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An Age without Empathy

An Age without Empathy

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As I write this, authorities have just arrested a person of interest in the case of the “Healthcare assassin,” who murdered a CEO on his way to an investor meeting. This guy, if it is him, has been treated by the public like a folk hero. I’m sure you’ve seen the memes. People really hate the healthcare system in the United States.

The public reaction recalled my takeaway from this statement in an article I linked to in my election post-mortem post:

…the second wave of newly aging-in Trump voters entered adulthood… hoping only to grind out a living through scams. But this is fundamentally an anti-social and anti-humanist mode of economic activity that contributes nothing to society and offers nothing but alienation to its victims. The result is people willing to vote for someone they know will cause immense harm to others, hoping it will help them personally.

As I put it, voters tapped into their inner Joker and embraced the breakdown of the society. This latest incident certainly supports that idea: if we can’t reform healthcare by legal means, well…shall we say the Purge is underway?

I will point out that insensitivity about the death of the rich has already been on display, during an earlier story that took place before the election. I’m referring to the submersible that imploded while taking some wealthy clients on a tour. There wasn’t much sympathy for them, either, and they were just some folks out on a lark, not supervillain-esque corporate executives on their way to plot how to ensure that the maximum proportion of a firm’s revenues went to its shareholders and not its customers.

A mural in Seattle, made after the Ocengate Titan implosion

Celebaring someone’s death is pretty harsh. Is Trump’s reelection making us all worse as a society, or is it that we’ve become less civil, making Trump’s rise possible? Arguably, Trump’s election win simply exposed us for the uncivil society that we’ve already become. I’m sure the two phenomena feed back on each other, in a vicious cycle. This is how social moods are reinforced; by collective reactions to events.

Generations theory has its own take on why this is an age of callous attitudes and lack of sensitivity: it has to do with the archetypes of the generations that fill the adult age brackets. The “sensitive artist”-type generation that is left is the Silent generation, but they are very old now, and on their way out of public life. President Biden is from that generation, and his departure when his Presidency ends will likely mark the end of his generation’s influence.

The next generation to fit that archetype is the current child generation, the Homelanders. Not until they have come of age in significant numbers will we see the return of an attitude of empathy and humaneness. By then, we will have entered another social era.

Homelanders in Hell

Homelanders in Hell

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We recently watched an excellent zombie horror TV series called All of Us Are Dead (one season so far available on Netflix). It’s set in a high school, so it’s also a coming of age show, with accompanying side stories about fitting in and surviving bullying and whether or not to reveal your feelings to your crush. Not to say too much, but you can probably guess from the title that things don’t go very well for most of the students.

One theme that runs through the show is the expectation that the kids have of being aided or rescued by adults as the zombie apocalypse rages through their school, but ultimately being disappointed. There are heroic adult characters in the show, as well as cowardly ones, but for the most part the high school students are left to their own devices and it’s up to them to save themselves. The fantastical circumstances don’t allow for many options.

This is common enough in zombie shows; they always end up as survival against all odds stories. But in the case of this show there is an overarching sense of cluelessness and irresponsibility coming out of the adult world, while it’s the kids who end up paying the price. In fact, the zombie virus origin itself is tied to a subplot involving both negligence and recklessness by adults.

It’s a depressing show, and watching it I couldn’t help but compare the fate of these fictional schoolchildren with those who in the real world have been victimized in their classrooms by horrific mass shootings. They too should have been protected, but were abandoned instead. It’s an unmistakable parallel which aligns the young characters in this show with the Homeland Generation in the United States. You might say that this show belongs to a new genre I will call “Homelanders in Hell.”

What do I mean, “the Homeland Generation?” In terms of Strauss-Howe generational theory, this is the generation, born since 2005, currently in childhood and filling the halls of middle schools and high schools. By their age location in history, as children during a Crisis Era, their role is stay out of the way, protected by adults who are doing the hard work of managing multiple unfolding catastrophes.

Except, tragically, when adults fail them, overwhelmed as they are by the magnitude of the disaster. Then their role is to be mourned in death, and in death to be held up as an inspiration for adults to find the courage and strength to do better.

A still from the TV series All of Us Are Dead
Theater as a Sheltering Space for the Young Generation

Theater as a Sheltering Space for the Young Generation

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Last weekend I went to see a high school musical show – Shrek, to be precise. On the way in I was handed an LGBTQ pride flag and told it was my “freak flag.” I didn’t really know what this was about, having never seen Shrek before, but I eventually found out. “Freak Flag” is actually the name of a song in the show, sung by the fairy tale characters. It celebrates diversity and inclusion, and through it the characters resist how they are treated by the oppressive chief antagonist (you may recall the story from the movie).

