The least grateful generation
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Like many who watched the Hamas attacks unfold on television, the images of burnt-alive bodies and child corpses being piled into shabby truck beds slapped me awake into a truer and more terrible reality. My good fortune borders on the hallucinatory in times like these — the fridge full of fresh food in the kitchen, the stack of good books on the lampstand, the newborn child wriggling on my lap with play in his eyes. After all, there is no reason why psychopathic killers shouldn't suddenly drop out of the sky and butcher my family; no reason we should be spared an agonizing and animalistic death.
The longer I think about it, the less sense it makes.
To wit, the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old — a number that may as well be gibberish for our inability to comprehend it. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, modern humans 300,000, civilization 40,000, agriculture 12,000, the steady current of electricity 150… you get the point. We are unfathomably fortunate to live in 21st-century America, warts and all. The odds that we should have skipped over the vast stretches of darkness to arrive here — in our climate-controlled homes with high-speed internet — are functionally zero. And yet, inexplicably, here we are.
But the news out of Israel is a grim reminder that our unfathomable good fortune is only that. We are not entitled to this age of plenty; we are not guaranteed that it will persist. The darkness is a dogged foe. It yawns at will and swallows up the spaces in which the light has not been tended.
The economic miracle of America has produced unrivaled prosperity and technological marvels, but it has not tended its light, which is the same in every civilization: its children. The youth mental health crisis seems to be without bottom as more children than ever before report feeling some ongoing psychic malady. Four in 10 report feeling "persistently sad or hopeless," according to a recent study. One in five report to have seriously considered suicide.
We have failed to confer the moral instruction that enabled our ancestors to thrive in favor of expediency: cheesy relativism for hard questions, fast food for busy lives, and nonstop digital entertainment for the gaping hole of meaninglessness in the postmodern world. We have failed to teach the next generation that the meaning of life is to fashion the heart for heaven. And so they became enamored of other pursuits.
The darkness made quick work of our spiritually neglected children. On American university campuses, they now side openly with the very faces of evil and their nihilistic stooges in the academy. "Glory to the martyrs!" they chant at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, openly celebrating Hamas's acts of terror. "We will liberate the land by any means necessary!"
"The events that took place yesterday are a step towards a free Palestine," declared a student group at the University of Virginia. "We stand in solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters."
Students in masks — is that meant to signal moral virtue or vice? I can't tell anymore — at George Washington University held an event called "Vigil for the Martyrs of Palestine" that mourned the death of Hamas terrorists who had just finished raping, torturing, and murdering 1,400 Israelis. On campuses across the country, flyers that featured the hang-gliders used by the terrorists were distributed for events such as these.
It has long been clear that we've failed these children, but to see it laid bare like this is terrible and painful. We inherited a level of prosperity unknown to the kings and queens of history, but we taught our children to despise the very ground upon which it was built; to despise not only their enemies, real and supposed, but the whole of existence including themselves.
They, like the suicidal psychopaths of Hamas, see humanity as a blight.
Sit in an environmental studies lecture for five minutes, and you'll see they are not interested in saving the world for the sake of humanity but in saving the world from humanity. When the next wave of Jihadi terror reaches our shores — and it will — it breaks my heart to consider whether or not they will mourn or celebrate with their professors because I'm sure the latter is true.
At root is a profound ingratitude for the unfathomable gift of life — in this age or any. May God have mercy on us.
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Heaven can wait, it has been doing so ever since our knuckles rose from the ground.
How about peace? Can peace wait as well?...
Does not appear to be the case.
No, but it's going to have to, isn't it?..
You can replace the word heaven with peace, love, or justice and it still rings true...
Peace is war fought by diplomats, both are temporary.
A cynic would say..
Do you have any opinions on the subject of the seed?
I seeded a similar yet less virulent article on the subject several days ago, your contribution was but a snarky link.
Ahh.. was your challenge answered?..
Can't take anybody seriously who believes in heaven or hell.
Okay
Nine years ago, Joe Biden declared that the barbarians who beheaded reporter Jim Foley would be chased down to the very gates of Hell, and then he repeated that it was there that they would reside.
The country is gone. A lot went into it. I also blame the people who thought it would simply go away.
Far from it, but if you keep saying so it may just well fall from the sky.
Pretty sure it is still here. It may not be your authoritarian dreamland, but it is here.
The better things get, the more unhappy people are.
Often the case with young people ... for many angst is an integral part of growing pains.
Angst? What level of angst do you have to have to embrace this level of depravity? How far do you have to be out of touch with being a human?..
A collective one, the past and present are fraught with them ... ideologies and religions are fertile ground. And then, I may have watched Pollyanna a few times too many with my daughter. But as the wise man said, "there were good people on both sides".
Do I wholly disagree with the author? Not at all, but his angst (I call it an endless partisan diatribe) was akin to tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
Someone should toss him a roll of paper towels.
I seriously doubt that many of these students are guided by theology, ideology absolutely. "A collective one"? Yeah, that's what happens when morality doesn't have a standing in a society...
Situational ethics is just so much more convenient.
It also seems to align with identity politics quite well....
Indeed.
This statement, on examination, is nonsense. To say that someone is fortunate to live in the 21st century is to suggest that we could have lived in the , say 19th century. Or some other century. A silly thought. People are alive now because they are alive now, and unless we ascribe to some sort of reincarnation there is no other time we could have been alive. Someone can say "I wish I lived in the 14th century so I could have been a knight", but that is a fantasy not something that was ever possible.
The other dumb thing in the authors statement is "The odds that we should have skipped over the vast stretches of darkness to arrive here — in our climate-controlled homes with high-speed internet — are functionally zero."
More nonsense. This is a variation of "why is there something rather than nothing." We dont know the answer to that , probably because there is no answer, and no need for an answer. No one skipped over vast stretches of darkness, because their existence began on , and will most likely end on, this slab of rock.
Thanks for your post John. I'm pretty sure he was speaking metaphorically about the advancement of humanity...
Thanks JR, i didn't realize the you are a complete literalist.
The writer is the one claiming that people should be grateful to be alive now. Compared to what? Not being alive now? There is no alternative to being alive now. Telling someone, "be glad you were born in 2000 instead of 1500 " means nothing. No one can be born at a time different than what they were.
People who are alive now have no responsibility to be "grateful" for the fact, it couldnt have happened any other way.
People who are alive now have no responsibility to be "ungrateful" for the fact, it couldnt have happened any other way.
Fixed it for you.....
I’m grateful to be alive whenever.
Exactly...
So you admit that the 'author' of this 'article' makes no sense then?
Awesome!
I think that my generation, the Baby Boomers are the least grateful generation. We didn’t live through the Civil War or the Great Depression or WW II. We’ve cut our taxes, are running up the debt astronomically, are wrecking the environment yet still retain a huge sense of entitlement.
White middle class boomers started becoming in charge in the 80’s and firmly held power by the mid-90’s.
We’ve weakened the value of a public education and grossly inflated the cost of college.
We’ve paved the way for alcohol and drug abuse at scale.
We started out as the Me Generation and we will die as the Me Generation leaving it to others to clean up after us.
You aren't wrong.
Yeah, he is.
Enjoyed the hell out of the 60s.
Not enjoying old age near as much.
Exactly, it's not for pussies.
The “pussies” that i’ve been witness to, are not the baby booomers, they’re the Generation X’erz, and or the generation Y, asz in Y do we have to work so hard to earn a living, and i see the reason Y ta B, it comes after X, now Z how dis works… ?