I continue to be amazed by the number of youth and young adults who are stressed and burnt out from the regular shaming and feelings of inadequacy if they happen to not being doing something unique and special. Today’s Millennial generation is being fed the message that if they don’t do something extraordinary in this life they are wasting their gifts and potential. The sad result is that many young adults feel ashamed if they “settle” into ordinary jobs, get married early and start families, live in small towns, or as 1 Thess 4:11 says, “aspire to live quietly, and to mind [their] affairs, and to work with [their] hands.” For too many Millennials their greatest fear in this life is being an ordinary person with a non-glamorous job, living in the suburbs, and having nothing spectacular to boast about.This problem is worsened, he says, by well-intentioned ministers calling for "radical Christianity,"
an idea that we were created for far more than a nice, comfortable Christian spin on the American dream. An idea that we were created to follow One who demands radical risk and promises radical reward.Which I would file under, "young Catholics are people, too." The call for radical Christianity is just a religious version of the message coming from every direction, to be someone special and do special things. This is one of the chief banes of life in our society, especially for well-educated young people. We all feel this pressure to be extraordinary.
As a man over fifty with quite a good life who can't stop thinking about ways to escape from it into something beyond the mundane, I have thought about this often. The question I keep coming back to is whether we feel this way because ordinary life is uniquely miserable in our society, or because we are rich enough to get beyond the material worries that kept earlier generations from focusing so much on their lack of fulfillment.
Largely the latter, I think: this anxiety about being special is a side effect of great wealth. But not entirely. Our society is really good at things that cost money and take lots of free time, but not so good at the cheap things that sustained our ancestors through their ordinary lives. We are bad at community solidarity, at shared public festivals, at creating work as meaningful and real as farming or hunting or making things with our hands. This connects somehow to inequality; the things we are great at, from scientific research to private submarines, are mainly limited to small groups by their cost or the generally hypercompetitive nature of our world. And one of our great triumphs, making information on the whole world available to everyone, can add to the restlessness that keeps us from settling into ordinary lives.
What can we do? Some conservatives in American and Europe think the solution to our narcissistic obsession with specialness could be found in religion; religion would both reconcile us to, and lift us above, lives of quiet duty. But this is clearly not the case for many people. Instead, religion only adds another area in life where we feel like we ought to be taking great risks for great rewards.
Fascinating, thought-provoking post. One thought I have is one should not underestimate the simple effect of praise and blame. People get a lot of that, they dish out a lot of it, and I think it has a profound psychological effect. This is not unique to our society, though the fact that educated people in our society are raised in assessment bureaucracies (called "schools") and then sent to work in other assessment bureaucracies (what a horrid institution is the yearly employee review!) may heighten the effect.
ReplyDeleteAnother is that our ancestors may have been a lot less content than they looked. I suspect mostly they were fatalistic, as well as frequently drunk, casually violent, determined to hide their problems, and exhausted by manual labor much of the time.
Nicely put David.
ReplyDeleteAssessment bureaucracies.
The first sentence of the text John mentions refers to a young man, rich in opportunities, wrestling with what to do with his life. An enviable position indeed.
However, the vast majority of young people currently do not have boundless opportunities, and no doubt the majority would be more than grateful to have jobs with a life-sustaining wage, financial stability, a decent home, a family.
I assume the "Catholic writer" lives in a monastery and is not yet aware of certain signs of impending disaster for mankind. Does he have the historical knowledge and wisdom to realize the wheels seem to be coming off?
It would be astonishing the young weren't apprehensive about the future and desirous of doing something great.
On the other hand, I guess we could all give up, slip back into religion and superstition, be content with our lot while taking consolation in the Happy Hunting ground in the sky that awaits when this life is over.
Another great post, John
David, I was thinking about the things people get praised for. We praise people for doing the extraordinary. Traditional societies praise people for correctly fulling the slots they were born into and were just as likely to be nasty as admiring when people stepped outside their hereditary station. Farmers should be good farmers, not astronauts.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous -- sure, there are lots of young people worried about the future who would be happy to have any decent job. But within my limited circle are three or four with exactly this problem: they have ok jobs but feel like they should be doing much more.