It’s not a stretch to associate the unique fairy tale characters in Shrek with minority groups in real life who face discrimination and barriers to acceptance. So it seemed fitting enough to have these flags to wave while the fairy tale characters sang their “fly your freak flag” refrain. As I watched the kids dressed as fairy tale characters walking down the aisles of the auditorium, I wondered how many of them might experience discrimination in real life, given how kids on the fringe – whether gay, or neurodivergent, or just outsiders – are drawn to the arts and to theater.

This message of inclusiveness and acceptance was part of the show from the onset, as in the curtain speech (the speech made before the show to introduce it) the director spoke, as if assuring the parents, of how much he and the staff make sure all of the students feel accepted and valued. Everyone of them, like each unique fairy tale character, knew how special they were. To my mind, this was a perfect generational moment – this is exactly how I would expect Generation X (the director’s generation, as well as mine) to treat the children of the Homeland generation (to which all but the oldest of today’s high school students belong). Sheltering them in a protective bubble. Teaching them to be sensitive and considerate of others.

It was a moment that perfectly captured the zeitgeist of this era. I should have more such moments in the future, as the spring season is upon us and I will be attending a lot high school performances in the weeks to come.

Homelanders React – Seeing Our World through Younger Eyes

Homelanders React – Seeing Our World through Younger Eyes

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There’s a good chance that you’ve encountered “kids react” videos on YouTube, where children are recorded while they listen for the first time to music from past decades. There’s even other kinds of things they react to, for example obsolete technology like rotary phones. These videos are a lot of fun, and are a reminder to older generations of how far away we are in time from the culture of our own childhood.

Here’s a great example, suggesting the timeless appeal of certain pop culture icons-

Another example involving icons from a couple decades later, who perhaps are a little harder to connect to-

I like to think of “kids react” videos as an artifact of the Homeland Generation, even though, given the ages of the children, many of them are late-wave Millennials (I guess you can safely say they are all from “Generation Z.”) I think of this as a Homeland generation phenomenom because, as I’ve blogged before, they are the generation that has had its entire life documented on the Internet – older generations, who cherish them and, through viral videos, want to see the world through their eyes. In other words, being doted on in this way is part of the whole Homelander experience.

Of course, the react format can be flipped around, to see the generation gap from the other side. For example, here’s some Boomers encountering the music of kids these days-

The media company that makes these videos, FBE, was founded by two brothers on the GenX-Millennial cusp. They have a great YouTube channel filled with all kinds of content, including different kinds of react videos and other participatory format videos featuring a diverse set of people of all generations. It’s actually quite a fun, wholesome place on the Internet.

The react video is such an engaging format that other YouTubers have picked up on it. Check out this channel – it’s basically two Gen-Zers who took it upon themselves to make their own version of this kind of video. Who says pop culture can’t unify us?

To close out this post, here is one of my favorite examples of a cross-generational video. It’s from yet another channel and features three Homelanders meeting a G.I. (Greatest Generation). That’s quite a gap! Check it out to see what surprising things these kids learn about life way back in the early 1900s. And to feel the heartwarming connection that any two people can have, no matter how far apart in age they are.

The Homeland Generation in Film

The Homeland Generation in Film

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In a recent blog post I mentioned three films featuring the Homeland Generation (b. 2005-202?). They are all great films which I enjoyed very much, and I thought I would give a little more detail and quick reviews about each one.

The first one is the best of the three films, 2017’s The Florida Project. A young girl lives with her mother in a motel somewhere near Disney World. They are poor, getting by through means semi-licit or worse. Despite this life on the economic fringes, the girl finds joy in her simple life of carefree play with her friends. When trouble brews, the ragtag denizens of the motel generally look out for each other. The Magic Kingdom is there in the background, but what is the true paradise – the artificial construct of middle-class America, or the innocent heart of a child? This poignant film will make you wonder.

The next film is about a girl whose circumstances are even starker than living in a motel. In 2012’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, a girl and her father dwell deep in the swampland of the Louisiana coast, part of an eclectic group of squatters in a community called “The Bathtub.” Their impoverishment is just a backdrop for a tale that takes on mythic proportions and features some thrilling fantastical elements. When her life and home are disrupted, the girl must search for her past to find the courage to face her future. The movie ends with a note of confidence that, much like the child’s imagination, seems out of touch with reality.

