"Because of the very nature of the world as it is today, our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity. These are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind of standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying, dissipating universe that we can help our children avoid by providing them with 'explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly.'"
-Madeline L'Engle, "The Expanding Universe", Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech (August 1963)
As I explored in "Commodifying Virtue (Part One): Boomers' Little Boxes", an emphasis on sameness and conformity in the post World War Two era led the Silent Generation (ARTIST archetype, born 1925-1942) into rebellion, with an emphasis on individuality and creativity that exploded in the 1960s. Now that a new ARTIST archetype generation, Homelanders (aka "Gen Z", born 2005 - present) is edging its way into adulthood, is another Sixties-style revolution around the corner?
Maybe yes, and maybe no-- depending on what virtues you had in mind.
FIELD OF MEANS
In "Commodifying Virtue (Part One)", I examined the 1989 film Field of Dreams as an example of the Baby Boomer generation's values at work. The film, full of charismatic acting, well-timed words, and a spiritualized sense of self, is certainly compelling-- just like many Boomers. But if you follow the money, you might come away with the wrong conclusion: that putting your family on the edge of homelessness to pursue your dreams is always the right thing to do-- and it will all work out in the end. In 2022, with the national debt at $30 trillion and counting, home ownership in crisis, and the edge of another recession in sight, the "Just go for it!" message from Field of Dreams rings a little hollow.
Perhaps that's part of the reason that economic education has begun to take hold in schools. According to Investopedia, twenty-three states now require that high schools teach financial literacy and twenty-five states require a high school course in economics. That number continues to grow: Michigan signed its financial literacy requirement into law this June, and Florida's requirement will begin in 2023. And which generation will be the recipients of all this knowledge? Homelanders, who are currently age seventeen and younger.
If that weren't enough, even those who decry the requirement still advocate for the financial improvement of Homelanders. Writing for the Fordham Institute, Senior Visiting Fellow Daniel Buck argues that schools should focus less on solving our culture's money woes and more on "improving the core academic functions of the system while also incentivizing alternate career paths through CTE [Career & Technical Education]". Indeed, this is already happening: colleges are losing enrollment, and an emphasis on vocational education is on the rise.
And the Homelanders who take advantage of these opportunities can begin earning quickly. The mikeroweWORKS Foundation, spearheaded by "Dirty Jobs" celebrity Mike Rowe, is steadily advocating for less college, less debt, and more income sooner with a pivot to high-paying vocational jobs. In Boston, the Summer Youth Employment Program gives low-income youth job-readiness training and six weeks of employment in local nonprofits and city agencies. Of course, no Homelander program would be complete without an emphasis on soft skills, which these young Bostonians receive over twenty-four hours of instruction. But perhaps more interesting is the positive effects of their work experience on their school attendance, GPA, household expenses and personal savings. The overall message of these initiatives is simple: You don't have to be a Tech Bro or Girl Boss to be successful.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
If the messaging seems a bit heavy-handed, that's because it needs to be. It takes a loud, clear, and repeated message to change a culture, and our current one is in a deep quagmire of empty virtue-signaling. Consider Mike Rowe's comments on the mikeroweWORKS website concerning his S.W.E.A.T. pledge (Skills and Work Ethic Aren't Taboo): "[America's] crumbling infrastructure, our widening skills gap, the disappearance of vocational education, and the stratospheric rise in college tuition—these are not problems. These are symptoms of what we value."
And what exactly is it that we value? In 1989, at the height of Boomer middle age, it was self-actualization: the You, Inc. brand being bought and sold for social capital at record prices. And Generation X was watching. Discarding the spiritual side, Gen Xers took a more pragmatic approach to reinvention: survival of the fittest. Met with low expectations from conception and coming of age in the Unraveling, Generation X (NOMAD archetype, born 1961 to 1981) has, in the words of William Strauss and Neil Howe, "developed a seasoned talent for getting the most out of a bad hand" (Generations, p. 334). Nihilistic, detached, and highly individualist, the 1990s and early 2000s saw both the bright and dark side of a group who "may never have glimpsed Nirvana, but they know how to win."
