By Craig P. Dixon, southcoast247.com correspondent . Social Commentary 138
November 29th, 2007
And finally… Part 3.
By now, you've read parts 1 and 2. You've checked out the required assigned viewing. You're likely wondering how it's all going to end.
Well, if you believed any of what the staff of 60 Minutes fed you in that Morley Safer bit, you feel that, after some costly therapy and motivational seminars, the business world will adapt around the Millenials. All will be good and dandy, until some moron 30 years from now coins a new generational name. New people will make money. The cycle continues.
However, if you're of the opposite view and believe that the staff of 60 Minutes had a bit of their facts mixed up, you probably think that the world won't adapt to the me generation. The American business world may. But the rest of the world, the increasingly growing ever smaller international business world, absolutely will not change for the me generation. The me's will have to adapt to the real world… or be left like lilting branches in the passing breeze of the far hungrier foreign worker.
I think countries and their generations can be compared to a 100-meter footrace. The differences between leading, placing, and losing are slight, indeed. All it takes is one misstep, and you're fucked.
After having The Greatest Generation (those that fought World War II), America has had quite a few lousy follow-ups. The Babyboomers. Gen X. Business as usual types that rode the wake of The Greatest. Followed the "I want things better for the next generation" ethos.
You're not that unique or original.
And what do we have now? The watered down final product of continuous copying, i.e. garbage. This me generation is anything but new or original. They're just too busy dancing crazily to their iPods or posting blogs on the YouTube to know any different.
I disagree with the 60 Minutes article for a lot of reasons. 1. There aren't as many jobs out there as they claim. 2. People these days can be afford to be picky about jobs because of IRA and 401k rollover. The same couldn't be said of jobs in the past, where one had to work 30 years to receive a pension. 3. The article suggests the only jobs available to Millenials are customer service jobs. 4. Is it any wonder why Millenials don't stay at these jobs long? And so on.
But, I do agree with Morley Safer. Morley doesn't let this bullshit Millenial rhetoric get past him. With much wisdom, he confronts every bit of Millenial escapism with skepticism, loathing, and (best of all) a knowing smirk that seemed to say, "You poor deluded fools don't know how fucked you are."
He sees through your bullshit
The idea that these constantly coddling, praise-happy, therapist-like office environments will keep America anywhere near the economic fore as hungry, booming nations like China and India clip our heels is a dangerous farce. This nation peaked in the footrace long ago. We've made mistake after foreign policy and economic mistake. And the pussy generation will be on the track when we're overtaken by not one, not two, but at least a handful of economically and culturally stronger countries, unless serious steps are taken.
At the ground level, people have got to change. The me generation has got to make sacrifices. Learn to do without the Blackberry. Take a shower and a stand against the detrimental attitudes of their own.
Because if the me generation keeps going business as usual, we'll be gleefully preening to the crowd, never thinking more highly of ourselves, holding the torch just long enough to witness America's resounding defeat. I don't doubt we'll have enough wind at race's end to blame the loss on anyone but ourselves.