Finally, there is What Maisie Knew, also from 2012. This is a retelling of a story from the late 1800s that was written by Henry James, about a girl whose parents are divorced. They share custody, but are both irresponsible, and eventually the girl finds a safer haven in the guardians who are entrusted with her care. The movie changes the story a little bit, and is also set in contemporary times. As such, it presents an anomalous portrait of how children are raised today. The parents are acting like parents from the 1970s, not those of the 2010s. It’s still a very touching film, and I thought it brought out some Homelander traits in the girl character, particularly her compassion for others.

Three films about Homelanders that are highly recommended. You may have noticed that they are all about girls. Where are the boys of this generation represented? Perhaps we will see those films in the future. I will write more about girls versus boys growing up in a future blog post.

Growing Up in Crisis America

Growing Up in Crisis America

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When one reads in online media about the generations that are alive today, it is most typically a story contrasting the Baby Boomers with the up and coming Millennials. Sometimes my generation, Generation X, gets a mention. In other blog posts, I have referred to the Silent Generation. You may even have read about the post-Millennial Generation Z, usually said to have been born starting some time in the late 1990s.

Clearly some generation must follow the Millennials, but I have my doubts about the Gen-Z concept. In the generational theory which I study, the next generation, still in childhood, is called the Homeland generation. This name was coined early in the century, around the time that the Department of Homeland Security was instituted in response to 9/11. The name evokes the idea of a country entering protective mode, and of a generation that is sequestered within it.

With the first birth year of the Homeland generation being 2005, the oldest of their members are just turning 14. What can we say about this child generation and their experience growing up in an America in crisis?

The Homeland generation has clearly been the beneficiary of the restoration of the American family that began when Millennials started being born in the 1980s. The era of rising protection of children has reached its apex; children are now completely ensconced within the family unit. You can see it online in social media with the endless stream of posts of happy families headed by Gen-X parents – and, increasingly, by Millennial parents.

Protective child nurturing has reached the point that there is are hints of concern that overprotection has gone too far. But despite memes extolling the free-wheeling child rearing of days past, there is little sign of the protection relenting. Instead, in a shift away from the way that Millennials were raised, Homelanders are being taught not so much that they are special and unique, as that they must learn to fit in and to get along with others. It’s a trend propelled by concern for the perceived negative consequences of being a social misfit in a time of rising suicide rates and mass shootings, or of standing out in an era of social media scrutiny.

Homelanders, in fact, are the first generation to have their entire lives documented on social media. It starts when they are still in the womb, with sonograms posted by excited expecting couples. Then comes a flurry of adorable toddler posts, capturing every precious moment. Once they hit school age, there is a mandatory start of the school year portrait for every grade from kindergarten on. My favorite indicator on social media of the centrality of family in American life, and the Homelander generation’s comfortable place within it, is the themed costume group photos that come out every Halloween.

It seems to me like Homelanders are always on exhibit. If not as the trophies of proud parents and grandparents, there are two prevalent ways in which Homelanders are put on display. One is the viral video featuring a toddler in some moment of discovery or precious and adorable behavior. Follow this link for a great example.

The other prevalent way that Homelanders are put on display is in the role of victims, as object lessons about the failures of our society. Movies like The Florida Project and Beasts of the Southern Wild portray young children in trying circumstances, on the economic fringes American life. Another example, What Maisie Knew, warns of the follies of the affluent and the damage that divorce and neglect do to a child.

The Homelanders who are truly on the fringes of American life are the undocumented migrants – their status raises doubts that they even belong to the homeland at all. The political left has made ample use of images of their tribulations to protest immigration policy. One photo of a crying toddler being processed by immigration authorities has become an iconic representation of these suffering innocents, caught on the edges of a fragmented society that is, with difficulty, trying to group itself back together.

In conclusion, the Homelander experience is reflective of the needs and priorities of their Gen-X and Millennial parents – to restore family stability, and to provide a controlled and safe environment for child nurture within a society that feels out of control and unsafe. With these goals in mind, children are being taught that rather than stand out, they should fit in. Rather than express emotions, they should manage emotions.

This is the opposite of how Generation X was raised half a century ago, at a time when family stability was not a priority, and parents sought to provide a free environment within a society that felt overly controlled and limiting. The reversal is a response by Gen-X, conscious of the failings their generation has faced as a consequence of lax parenting. Today’s parents will surely make there own mistakes, as all parents do, taking on what is the most difficult of all human endeavors. They will take things too far, and so set up the course corrections that will lead to another shift in how children are raised, for a new generation yet to be born.

To end this post on a positive note, here is a wonderful example of an adorable young Homelander viral video. These kids are our future.