With the unfolding of this drastic recession, and the shock of job cuts, bankruptcies and unprecedented investment scandals, the American dream of becoming wealthier than your parents seems almost hopelessly naive. The last time a generation our age faced a recession of this magnitude, they overcame economic hardship, faced down fascism, and created a baby boom. Does our generation have it in us? What sacrifices should we be prepared to make? Further, are we prepared to be the next "greatest generation"?
Daniela's take
Ever since the markets started crashing this autumn, and as I've felt the effects ripple through my own life and the lives of those close to me, I've thought a lot about what is in store for my generation. I do, in fact, believe that we may be very capable of doing great things, but I don't believe it's fair to frame a discussion of what Gen Y may or may not achieve as a comparison to the so-called Greatest Generation.
While there are certainly broad parallels to be drawn between the uphill battle we face now and the one faced by those who came of age during the 1930s and 40s, it should be immediately clear that the hardships of present are not on the same scale. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not our generation's Second World War; the economic meltdown of today is not the Great Depression. In other words, things now are not as bad as they were then.
So if my generation is not set to be the Greater Generation or even the Next Greatest Generation, what will make us a simply Great Generation? In trying to answer this question I thought back to an incredible essay by George Packer titled "The New Liberalism" that I read about a month ago. Here's the excerpt relevant to this post—
(...) November 4, 2008, is one of those infrequent dates when one historical age and one generation, with a distinct political and economic and cultural character, gave way to another age, another generation. The new era that is about to begin under President Obama will be more about public good than about private goods. The meal will be smaller, and have less interesting flavors, but it will be shared more fairly. The great American improvisation called democracy still bends along the curve of history. It has not yet finished astounding the world.
I believe this. I believe that what is most likely to be the defining philosophy, the defining greatness, of our generation is our embrace of post-partisan rhetoric as the means and progressivism as the end.
To be sure, sacrifices will have to be made, but for each sacrifice there will be a corresponding positive change that we not only need, but want.
We won't be as wealthy as our parents because we won't be able to live off of credit and won't be able to count on cushy financial jobs. We will not be confident of our status as the most powerful country in the world. But in exchange, we'll spend more brain and manpower on technology and education, and we'll helm the transition into an international system comprised of inter-dependent powers who will have to work together to deal with international problems like poverty, disease, and global warming. Our definitions of prosperity, success, and happiness will change—but they will be more sustainable.
This is the wake-up call. And we're going to answer it.
Danish's take
This week's prompt states "the last time a generation our age faced a recession of this magnitude, they overcame economic hardship, faced down fascism, and created a baby boom. Does our generation have it in us?" I certainly hope not, since although the "Greatest Generation" faced down Hitler and survived the Great Depression, they also begat the Baby Boomers -- the "Lamest Generation" as I like to call them. As James Quinn, senior director of strategic planning at Wharton says—
"they rebelled against their parents, protested the Vietnam War, and settled down in 2,300 square foot cookie cutter McMansions with perfectly manicured lawns, in mall infested suburbia. They have raised overscheduled spoiled children, moved up the corporate ladder by pushing paper rather than making things, lived above their means in order to keep up with their neighbors, bought whatever they wanted using debt, and never worried about the future. Over optimism, unrealistic assumptions, selfishness and conspicuous consumption have been their defining characteristics."
And so here we are, with Bernard Madoff's sons having to turn in their own father.
While it's lovely to think our generation is in a position to make sacrifices to save our country, the sad truth is that old people are still running the world. Take for example the Detroit auto bailout. This is pure conjecture, but I'd wager that the proportion of people who support this (or any other bailout) increases with age. Here we on the brink of a global depression, and we're about to pour billions into a dying industry that has long been a drag on American productivity. If we can't let a decrepit, tottering industry succumb to its deserved fate in a time of intense economic crisis, then how can we be expected to make real sacrifices?
What to do, what to do? Popular wisdom says massive public spending is the solution. That doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice to me. Let's start by updating our antiquated idea of what constitutes the "American dream." Let's stop subsidizing suburbanism and loading legislation with pork just to keep the red states afloat. If there are no jobs in small town America, maybe we don't need to "create" those jobs, maybe we need to make it easier for people to find jobs elsewhere and sacrifice the comfort of home for new opportunities. Let's sacrifice the idea that anyone anywhere can become a doctor or a lawyer or a CEO and start respecting work of every form, which means stop sending people to college who have no business going there.