ReplyDeleteJohn, And often they didn't want people to be too good at farming, either. In the Old World, at least, not provoking envy was always a strong impulse in village and town. My students are always incredulous when I explain that part of the purpose of guilds was to try to make sure everyone worked the same hours, made the same products, sold them at the same price, and ensure that no master, no matter how hardworking or successful, had more than one shop.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I appreciate your kind words, but I don't live in a monastery, and yet I fail to see signs of impending disaster for mankind. Compared to, say, the 1930s, I think things look pretty good. And I'm not an optimistic person by inclination.
David,
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time thinking about the melting of the ice caps, the disappearance of bees, the disappearance of ash trees. Here in MN we're expected to lose a billion ashes in the next few years. A billion.
Not much concern, however -- after all, the loss of other trees, chestnuts, butternuts, elms' didn't affect the DOW. Then there's pesticide resistant insects and the depletion of natural minerals in "renewable" farmland.
The West is quickly loosing its evergreen forests to beetles and drought, songbird populations have been in decline for 50 years. The water tables much of the West has depended on are quickly being depleted.
On my dad's land in Colorado 500-year-old cedars and 100-year-old cottonwoods are dying from drought. Unless you live in Tucson what's happening to the saguaros may not matter.
No sweat about Fukushima (it's still leaking.) for awhile at least -- for John anyway. He's in the East.
A number of diseases that were thought to be controlled are coming back as antibiotics become ineffective-- TB, that killed one out of 4 Europeans in the 19th century' is one of them.
As for the economy, I suppose as long as the Fed can keep pumping out fiat currency Americans can buy everything they want -- oh wait, actual wages in the U.S. started down in 1968-72 and continue down, poverty has risen, the mid-range jobs have been exported, Detroit is in receivership, with other great cities to follow. Currently one child out of four doesn't get enough to eat. That rate is increasing. College and housing slip further beyond the reach of many middle class families.
Doctor's and dentist's visits have measurably fallen off as fewer can afford them. Most doctors I know feel the medical profession is in crisis.
You're apparently an educator. How's that profession going? Up here it isn't doing well.
The Baby Boomers are the first generation since the founding of the 13 colonies that won't do better economically than the previous generation, and their kids are having it tougher than they did. Their grand kids have it worse yet. In the U.S we're still getting a free ride, but the Crash of 2008 indicates that con game may be over.
Since you teach about the guilds, you must know some history, but when you compare the growth of manufacturing jobs, expansion of railroads and maritime growth, the increasing farm production and goods loaded during the worst years of the depression, you'll see that despite that financial bump, in the '30s the country's economy was basically strong and continued to grow.
In what areas do you see economic growth coming -- growth that will pull the world out of this economic crisis?
Believe me, I'm not a sourpuss, myself. I read and travel a lot, mostly on back roads, and I talk to people wherever I go, and most American still seem to be as optimistic as you. But then when I ask where they get their news, I'm not surprised. Optimism seems to decline as information increases.
Using bumper-sticker reasoning, if you're not concerned, you're not paying attention.
Long reply, but meant with good intentions.
FWIW, I've seen lists like this pretty much every year since the days of the Nixon administration. There was a time when they could get me pretty alarmed. Now, I can only quote the German general in The Longest Day, who announces, "I'm too old a bunny to get very excited about all this."
ReplyDeleteOf course, your alarm may be the one that turns out to be right. In which case I'll be an old and stupid bunny.
But I do like that German general's line.
Could it have been a mistranslation? Could the general have he said "Strausz" instead of "Kaninchen"? -- "I'm an old ostrich."
ReplyDeleteThere was certainly plenty of difficulty in Berlin facing up to reality as the Red Army was rolling west and the Americans, Brits and Canucks left the beaches and started rolling east.
No intent to alarm or excite -- and certainly age can claim a rest. Just the same, things have changed a good deal since Nixon's days, but the problems haven't gone away.
And I certainly wouldn't advise John's kids to attempt great things with a world-view based on a past long gone or on the pretty illusions fostered by our corporate media.
John, the masthead of the old Denver Post used to carry the slogan "There's no hope for the satisfied man." It's commendable your kids want to do more. "Arete," the pursuit of excellence and all that.
Reason for you to be proud.
Hey look! Nine comments!
ReplyDeleteA little friendly controversy can't help but attract traffic.
And your site is certainly worthy of far greater notice.