In Defense of Us (the Millennials)

Recently I had the opportunity and displeasure of being present in a room full of theatre board members as they unleashed their anger and vitriol about millennials. This included a discussion of how we are lazy, live with our parents, don't value the arts, aren't ambitious/working, and aren't contributing or donating charitably to the arts. While I understand the frustration, what you're grappling with is that we aren't doing what you expected and wanted us to. Instead, we are doing things our own way. And to be fair, we weren't given a clean slate.

Come on. It's time to take some accountability for the crappy state of affairs that you left us with.

I write to ask you to give us a fair shake, to re-examine your view of us which is based on us failing to behave like you, and to ask for understanding. Please understand that our systems of representation and education will not look like yours. They will be flawed, and human. But they will constitute our striking back and striking out.

Here are a few things you should give us credit for:

We are well-educated but struggle to find work in a world with increasing specialization. Our generation has more master's and advanced degrees than any of our predecessors. This is in response to a highly specialized and knowledge-based economy. Oh, and your generation won't retire. That doesn't help. The market is saturated with bachelor's degrees now - the BA is just a ticket to the fair. Doesn't get you on any of the rides. A lot of American jobs have left the country. Our generation didn't start the outsourcing but we are left to reconfigure the economy to render it sustainable and viable. We aren't the first generation to struggle with this: Pierre Bourdieu describes the cheating of a generation in France in the 60s, labeling it "diploma inflation," and comments about the disenchantment engendered by the failure of the generation's attainment of educational qualifications.


We are open-minded and we are willing to experiment. Maya Angelou wrote, "It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength." Our generation has started doing this. We are more receptive to immigrants, gay marriage, non-traditional family structures than our predecessors, according to research by the Pew Research Center. We aren't rushing to the altar, because we saw our parents' generation struggle with incredibly high divorce rates. Is this a bad thing? Can you blame us?

We also, as Erica Williams notes in her speech about how we are redefining civic engagement, a generation attempting to be post-racist.

PopTech 2009: Erica Williams from PopTech on Vimeo.

She also notes that politics, for us, is about how we're going to change the world together. It doesn't look like your politics. So please stop expecting it to.

Also, we are able to hold a multiplicity of viewpoints. We don't reduce things to binaries. For us, it's not inconceivable to respect both Kant and Kanye. My listening to Kanye and appreciating his lyrics does not diminish my ability to respect the intricacies of Kant's philosophy. Stories like those that the Coen brothers tell on film enhance my appreciation for great literature, like Shakespeare, Austen, Tolstoy. The Coen brothers live in an era where they can masterfully use visuals to relay the same elements of drama, to depict characters as complex as Anna Karenina. I listen to Bach when I study for exams; I listen to pop when I work out at the gym. Pop culture and classical culture are not mutually exclusive, and only those with limited imagination and a binaristic, exclusive world view would think so.

I tire of hearing older generations complain how we don't know about the arts. Well, you let Reagan slash funding for arts in schools. If you prevented us from having arts in schools, how and where do you expect us to have attained this proficiency, fluency?

You're not making sense with money. If our generation is struggling to make ends meet and living at home, can you blame us for not donating to charity? Really? You can't fault us on both of these. They are two sides of the same coin. Let's find some jobs that allow us to pay rent first; once we get there, then you can start nagging us on our funding priorities.

We are tech-savvy. There are some serious downsides to technology - shortened attention spans, a sense of instant gratification and difficulty negotiating slower, "snail" systems. Yes, I agree. I'll give you that. BUT. Who made the tv the babysitter? What generation did that? Hmmm.

And technology is uniting the world, creating new systems and ways of doing things. Organizations like Kiva offer imaginative remakings of old systems of money, using technology to do so. Note Erica Williams' discussion of activism via internet research and Flipcam testimonials. There are phenomenal possibilities available with technology. We don't have them all figured out yet, but doesn't it seem fair that we are proficient with it, since the world we are left with demands it? If we aren't tech-savvy, we are less viable candidates to employers. You have us damned if we do, damned if we don't.

So, maybe we need some time to figure out how we want to navigate the world you left us. We saw the mistakes you made, and we don't want to make them. That's why we're more likely to go into nonprofits - we aren't interested in a profit-driven world. You left us some shitty systems: a world with an increasing and volatile gap between the rich and poor, a devastated environment, and a fully unsustainable economic and work system. That's a lot of work for us to take on. But we will get there. We have some great tools.

Just because we do not accept your way as the right way does not mean that we aren't concerned or disengaged - we just do things in a different way. I am asking you to do something that Pierre Bourdieu notes is atypical for those in the privileged, dominant class (which you are). In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, he writes that "the most privileged individuals, who remain most attached to the former state of affairs, to be the slowest to understand the need to change strategy and so to fall victim to their own privilege" (24). You are attached to your systems, and that's fine - but please understand that we are too. And it's our world that rising.