Gen x was declared the resourceful generation and gen z has been labeled hopeless. As a gen xer I can understand why. The future ... What does it look like for you? Is a bleak view of the future the reason for the hopeless label pinned on gen z'ers?
A "new" generation is typically viewed as inadequate, faulty, or substandard in some respect by older ones. Just as "slacker" was associated with gen-X in the beginning. Similar to claims about Millennials (gen-Y), Zoomers could be in sad shape health-wise, but exaggerated crises are a symptom of most modern eras. I don't know that Zoomers are any more filled with leftangelical passions than Baby Boomers of the '60s/'70s (or least those BBs of the New Left that stood out in public consciousness via activism and hippie culture). Gen-Z might be more antinaturalist and into weeding out Eurocentric and colonially-acquired thought orientations, reasoning, traditions, and methods at a heightened level. But BBs became less anti-capitalist over time (i.e., the wailing distress of associating capitalism and the West with social oppression) as practical realities set in, and they accumulated property, families and communities they had to safeguard, and so forth. While Zoomers may have externally farmed their minds out to smartphones to a great extent, Generation Alpha could be a worry in the future because they will develop a heavy dependence on AI doing their thinking and creativity. But again, there was concern back in the Baby Boomer days that kids were becoming television zombies. _
On Boomers, and What Came Next As my father lay dying, I considered the pathway through adult family housing, hospital, and memory care with hospice, and, having actually found him a place at the top-rated facility available at Medicaid rates, reflected on the point that not even Boomers deserve the Hell they have wrought. Z perceives the realities that X struggled to grasp and cope with, and Millennials are thus far unable to reconcile. Leftists have been shouting about real wages, for instance, for generations, now, and somewhere between consumerism and declining financial prospects, the future can easily look bleak, with continuing decline suggesting increasing insecurity. Moreover, look at the Overton window: Actual livable wages are viewed as extreme, radical, or on good days the stuff of the leftward fringe. Human rights are viewed as an extreme and even radical proposition. Maybe the world isn't quite a sci-fi dystopia yet, but when our Overton window says that not going there is the radical, extreme, or otherwise impolite discussion, Gen Z might have reason to believe things are bleak. The thing about Boomers and practical reality is that they presumed a social contract that was never actually in effect. Even now, they cling to it. No decent person who shares the values we pretend in our society would design this way of dying. Boomers did not set out to create this for themselves. But what were they trying to create? Because it's not just this. It seems like they thought there was something to do, and if they just did their part, everything else would work out fine. And this has worked out, it seems, somewhat poorly. A loose analogy is that many people who are very sensitive, even conspiracist, about the government this and that, have no problem trusting certain aspects of their lives to capitalists and corporations. How many of them really said, explicitly, that their privacy concerns are just about the government, and they're just fine with advertisers, political activists, and identity thieves being able to gather up their vital information from private-sector interests? They didn't. But they also didn't think about it much. Indeed, it was not any one generation, taking part in the Wednesday Putsch, that we could watch walk up and down the street via their perpetual font of metadata. It's just weird that they weren't really worried about spying, but, rather, one particular spy, as such, who could just turn around and get the information from all the other spies. It's kind of like the Underpants Gnomes; there is a giant question mark in the schematic. It remains unclear, even now, just how Boomers expected everything would would work out fine.
So, where are we going from this point on? Boomers and x'rs and z'rs are in position but our positioning, most of us, isn't ideal. Then again, maybe it is ... Depending on what' s happens across the globe. Money? Capitalism? The web? Electronic surveillance and citizen safety concerns coupled with growing concerns over internet hackers and national security have a few of us on edge in the states. City life, country living, corporate America falling or failing an economy in the balance with the small majority of us pivoting between poverty and no income at all is common place. Bleak isn't isolated gen z, but I understand their concerns as an x. The difference is in how resourceful we are in contrast, which puts them at a higher degree of anxiety and uncertainty for the future. It's not hopeless, but maybe a vacation is in order. Seriously. A vacation sounds nice. I'm thinking of an uncommon type for myself. Maybe an adventure is in order. It's all seeming uphill anyway. Money... Money ... Hmm ... Crazy life we live these days
