You see the world a whole lot differently when you only have 10 to 20 years remaining in this life. A good life at the end of life according to current conventional Western standards is one in which health is reasonably maintained and the wallet is sufficiently fat to fund the “good things in life” usually understood as comfort, travel, and leisure sprinkled with enough exercise, part-time work, volunteerism, and social life to keep the heart pumping and the mind oiled, before leaving a well-preserved corpse.
If you have 60 to 80 years to live. You see the world in an entirely different light. Practical definitions of “good life”, “virtue,” “reasonableness,” and even “sanity” find a wholly different context and reality within which to situate themselves. They are being left with the consequences of the profligate actions of older generations– environmental degradation, national and international debt, and contracting or flat wage while prices for necessities like food, housing, health care, and education skyrocket, just to name a few. This generation posits that if they are to experience the consequences, then they ought to have a real say in collective policy and how it is to be conducted. By now it is an axiom that the younger generation desires “revolution,” and that the older generation prefers incremental change, also called “reform.”
This perceptual and existential split is borne out by the 70% of people under 50 who support Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for President and the 70% of people over 50 who support Joe Biden for the same position. Perhaps nothing underscores this split and its respective assumptions about the good life than debate between revolution and incrementalism in the debate last night between Sanders and Biden. It is a timeless debate, exemplified by, but not confined to, one night. Biden stridently argued against alleged chaos and disruption that would be caused by revolution, appealing to audience fears about an overload on society and personal anxiety as the world grips with the danger of an unpredictable virus and disease called COVID-19. Sanders countered that the present “order” is itself a disaster of even greater proportion than COVID-19, because it reinforces such massive and unjust separation of wealth and power (and restricted access to health care, living wage, environmental sustainability), that, it was a far greater foundational emergency requiring decisive broad-broad scale action to address the roots and not just the symptoms of a turbulent world.
This raises a question: How much of this world is created by humans, and how much of it is simply the product of unpredictable events? We are learning through the science of climate change that our human patterns and choices are major contributors to the health of the planet and the viability of future generations.
So let us revisit the world views of the two generations, the above-50 crowd and the below-50. To put it into, somewhat oversimplified terms: To older generations, the good life generally means to consume and enjoy. “Urgent” equals coronavirus and 401(k), fears of physical life being taken and financial security being robbed as the stock market tanks. To younger generations (who coincidentally are almost unaffected by the COVID-19 virus in terms of fatality), the good life generally means to produce and preserve. “Urgent” here equals a livable planet, a meaningfully creative life, and not staggering under the weight of crushing student debt and inadequate income.
If you are Boomer in at least semi-retirement, you still have a reasonable stake in the “system” (no matter how unsustainable it may be). Hey, you contribute into it, and you want to get your investment out of it, plus interest. If you are a Millennial (Gen Y) or a Zoomer (Gen Z), you know you won’t be able to get out jack squat from a system that is simply using you as fodder for an unsustainable pyramid scheme. (Gen Xers like me, straddle generations, and that is a whole other story.) Two different views of the good (and viable) life, formed by two entirely different, and largely incompatible, experiences.
To the younger generations, concentrating on “me” and “my retirement” dooms us collectively to a fatal myopia both in terms of space (“me”, “my family”) and in terms of time (no practical regard for future sustainability or consequences). Perhaps, that is why the younger generations are attracted to the motto of Sanders’ campaign “Not me. Us.” When your “future” has only 10-20 years, your “now” is going to take on a different kind of fierce urgency, then those that have a 60-80 year future frame.
“Yeah,” says Biden (paraphrased), “we will reach fully renewable energy by 2050 (so we don’t really have to deal with it while I am living).” Sanders says, in effect, “The scientists say we might have already run out of time, and fully renewable energy by 2030 is not only necessary but critical.” It is the age-old conflict, putting off an uncomfortable future that requires personal and social sacrifices, versus becoming proactive, sacrificing for, and creating a sustainable, vital future.
It is curious that both older and younger generations would claim they are “living for the now,” but that “now” is very different depending upon how many years you have to live and how tight your circle of concern is around your own being. If “now” means “to make the best of what’s still around before it’s gone,” then selfish hoarding is a virtue. “Somebody’s going to take it; it might as well be me.” Look no further than the panic-buying of toilet paper amid coronavirus scares to demonstrate this mentality. If “now” means we are presently making the planet unlivable, and social (costly housing), political (campaign financing corruption), and economic life (low wages) unsustainable, then whole-scale, wide-level changes take on a fierce urgency.
These two word views emanate out of two, almost entirely separate social, historical, and cultural realities. Individualism and meritocracy vs. collectivism and efficacy. Plentiful resources and good-paying jobs vs. scarce resources and crappy-paying jobs. Increased material standard vs. living to decreased standard of living. “I am the world” vs. “we are the world.”
The tension of this separation of experience is exemplified in post March 15, 2020 comments made by John Iadorola of The Young Turks’ regarding the “urgency” around COVID-19. The gist of his comment was that we can scramble and mobilize everything for this one virus, but if we don’t have a system like Medicare for All to provide a foundation of support and distribution of information and practice, we will have to do it all over again if there is a COVID-20 or COVID-21. His colleague Cenk Uygur, questioned the logic of covering those without health insurance for COVID-19, but not any other ailment.
This notion that one can “gain” by relative advantage over another person, seems no different than the same mentality that tries to buy up all the hand sanitizer and sell it at extortion rates. No one of any generation thinks that is okay. Everyone realizes that is unjust. Yet, somehow, we have an entire society run on exactly that principle, where the top few rich people own more wealth than the bottom half of the country, and continue to extract ever more wealth. Health insurers and drug companies charge usurious rates on insurance premiums, co-pays, and medicine because they have a monopoly. Why isn’t there the same outrage there? Why aren’t generation unified on this? I think it has something to do with feeling one “earned” one’s position in the world and not wanting to have it “taken away.” AND YET, this very mentality is in massive, concrete terms “taking away” a future life for future generations. Something has to give, literally “give” instead of take.
And that is the key. How can we develop a cross-generational notion that giving of oneself and creating a better world (whatever it may be, sanding and painting that old fence, recycling, time sharing, etc.) as a social enterprise that is personally enhancing, rather than self-sacrificing? How might this filter beyond individual choices and into national and global policies? What kind of awareness and craft of collective awareness and action are we going to have to develop? Please tell me your thoughts in the comments.
