This was originally posted on November 4, 2011
Last Sunday on Meet the Press Tom Brokaw spoke about the breakdown of what he felt had been a common consensus about American life. He said that Americans are questioning the American dream which tells us that “our children and grandchildren will live better than us.” He found it disturbing that people now feel their children will not be better off than they were. The poor no longer see a way out of poverty and the middle class fear that their children will be unemployed for long periods in their lives, burdened with college debt, and unable to afford mortgages and college educations for their children. I have heard this idea expressed many times in the recent economic crisis, including by progressive journalist Adrianna Huffington.
What Brokaw and others do not mention is that a few generations ago, this American dream was the hope that one’s children would not live in poverty. Now, for the middle class if this dream means anything, it means having a bigger house, more cars, $2000 suits, botox and plastic surgery, expensive vacations, weddings costing tens of thousands of dollars, store-bought Halloween costumes, and so many Christmas presents that children step on their new toys to get to the tree for more packages. What Brokaw and others did not address is whether the desire for your children to have “more” than you had, once your family is out of poverty is a valid, good, or sustainable desire to have. Of course we should all hope that our children and children’s children will find employment and not live in poverty, but an endless upward spiral cannot be sustained and there is no evidence that it makes anyone any happier.
In For the Common Good, John Cobb and Herman Daly show that the “growth economy” which is integrally related to the dream that our children will do better than us is based in the exploitation of resources without regard for the true cost of doing so, and in the expansion of markets, both into other countries and by the creation of new “needs” and “desires” for consumers at home. In a growth economy there is no place for a farm that provides the same products year after year for a local market nor for a small store that supplies the needs of local consumers. In other words, the “growth economy” that is at the basis of both Democratic and Republican economic policies is the opposite of a sustainable economy. Moreover, as the 99% movement is recognizing, the benefits of the growth economy are accumulating in the hands of the 1%.
When I was young, another version of the American dream was created. It was the dream of Martin Luther King that black and white could live together, the vision of a great society in which no child would go hungry, and the imagining of anti-war movement of “all the people living life in peace.” I for one would be quite willing to give up the majority of my consumer goods and privileges and to live exactly as my parents and grandparents did or even somewhat less well, in exchange for living in a society where no one was discriminated against because of color, sex, or sexual orientation, where everyone lived well but sustainably, where work felt meaningful and there was time to enjoy life, and where the world was not continually at war. This is a dream I could believe in and it has nothing specifically to do with America. Sadly it is a dream that is rarely even spoken about any more.
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“The (newer) American Dream” – wow this is a killer – get more buy more and this leads to a better life? STUFF does not bring happiness as the richest country flounders in separation murder war and hatred…. Once we did have dreams that peoples of all kinds COULD co exist together… This post was written 13 years ago -and oh how we have fallen.
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I realize right now I am speaking as a man not as a woman. But I’m also speaking as a Millennial. So I think I have some insight to add to this. I also want to add a disclaimer first. What I am about to say is not a generalization against all of the older generations.
I understand that many of the elders tried to fix this world. And were put down by their elders as “traitors” and “communists”. With that said here’s my take.
I definitely believe our descendants should live better than us. It’s selfish to only focus on ourselves. Our generation was never consulted with whether or not we should be born. No one asked themselves,
“Gee, do we think we have created a world that is suitable to raise kids? Maybe we should try fixing it first,”
Instead many just brought their children into this messed up world. And we were forced to “suck it up” and just deal with it. It’s like they raised a generation meant to be drones to just continue doing what they did. Then take care of them so they won’t end up in a nursing home later. That’s it.
It was all for their benefit. And if anyone thinks this is an unfair assessment, then you should know that’s exactly what our elders raised us to believe. Oh they didn’t say it that way in so many words no. But it was definitely insinuated. I remember seeing all these hit pieces online saying millennials were lazy and that we were coddled in the 90’s and that’s why we’re weak now.
And I kept thinking,
“What the F—are they talking about? Complaining about what? In what way are we weaker than them?”
Later it hit me :
Because we demanded our Goddamn basic human rights.
Our civil liberties. Because to US the constitution was supposed to be more than some 100 year old scrap of paper. It was supposed to mean something. Because NO it is not okay for our government to spy on us, and NO it is not okay for them to round up Muslims and incarcerate them because a terror group attacked the country. And NO it’s not okay for them to go after political activists as traitors.
And somewhere along the way, because we demanded what they should have demanded in their day : Our Right to exist without being exploited or ruled over. Instead of being useless complacent sheep, they called us weak for stating the obvious. Weak, because we refused to work for less money than what our labor was worth. In short those hit pieces were aimed at shaming us into compliance. Man they really didn’t understand they can’t “shame us” or Kowtow us into anything.
They learned that very well. Which is why they’re freaking out. That the most Reactionary, most conservative, anti communist generation created a generation of Socialists. With Zoomers and Gen Alpha on their way to becoming even more radical. Their tactics failed.
