For at least two generations, the West has raised spoiled, stunted children. Millennials have had maturity problems that their younger counterparts didn’t. Gen Z is even worse.
When I criticize the shortcomings of the younger generation, as I state here, it is not out of pride. I am not trying to “catch” them. My ego does not grow twice as big by “cutting” them.
Gen Z today is objectively the least competent generation we have ever seen in every area of life, and while this is not their fault, they are the only ones who can recognize and fix this.
Gen Z sees older people like me as their enemy and they don’t believe it, but some of us older people genuinely care about them. I am one. I want to help young people elevate themselves to a higher level, just like caring adults did for me when I was young and lost.
Young people today, through no fault of their own, have a distorted and false view of themselves. They believe they have knowledge they don’t. They believe they have wisdom, when all they have is generational bias. Their parents and teachers have praised them for their substandard work and behavior their whole lives. Why don’t they think they know better than some stupid 50-year-old?
“You are a bad man!” You are such a bad man!
The modern (and never before seen in our living memory) inversions of values permeate all levels of culture. Here are some of these inversions. These are not only inversions of values, but also inversions of objective reality.
- Young people are more knowledgeable than older people.
- Young people have a more finely tuned sense of morality than real adults, and they know what society should do.
- Young people are much more considerate than older adults.
- Young people have a social and moral right to ridicule, abuse, and “correct” older people who do not appease their own views.
These are problems, not progress. And they are not small problems. They are potentially civilization-ending problems. It is no coincidence that we witnessed the young becoming more culturally uplifted than the old during the Hitler Youth and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. This reversal warns us that we are in Bolshevik mode.
“It’s a Good Life” (1961-CBS) Screenshot
When I was a boy, other kids bored me. I wanted to participate in adult conversations (even though it wasn’t my place). Whenever I could learn a new skill, I wanted to learn it immediately: cooking, fixing things, basic maintenance on a car, stick driving (even old-fashioned non-synchro-mesh transmissions that required double-clutching were fun!).
When I mastered these skills, I felt authentic and gained pride. He was competent and confident. In my generation, this was a normal attitude for children. Adults encouraged it too, which was natural.
Adults with self-esteem
That’s all gone. Today’s Generation Z is objectively the least capable generation we’ve ever seen in all areas of life. This is not their fault, but only they can recognize this and fix it. But not many do so because they have been taught that being called incompetent, disrespectful, ignorant, or simply “not perfect” is an attack. They experience correction and guidance as acts of aggression against them. They have little true ego strength.
I saw an ad the other day for Uber Teens. That’s right. Uber’s special account just for teens. Take a step back and look at it from five feet away. There is, in fact, a market for “teen taxi services.” It’s astonishing and alarming.
Why does such a market exist? Because spoiled, stunted Gen Z doesn’t want to get a driver’s license. And that’s surprising. Have you ever tried to teach a young person to drive a manual car? I tried. The reaction was immediately negative. Bewilderment, fear and a little bit of disgust. “No way I could do that. It’s too difficult.”
The consequences of the false self-esteem that adults have inflated in this generation are also evident in their writing: the quality of many young people’s writing falls far below the normal standards of writing ability that until recently were thought to be achievable by anyone of average intelligence.
The way they write reflects negative changes in our cultural psychology. Young writers rely on the passive voice. Avoid direct expressions. Replace thought words with feeling words. For example, “Many voters feel that the president’s health may not be very good.” They write in a weak, timid tone. The style they try to develop often ends up introducing redundant expressions and superlatives that emphasize emotion.
Instead of writing clearly and confidently based on their subject knowledge, many young people try to “sound fancy.” For example, compare the following two sentences:
“She gave him a classic Corvette for his 65th birthday,” I write.
“She gifted him a classic Corvette,” wrote one Gen Zer.
to be influenced. Tweet. Flower-like. Objectively malicious writing. Elegant circumlocutions cannot hide grammatical and syntactical incompetence.
It’s just terrible prose.
And nobody has ever taught them that. They are hard to correct for two reasons.
- They are unaware of the flaws in their own writing because they have been taught by incompetent adults.
- They do not have the emotional ego strength to hear constructive criticism without reacting with hurt feelings; they experience correction as an attack.
Are you a Gen Z reader? If you are, and you’re still with me, here are two anecdotes that will help you understand what I mean.
“Please never submit a paper like this again.”
I went to Sarah Lawrence College, the most liberal of liberal arts schools, and I was trained to write in the style of the Foucauldian continental philosophers. In other words, I was trained to write badly.
But I had professors and advisors who cared about me and wanted to see me do my best. My freshman year, I turned in a paper to my advisor that I had just “called” on, and Mary, my Don, wrote it in red pen and handed it back to me.
“Josh, never submit a paper like this again. I know what you’re going to do, and I’ll never forgive you.”
It was humiliating, but it was a gift: I never turned in substandard work again.
A few years later, I “graduated” from the small-town weekly paper I’d started at and took a job at a small-town daily. The first few months were self-destructive. My editor, Bob, frequently handed my copy back to me in actual, physical red pen (and real-world paper. Gross and scary, right?).
My writing was flowery and full of adjectives, with a tone inappropriate for news reporting. Bob followed me around, whittling down superfluous adjectives and teaching me about the “inverted pyramid” structure of news writing.
A few months later he said to me: “Josh, you overestimated yourself in the interview. You weren’t that good. But now you’re a much better writer.”
And the following year, I won first place at the Statewide Press Association Awards for Consumer Investigative Reporting. Bob’s discipline was a gift to me, not a punishment.
If there’s one thing I can tell young people and really get them to embrace and embrace it, it’s this: You’re capable of so much more than you think. You can learn to write, manage your finances, and cook for yourself.
But to get there, you have to honestly assess where you are now. The sad truth is that the adults around you are giving you a false impression of your skill level. No sarcasm, insult, or hurtful intent here, but they are saying that objectively you are far less capable than adults your age from previous generations.
It’s not your fault. You’re not an unworthy human being. It doesn’t mean that I or other older adults “hate” you.
These elders want to help you become a complete, mature, capable, and sober adult. Can you let us do that?
Josh Slocum is the former president of a nonprofit advocacy group for funeral service consumers. He and producer Kevin Hurley are co-authors of the book ““Disaffected” podcast. he also Consulting and Coaching For those dealing with narcissism and family issues. This article was originally published in Disgruntled Newsletter.
