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Why Millennials and Gen Z Hate Boomers - YouTube
Channel: ReasonTV
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Lazy, entitled, stupid,
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selfish, dumb, crazy, lost, ignorant,
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spoiled, bad, sensitive,
snowflake, annoying,
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fucked, and on and on and on.
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That's how Millennial and Gen Z-ers
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say they're routinely described,
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according to SUNY
psychologist Karla Vermeulen,
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author of the new book
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"Generation Disaster:
Coming of Age Post 9-11."
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Who can blame them for being pissed off?
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One of the quotes that I
use was someone saying,
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"I feel like our generation
has been handed a bill
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"for a party we didn't get to attend."
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So this is really one of
the main sources of anger
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at older generations, at
Boomers in particular.
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Younger Americans have
been raised to believe
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that their leaders lie about everything,
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that the entire financial system existed
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to bail out big banks when
they crashed the economy,
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that endless war is the
natural state of things,
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and that they were about to
be blown up by terrorists
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or shot during school at any moment.
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I have a chapter in the book
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called Lockdown Drills in Kindergarten.
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They literally have had these drills
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the same way that we had fire drills.
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Vermeulen's book looks specifically
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at people born between 1990 and 2001,
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but her conclusions are broadly relevant
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to folks under 40 or so.
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She says their fears are mostly overhyped.
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Our focus on statistically rare events
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such as school shootings have
jacked depression, anxiety,
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and resentment through the roof.
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The psychological effect of
participating in these drills
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for young kids and kids
writing wills to their parents
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and thinking they're literally gonna die.
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And it's security theater,
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the disproportionate attention
and resources that go
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towards preventing these
highly, highly unlikely events
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relative to the more direct
mental health stressors
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kids are actually dealing with.
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But the biggest driver
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of Generation Disaster's stress
and anger, says Vermeulen,
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are narratives about how climate change
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is about to destroy the planet
in the very near future.
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The world is gonna end in 12 years
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if we don't address climate change.
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Whether or not you think
that is exaggerated,
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this is the messaging that
they've been receiving
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and this is definitely the biggest source
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of anxiety for them.
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I would say school shootings
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are kind of the most
acute stressor for them,
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but their worries about climate change
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and the future of the planet
is truly existential for them.
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They talk about not thinking
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that they won't be able to have children
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or they don't want to have children
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because they don't want
to leave them this planet
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that they've inherited.
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I think that what makes it
so hard for them to deal with
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is they feel like there's so
little they can do about it.
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Baby Boomers, who hated their own parents
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and used to shout slogans like
don't trust anyone over 30,
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should be able to empathize
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with how Millennials and
Gen Z-ers are feeling.
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We need to find ways
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of talking more productively
across generation.
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Vermeulen says that the essential
starting point is respect.
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To the parents, I guess I would
say really listen to them.
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A lot of them are delightful.
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They are creative.
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They are thoughtful.
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They are far more sophisticated
than I was at their age
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because they've had all of this access
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to all of these resources,
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everything that they now have
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literally in their hand
at their fingertips.
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And take their concerns seriously
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because they are valid in many ways.
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I'll add to that.
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We need to have more
fact-based discussions
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that take into account vast amounts
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of huge social, economic,
and environmental progress
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that we either take for granted
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or politicians and the press ignore
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because it doesn't fit their agenda.
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Extreme poverty has
been cut from 94% to 10%
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over the past two centuries,
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education and literacy have skyrocketed,
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racism, sexism, and
homophobia have all declined,
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global life expectancy
continues to increase
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and democracy is on the rise.
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The 2018 UN Climate Report
that supposedly claimed
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that the world is going to end in 12 years
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actually says nothing of the sort.
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Policy analysts such as Scott
Winship note that 70 percent
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of American 30-year-olds are doing better
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than their parents were at the same age.
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For Generation Disaster,
why are their parents
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or their grandparents having
these negative reactions?
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Beause you don't understand them
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any more than they understand you,
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but you could probably try that.
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Every generation fights
for its place in the world
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and there's no question
that the same Boomers
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who once sang along to Bob Dylan's
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"The Times They Are a-Changin'"
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are incredibly slow to exit the stage
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and give anyone else a
turn in the spotlight.
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There's no question that
Millennials and Gen Z
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are facing unique problems
that they didn't cause,
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but that's also been true
of every other generation.
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We've just lost the ability
to talk to each other
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and to listen to views,
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not lost entirely, but it is challenging,
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listen to views that are
in conflict with our own
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and try to understand why
people have these perspectives.
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