Which is why they keep trying school boards and censor education to keep the generations after us stupid. Why they want to ban Tik Tok because many have used social media for independent journalism and the sharing of information and philosophy. And that frightens them. That’s how it was with me. And many millennials in our generation who inherited a broken world with no way to fix it from our elders.
Our elders only cared about themselves for the most part. And they just assumed we would learn to undo their F—-Ups. And we are still spiraling.
We had to learn by ourselves with no guides. Except books.
The voices of the past older even than them. Of those men and women they said were dangerous and we should never learn from. Lenin, Geronimo, Malcolm X. Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, Mariana Grajales, Chieftainess Anacaona. And our own independent learning how to resist and fight back.
Our elder generations didn’t give us a choice. But their elders from times past were there guiding us. And thank God (or Goddess) for that. That’s why we’re putting so much into making a better world not only for the Zoomers, but for Generation Alpha. They’re the real future.
But going back to the answering of the question, I believe in what the Six Nations Confederacy believes :
We need to make a better world not for our generation or the next or even the ones after that. But for the seventh generation. And the seventh generation should make a better world for the seventh generation after them. We need sustainability. And we also need happiness and freedom.
And if we cannot achieve our dreams in our lifetime, then we should try to achieve them for our descendants instead. If they want that, that is. Dreams change. There is no greater labor of love than that. I only wish more of our Elders had done that for us.
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“And many millennials in our generation who inherited a broken world with no way to fix it from our elders. Our elders only cared about themselves for the most part”
As one of your elders, one who is 78 and one who has advocated for this planet with a ferocity that would stun you with it’s intensity and dedication ALL HER LIFE I take umbrage at this kind of generalization…. oh so many of us have given all we have had and watched come to nothing…. when you have walked in these shoes, please talk with me again.
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In the top portion of my comment,
“I also want to add a disclaimer first. What I am about to say is not a generalization against all of the older generations,”
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Point made – but the tone?
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One point you make couldn’t be more important… I am always being exiled for stating the Obvious – that young people NEED to be asking themselves if bringing children into this world at this time is a viable option. Fortunately I have young people in my life who are making choices NOT to bring children into this world but these young people are the exceptions.Most continue to have kids as if nothing was wrong at all.
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What of it? It’s how I chose to express myself. If I write, I do so without restrictions. That’s how I have always been and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be that way now. Besides…….my tone and anger was again, not directed at you or those elders who aren’t extremists.
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You could say my grandparents were poor by the “standards” of today. My grandparents immigrated from Ireland in the late twenties and they did it on their own. My grandfather had enough to buy a farm, a home on a parcel of land in Kemptville Ontario. My grandmother told me, when i opened the door to my home, it was a dirt floor, she had two babies and was pregnant for her third child then, which she told me that she had to deliver on a barn door due to complications. During the depression they ate well from their land and had chickens and a cow for milk, butter and so forth. They lived in community and helped one another, they sang and danced and laughed all of the time, they were grateful for what they had, they were grateful for their life. They sold their farm when there kids had left and moved to the city, they bought a home in the city wanting to be close to their children, family. Looking back my grandmothers kitchen was an epi center of life, with people constantly coming, lots were complete strangers to me though to my grandmother it was like we had known them all of our life, the Irish are like that, full of merry. My grandmother fed immigrating Irish people, there was never a question of not enough. We laughed, sang, danced, we lived in community. People dropped in, no invitations required. My family oozed with integrity, they would have kicked my arse if I had not. What a gift they were and I am grateful for having people of such integrity raising me. What a gift they were! My grandmother was the most incredible story teller I have ever heard, in the oral tradition, what a joy for all of us grandchildren it was. My grandmother read tea leaves brilliantly and when I asked her how she had learned to do this, she began her story about the seventh child. My grandmother was psychic, she could read people. I would ask her how she would know whatever it was she claimed to know about someone and her response was, I read their left eye. She was the best tea leave reader and people would come for miles to get their tea leaves read, which she did for free. This all took place in the kitchen, what a hub of merriment it all was! One time we received to my grandmothers home, the priest was coming for a visit, Catholic priest, then the Irish were tight with their priest. Well, as soon as that call came in the decks cleared anything resembling woo-woo was cleared and the rosary came out, I never saw anything like it before, my grandmother definitely lived in terror of the priest, for no reason at all. I thought what are we doing wrong? Looking back at that now, I laugh! Full of the merry she was. What a mighty woman my grandmother was, so full of wisdom, love and laughter! I feel so grateful for the way i grew up, with people valuing life itself over the almighty buck, what an incredible community it was!
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You demonstrate family in the truest sense of the word..Poor, your family was not!
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I know Sarah, I was blessed. The thought of my mother any of my family needing an invitation to come see me is absolutely foreign to me, it’s what community looks like to me. Need a cup of sugar, here you are. I learned from the best.
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