Since they know better than to look for respect from their elders (or juniors, for that matter), Generation X values success in individual pursuits. If that success means selling out, moving on, or giving in, it's not usually a question of morals-- it's a question of, "Will it help me and mine?" Unfortunately, the "Whatever" Generation's permissive, live-and-let-die attitude has too often led to the degradation of cultural norms. Everybody says, "We didn't start the fire," but nobody wants to put it out either. It's taken the onset of middle age for Gen Xers to flip their values question to its negative side: "Will it hurt me and mine?"
A strict personal policy of non-intervention and a lack of political clout has relegated Generation X to relative obscurity in a culture it has nonetheless significantly shaped. Indeed, to signal the virtue of self-determination, it's been almost a badge of honor for those age 41 to 61 to avoid being identified with a generation at all. Unlike Boomers, who wear their badge of the bully pulpit proudly, Generation X prefers to perform good deeds under the radar. In Generations, Strauss and Howe said "13ers [Generation X] look at it this way: When you vote, maybe you'll waste your time-- or worse, later feel tricked. But when you do something real, like bringing food to homeless, you do something that matters if only on a small scale" (p.333).
Consider the 2007 film Evan Almighty, about a Gen X congressman whose mission from God is to inspire Acts of Random Kindness (ARK) while growing closer to his family. A modern-day twist on the story of Noah, this version of "build it and they will come" is neither spiritual nor commercial: it's personal, it's comedic, and it's a one-time event. Likewise, I'll never forget the first time I heard The Starfish Story, delivered at a conference by Gen X journalist Soledad O'Brien. The story tells of an a person who rescues starfish from tide pools by throwing them back in the ocean, one by one.
At the time, I thought this was a terrible metaphor for nonprofit administration. However, I now realize that it's a uniquely generational perspective: when Generation X wishes to signal the virtue of kindness, it does so by resisting collective action and instead enacts purely individual change. This is the same reason that books meant to inspire greatness for this group, such as X Saves the World or Zero Hour for Gen X, fall on deaf ears despite compelling rhetoric and solid arguments. For the self-determined, nobody tells them what to do: they decide for themselves when they're good and ready. And when they're ready, no one will stop them until they win, or die trying.
MUTUAL FUNDS
If Generation X has avoided the "muffin tin" of conformity, Millennials (HERO archetype, born 1982-2004) were practically born into it. Millennials were raised as a reaction to the latchkey, throwaway, pragmatic, do-it-yourself Generation X. Where Gen X was unwanted and disliked by elders, in youth Millennials were very much wanted and cared about. In 1991, Strauss and Howe wrote, "The Millennials show every sign of being a generation of trends-- toward improved education and healthcare, strengthening families, more adult affection and protection, and a rising sense that youths need a national mission" (Generations, p. 341). They were encouraged to work in teams, wear uniforms, and volunteer.
But being raised in the spotlight, much like the eponymous Truman of the The Truman Show, has meant that the world follows each Millennial trend with excitement and anxiety. It's exciting, because Millennials are a large generation, and big trends are great for sales. Make all the merch in Millennial Pink and watch it fly off the shelves! Build togetherments instead of apartments and watch the waiting lists grow! But it's also a cause for anxiety, because when people will wait hours in line and risk their lives just to get the perfect travel photo on their Instagram feed (you know, the one that looks like everyone else's photo), something is seriously wrong.
And it's here that virtue signaling rears its photoshopped head again. Because Millennials are constantly aware of being watched, and because they have learned that being watched is a competitive game with cash prizes, their conformity has become performative. Like Boomers and Gen X before them, Millennials have learned to read the market-- except this time, the market is "likes" and "subscribes". Living in the age of the algorithm and the age of trends means behavior has to subscribe to a certain set of confines: edgy enough to get noticed, but common enough to avoid obscurity. One travel writer puts it like this:
"Instagram’s algorithm pushes certain types of images to the top of your feed because they naturally get the most attention. Epic landscapes. Colorful sunsets. Famous attractions. Bikini bottoms on white sand beaches. Even if you want to see other kinds of photography, the algorithm makes it difficult, because those images get buried at the bottom of your feed.