As far as having it in us to be the next "great generation," I can't really say. We certainly should be with all the information at our fingertips. Unfortunately, nobody knows what's going to happen in the next few years. While throwing money down black holes might seem like a surefire way to recovery, let's hope everyone keeps the law of unintended consequences in mind.
Jacob's take
No, there will be no greater generation. After all, it was the Greatest, not the Greatest So Far. There is nothing special about Americans, only their belief that there is, and America itself is decreasingly special. Americans, like anyone else, rise to the calls of leadership and necessity. The Greatest Generation was a response elicited by a vacuum in global power. "The American Century" was multi-determined and was not the expression of an inherently gifted hyperethical "generation".
Circumstance is not on the side of our generation. America is, after all, in relative decline. This means we will necessarily not make more money than our parents. If trends are reliable, it seems we are entering an era of a multi-polar political world, which is most likely a good thing. So the confidence generated by American exceptionalism can no longer feedback to inspire Americans to greatness.
The best we ought to hope for is that we can be adequately cooperative with the world and not make horrible mistakes (cf. September 2001 – October 2008). But great leadership can get us halfway to "greatness." I think Obama's calls to a multi-faceted worldview may be this century's version of the calls to American world-stewardship. Thus, the sacrifice we should be prepared to make is to forgo the self-satisfaction of thinking too highly of ourselves. If we have a more modest view of ourselves, we may take government more seriously, allow it to provide services we earnestly need, and we may even care enough to hold our leaders accountable for their misdeeds.
Nathan's take
School's out for the holidays, so I get to feel like a real, live blogger, typing this post in my PJs. With the world collapsing around our ears and the weight of history on our shoulders, this might seem like an incredibly luxurious thing to do. But if our generation is to have any shot at solving any of the world’s problems, our approach will involve the interwebs.
Back when I was 14, my biggest problem was finding a girl to make out with, and AOL Instant Messenger was there. Back then, it was much easier to flirt from behind a keyboard than face-to-face. Sadly, we can’t spin-the-bottle our way out of the mess we’re in, but the interwebs are still the sea we swim in and can still be useful. We’re creating networks of friends that span the globe; we are constructing political coalitions that win elections; and we are spontaneously freaking out hundreds of people in Grand Central. I don’t really need to tell you how transformative the internet is – you know this -- I just wanted to tip my hat to the hero before moving on to the villain: irony.
Yes, irony, protector of hipsters, destroyer of worlds. Irony started as harmless fun, and a dash of irony is still preferred when opening a blog post with a saccharine ode to technology (see above ironic use of “interwebs”). But as the dominant mode of contemporary discourse, it’s completely bankrupt. Many of our generation’s brightest lights ran off to make big bucks as modern day alchemists in the financial sector. Irony came for many of those that were left, leading them off to wallow in ironic over-privileged gloom and designer T-shirts. Those that remain need some help in turning this thing around.
So, in these times of economic hardship, with bankers returning to grad school and hipsters too poor to silkscreen, I say let’s give irony a rest and stare the problems of the world and our own failings full in the face. That will be the only way to take up the mantle as the next "Greatest Generation." Seriously.
Ottavio's take
More often than not, opportunity, rather than intrinsic greatness, makes people great. America's current troubles, many of which are global, have provided our generation with the opportunity for greatness. The things that have made Americans successful in the past will make our generation successful and bring us through our current crisis.
We have concrete assets that will continue to make us prosperous: Our infrastructure (though in need of an update); our institutions (unfortunately not our financial regulatory institutions), public and private; and our land.
We have cultural assets that will continue to make us prosperous: The American belief in a meritocracy; American individualism, the American desire (not that it is unique to America) to be more successful than your parents; and American optimism.
As Winston Churchill said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else." A lot has been tried and the time for the right thing is here.
Robin's take
The coming economic and ecological down cycle is going to be a wild ride for our generation -- hopefully one that forces us to re-examine our ideas of wealth. In this context our generation's test is to prevent the collapse of these systems and doing so requires a significant sacrifice or a change in our lifestyles in terms of our consumption and production.
