Adjacent to discussions of Cultural Ground Zero theory is speculation as to what went wrong. Generation X was passed over for any position of authority. Gen Y creatives can only churn out shallow pastiches of superior 80s and 90s entertainment. It’s an open secret in the video game industry that Western game aesthetics were pretty much destroyed by risk-averse Millennial artists.
So the question remains: Why can’t the three generations now entering, in, or exiting their prime sustain the culture we inherited? Comedian Charls Carrol offers a potential answer in a recent live stream.
There’s an entire generation of youth that’s been abused. It’s indicative of something way bigger.
Has nothing to do with, “Oh man, this guy’s a creep! He was talking to some some boy or whatever, he’s like 14, 13.” No no no no. It’s not an isolated incident. It’s an indicator that the entire generation is rapped.
You know what that means? what else do you think happens when the culture gets ultra-sexual, hypersexual? What do you think? Just like fees and taxes, they get passed down to the consumer. Sex gets passed down to the children in a hypersexual culture.
[It’s] indicative of a generational abuse. It’s not a good sign because … that’s the next generation you see with everything now: the people that are hired to make movies and video games and all this. It’s a generation that got abused.
Related: Ground Zero
Why do you think everything’s like this? People that are abused wish to pass on the abuse.
They’re learned behaviors, you guys understand? Like hyper sex or hyper violence is a learned behavior. It’s not inherent, it’s generational. There are textbook … There are blueprints just like 1984, okay? In Brave New World … hypersexuality is required for brutal enslavement.
You can watch the replay here:
Is Charls’ take somewhat extreme? Perhaps.
But keep in mind that neglect is also a form of abuse.
Whether kids were left alone to be easy game for predators or left alone after school to raise themselves, the common thread running through the formative experience of today’s adults is having been alone.
Related: A Lonely Existence
It stands to reason that generations who were never properly inducted into society have difficulty maintaining that society.
The saying goes “Show me someone who has failed, and I’ll show you someone who was failed.”
It holds true on the macro scale. Failed generations are abused generations.
That’s not an excuse for wallowing in our disorders. It is a reality check that means we’ll have to work twice as hard to keep what good we’ve got, let alone cultivate more.
The only way out is to show up and do the work.
So let’s get up and get going.
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