[...] So people who are trying to “make it big” on Instagram and get the most likes and followers — keep posting the same damn things over and over again, because they work."
One could almost change the lyrics of "Little Boxes" to say "Little photos, on the news feed, little photos made of pixel-tacky / Little photos, little thumbnails, and they all look just the same." What is valuable? What is good? Let the audience and the algorithm decide, and all say amen. And lest we be deceived that collecting experiences is better than collecting things, we must consider the enormous economic implications of commodified experiences and virtues. For the growing segment of professional influencers and new media stars all the way to large corporations being held hostage by Environmental & Social Governance (ESG) scores, it's the optics, not the truth or the free market, that sway the day.
CREATIVE ACCOUNTING
Even the confusion surrounding the constitutional paradigm of equal rights versus the social justice paradigm of equity in outcomes is related to the little boxes of HERO generation archetypes. But it's not the first time. The protagonists of A Wrinkle in Time (1962) argue this same question in the proto-Levittown they encounter on Camazotz:
"'But that's exactly what we have on Camazotz. Complete equality. Everybody is exactly alike.'
For a moment her brain reeled with confusion. Then came a moment of blazing truth. 'No!' she cried triumphantly. 'Like and Equal are not the same thing at all!'"*
Today, that assertion is being echoed again; this time, by the parents and educators of Homelanders. Generation X, finally moved to action by the personal threat of danger to their own economic stability and the welfare of their children, are running for office, showing up for school board meetings, writing books and organizing a resistance. For example, Ian Rowe, founder of the New York charter school network Vertex Partnership Academies, is leveraging his extensive business and nonprofit experience to expand school choice even while being sued by the teachers' union.
In an interview with "The Education Exchange" podcast from EducationNext, Rowe says "When I was at HBS, [equity] was synonymous with the opportunity to have ownership in an enterprise with unlimited potential." However, he contrasts his experience at Harvard Business School in in the 1990s with today's culture, saying, "...the term 'equity' has actually become more of a zero-sum game, where we're trying to eliminate inequities and essentially try to create equal outcomes by different identity groups." Determined to counter this "little boxes" mindset, Rowe advocates instead for a sense of empowered individualism among the next generation in his new book Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power. Rowe defines agency as "the force of your free will guided by moral discernment," with Family, Religion, Education, and Entrepreneurship as the pillars of success.
I agree with both Mike Rowe and Ian Rowe in this regard. A constantly shifting foundation of dreams, passions, labels, and trends is the stuff of silicon and glass. Ultimately, it restricts creativity to what is sellable, and what fits in. But true artistry and entrepreneurship require creativity and imagination, both of which are only possible if the foundation is solid.
In an article for Specatator Australia, screenwriter and story coach Scott McConnell writes,
"The heroes of westerns were admired not because they were skilled killers or had immense physical strength. Western heroes were admired because of their virtues and ideals. They had principles. The western hero is an independent man or women with such virtues as integrity, competence, and courage. The western hero fights for the life-affirming values and ideals of justice, freedom, rights, and happiness. This American hero acts in a world where right and goodness win.
[...]
Classical westerns and great films generally will not be reborn until our culture has a renaissance, when the rational ideals and virtues that made the real west and inspired western movies are reborn. Then we will not be viewing flickerings on digital cave walls but will be looking up at giant shimmering screens in the heavens showing us visions of giant men and women. We will be experiencing “dreams” of life as it can and should be.
This great art form called film will truly inspire us to struggle to create better souls and lives. When Hollywood is run by Dream Merchants."
I believe the Dream Merchants will return. Some of them might even be out "having a catch" with their moms and dads right now on the real Field of Dreams, newly built in the middle of Iowa next to the set of the the 1980s film. But Homelanders' potential, their capacity for greatness, depends on us today. Let us each choose to do what is right, to teach what is right, and to love what is right, so that tomorrow's kids can be more than "alright"-- they can shine.
---
*page 177, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (1962)
As with all media, I recommend you do your research on ratings and content to decide what you're comfortable watching.
Comments