From my perspective, as an architect, the dual problem of the free-falling bourgeoisie's demand for architecture as a luxury service coupled with the foreseeable depletion or exhaustion of material resources on the planet sounds apocalyptic for my chosen profession. In developed nations, the built environment accounts for 70% of resource consumption (by weight), 60% of non industrial waste, and 40% of total energy consumption. I have to hope that the serious constraints that architecture will see in the near future regarding economies of material, energy and demand will be understood as an opportunity for us to do better.
In Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken plainly states that capitalism is lazy, and that the success of a product economically rarely corresponds to to its quality or integrity. It's no surprise to him that the U.S. auto industry is seeking a $34 billion bailout when the most innovative development in automobile technology in the past 10 years has been to add more cup holders.
The success of our generation will be defined by our ability to innovate and perceive economic pressures as a catalyst for doing so. In addition, what will make us great is our ability to redefine wealth as something other than monetary accumulation.
Sarah's take
Generation “Y” -- the Internet generation, the Obamaphile generation, the gay-friendly generation. The YouTube generation, certainly. The “greatest generation”? Unfortunately, that one’s already taken -- claimed by the stalwarts of World War II, our grandparents, who are, it seems, none too modest about their achievements.
But really, there’s no comparing the challenges of our grandparents -- the Great Depression, World War II, and their lamentable offspring, our parents -- with the challenges facing Gen Y today. Our wars are much more confusing and are coming off poorly (can anyone imagine “V-I” day -- Victory in Iraq Day?). Indeed, donating one's pantyhose and scrap metal is no longer a useful contribution to our country’s international fortunes. And I somehow doubt Generation Y is destined to become the progenitor of another baby boom.
However, our recession, should it become a depression, may yet resemble that of our grandfathers. Both are painful comedowns off dizzy speculation and loosey-goosey regulatory policies, though the current crisis is rooted in financial schemes made possible by modern technology. Sober observers of the economy have detected a creaking of the machine that is reminiscent of the early 1930s. It’s a scary proposition.
But conditions have changed, and it’s hard to see a single, noble path leading out of the forest. For the Greatest Generation, World War II provided a boost to the economy, while simultaneously defeating the Nazis. Why, we should be so lucky! Our struggles are more ambiguous and our suffering seems more like malaise in the absence of a single rallying cry (Obama notwithstanding).
Awash in this unhappy sea, let us recall the enduring images of the last Great Depression -- ramshackle Hoovervilles and beaten-down Oakies, starved and humiliated by the Dust Bowl. The poor always suffer most in any economic crisis -- a fact to be kept in mind as we attempt to stave off the current one. Taking care of our fellow citizens, particularly the worst-off among them: could it be our rallying cry?
Walter's take
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. encouraged his writing students to make awful things happen to their characters to show the reader what they’re made of. But this recession—and it will be bad—is not enough to prove our greatness.
First, this will be nothing compared to the Great Depression. Unemployment in some areas reached 40% and many people were unemployed for nearly a decade—breadlines and soup kitchens marked New York City and malnutrition was a serious concern. More than that, my grandparents' generation earned their greatness not simply by becoming wealthy again, but by leaving their depression-afflicted towns to fight in an enormous war and emerging in a world free of fascism as the singular super-power. They unlocked the power of nuclear chain reactions, rebuilt Europe and Japan, and—within a decade—saw the yokes of colonialism collapse. Sure, this was not entirely their doing. They watched historical trends come to fruition. But it was a time of greatness. It’s difficult to fathom the permanent and far-reaching consequences of their lives.
The point is greatness requires more than returning to 3% GDP growth. It is unlikely we will earn our greatness by expanding our geopolitical dominance. We have to offer permanent solutions to big problems and turn pages of history. I can think of a few goals that might enable us to earn our greatness:
First, and perhaps this is obvious, we ought to make it our national business to pioneer great technological progress. There was a time when the brightest minds and organizations of a generation worked to cure polio or put men on the moon. Now, they trade derivatives. I’ll be the first to argue that trading derivatives has social value up to a point, but only up to a point and maybe this depression will help us draw that line and reconsider the social norm of following all the other bright boys to Wall Street. There are great technological problems to be solved and it will take great-big subsidies, leadership, and creativity to solve them. Alternative energies, disease, climate change, global transportation are proper challenges for us to assert our greatness in a way that has a lasting impact around the world.
