There has been much sturm und drang about the dismal fate of our generation recently. First, the New York Times columnist David Brooks published excerpts from an essay by a Yale senior, which declared millennials the “Cynic Kids.” We have, apparently, lost faith in American primacy, the capitalist system, and idealism. And the meritocratic system is turning into “Honey Boo Boo.”
Then came a piece in Quartz by another Yale senior (there is a trend here) that quoted the lyrics of the band Vampire Weekend: “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance.” He lamented the fact that Yale grads “haven’t been able to find jobs that pay better than minimum wage.” He concludes, “we’re cynical because we have to be.”
But, we don’t. We—they—are cynical because they want to be. They choose to overlook the hope, optimism, and obligation that should distinguish millennials. Their cynicism masks an underlying solipsism. They exhibit the same self-centeredness that defines the dyspeptic, “voice of our generation” TV show Girls. There, the stakes seem so high precisely because they are so low; the sheltered 20-somethings in the show manage to make the entire world revolve around them.
A similar self-absorbed revisionism emerges from the Yale seniors’ accounts of generational struggle, which gloss over the significant difficulties of every cohort of college graduates. Buhler touches on 9/11 and the Quartz author talks about the recession of the 1980s. But, how do we measure ourselves against the social struggles of the 1960s or the upheaval of Vietnam? The college protests against the Vietnam War necessitated a presidential commission on campus unrest, and 2.2 million young men were drafted into military service.
Youth unemployment is bad today, but it was nearly as high in the 1980s. As our elders say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Can we really claim to be the generation of cynicism and fright?
In fact, far from cynical, we ought to be grateful for the unprecedented opportunity we have been afforded. More than almost any other generation, millennials have been isolated from the burden of war. Time has profiled “the other one percent,” the hundreds of thousands of young men and women in a “permanent military caste” who have borne a decade of war, freeing the rest of us to pursue our daily lives.
Drew Faust has further spoken of the “imperceptible updraft of inexplicable luck.” Of the 120 million 21-year-olds in the world, just thousands of us had the extraordinary luck to wind up at Harvard, Yale, and other colleges. Our success is the confluence of history, meritocracy, and pure chance, being at the right place at the right time. To overlook luck is to grow entitled, to lose “the sense of obligation that derives from understanding that things might have been otherwise.”
Finally, cynicism flies in the face of a world that has never been better. Globally, more people have been lifted out of poverty in the last six years than in the previous 25. Never before has such economic progress been made in so little time. Doctors have cured babies of HIV/AIDS. The Economist has heralded a “rising” and “hopeful” Africa. Self-driving cars may soon be a reality, and Steven Pinker argues that we live in the most peaceful era of human history.
Much of the world is still recovering from recession, but for people across the globe, there is immense hope. It is apparently not a great time to be a Yale senior, but there has never been a better time in history to be a human being. So why are we Cynic Kids again?
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