news is that our civilization probably won’t survive the damage inflicted by Generation Locust. Strauss and Howe didn’t find anything like the Boomers going all the way back to the fifteenth century. There probably hasn’t been such a destroyer generation since the fall of Rome.
In the title of this post, I held out hope–specifically for Generation Y. Now that we’ve correctly identified Gen Y as an Artist-Adaptive generation, we have a glimpse of what the future may hold for them.
Strauss and Howe have chronicled past Artist generations breaking out of their shells in middle age to master useful processes and take leadership positions. That’s an encouraging prospect.
But the tragic tale of Gen X warrants a big caveat. It’s highly unlikely that Ys will get to fill official leadership positions. Those are reserved for the Millennials. If Ys are going to emerge as leaders, it will be as local, informal organizers and mentors.
Of course, it’s possible that the Boomers permanently sabotaged Gen Y as well. But the key formative difference between Gen X and Gen Y also Gives Ys reason to hope.
Gen X’s Hero archetype was broken because they didn’t get the necessary protection from their parents. In contrast, the Boomers overcompensated with their younger Gen Y children, enabling them to fulfill their Artist archetype.
The question remains: Will Gen Y fulfill the Adaptive part of the equation? Based on signs we’re seeing now, the answer could be yes. Many authors among the PulpRev and Superversive literary movements belong to Generation Y. They’re not only establishing themselves as skilled artists, they’re actively seeking to inspire cultural change.
Another prominent–one might justly say infamous–author making a cultural impact is Gen Y pickup artist turned Augustinian sage Roosh V. Having turned from hedonism and toward Christ, he travels the globe trying to foster male fellowship at great personal risk.
The greatest obstacle Gen Y will have to overcome is their lack of confidence and practical skill. To fulfill their role of guiding Gen Z, they must embrace failure as a trusted teacher and put in the work to master the life skills they were never taught. And like Roosh, they must return to Christ.
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