Second, our generation is well-positioned to earn its greatness bolstering international law. I am weakly optimistic that this will have renewed importance under the Obama administration and as the U.S. finds long-term solutions to our situation in Iraq. The first step to bolstering international law would be obeying it. And the first step there would be closing Guantanamo, which seems like it’s going to happen. The U.S. can hope to reclaim the moral high ground and strengthening international organizations—thinking beyond the pathetic shape of the UN or the IMF—would be an accomplishment we can point to in 60 years.
And third: I think the most important work Americans can do while we endure this depression is reflect on our lifestyles. We are the wealthiest nation around and we spend it living in great big houses in the suburbs, driving big pieces of steel that weigh thirty times our body weight to run quotidian errands. We support a medieval monarchy to afford this situation but even so it’s not easy to sustain what is probably the greatest misuse of resources in history. This model is being mimicked in the suburbs of Beijing today, Bombay tomorrow, and Brazzaville after that. It isn’t working and we need to admit it. Fixing this problem will require more than a miracle technology. We need to restructure the way we live and accomplish things.
All signs point to major government works under this administration both because we need them and because we need a massive stimulus package. Jason Furman says it will be on the scale of Eisenhower’s interstate highway project. But please, let’s not build more roads.
Will's take
The question of our generation's character has been much on my mind in the past few weeks, as bad news turns to worse in the markets, and serious questions about our nation's ability to maintain such an extravagantly high standard of living remain. The historical precedent of the Great Depression has been dragged out in editorial after editorial as evidence of Americans' get-'er-done melting pot ingenuity in the face of crisis. While certainly a hopeful thought to hang above the fireplace with care this holiday season, the similarities aren't all they're cracked up to be.
For starters, while we face some of the same problems (unemployment, lack of credit, etc.), we do so against a drastically changed historical backdrop. Unlike their Depression-scarred grandparents, Millennials didn't overcome widespread familial poverty through thrift and hard work; we were brought up with Super Nintendos and summer camps (well, I didn't have a Super Nintendo, but all my friends did...). Consumption has been part of our DNA for so long that cutbacks on luxury items like consumer electronics and designer clothing feel like unspeakable privation. If this recession gets worse, it's the children in grade school now who will truly internalize it into their worldview; it's far too late for us.
We also lack the shared experience of the World War that followed and ended the first Depression, a war that brought millions of Americans into the middle class through manufacturing jobs and G.I. Bill education. If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had any profound social effect, it's been in increasing the underclass of wounded and psychologically scarred soldiers with insufficient benefits, and shattering families in predominantly lower-income neighborhoods every time another body comes home.
Nevertheless, the parallels remain between us and those intrepid stormers of Normandy and organization men (and women, in the first truly widespread instance of American women working outside the home). We seem to be, like our grandparents before us, a pragmatic generation, more focused on getting things done than on the deep ideological struggles of the Boomer cohort. Both conservative and liberal Millennials tend to oppose President Bush's policies, (unlike in the 60s, when Young Republicans like Karl Rove counted on widespread support among mainstream youth) and the 2008 presidential election results among our demographic (66% Obama to 32% McCain) should be downright embarrassing to the Republicans.
But those who see Obama's electoral mandate and the Democrats' control of both houses of Congress as an excuse to push through a broadly progressive agenda (which I tend to support) should take note of another precedent set by the Greatest Generation. The buried resentments of the post-war "consensus years," during which coastal elites dictated a technocratic policy slate supposedly "beyond ideology," surfaced in the modern conservative movement, first in Barry Goldwater's failed presidential bid, later in Richard Nixon's political comeback, as decisions about race, government aid, and foreign policy that once seemed self-evident frayed and ultimately exploded in the protests and counter-protests of the 60s.
I, for one, intend to keep a close eye on the young followers of libertarian hero Ron Paul, defined by their fervent support for limited government, reinstating the gold standard, and isolationist foreign policy. Like Goldwater's conservatives, they have been alienated by both major parties. While their numbers have yet to impact national politics, the collapse of the global financial system could prove an unexpected boon to their cause.
We have been blessed, or cursed, to live in interesting times; the way we react to what may be the defining economic shift of our lifetime will prove whether we deserve to be the Greatest, Second Greatest, Worst, or "_____" Generation.
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