Millennials: The Trauma Generationn

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Hey everybody, I'm glad to be back with you again
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so soon, and it's really just because I wanted to
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give you guys something special before we wrap up September
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of 2026. I know I just released a big, massive
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episode all about the firebombing of Tokyo, moral assessment of
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war crimes, etc. It goes over three hours, so I
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figure a lot of you are probably still working on that.
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And please do, you don't have to feel the need
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to rush into this one But I wanted to get
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it out before the end of the month because this
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is the 25th anniversary month of 9-11. And honestly, like
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a lot of people out there, this anniversary just felt different.
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I mean, maybe it didn't for a lot of you.
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I don't know. I mean, especially those of you not
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living in the United States. But for a lot of Americans,
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myself included... There was just a different vibe. It was
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different than the 20th, different than the 15th, different than
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the 10th, though I was obviously less conscious of a
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lot of those things at the time. But yeah, there's
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something just reflective about the mood, the attitude around this anniversary.
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And I ended up writing something about this over on
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Substack and Patreon that a lot of you probably have seen,
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and I wanted to give an audio version, an audio
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adaptation of this like I often do. But, you know,
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I feel like it's worth mentioning, like I did in
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the sort of intro of that essay, that this isn't
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really a deeply researched piece that I usually try to
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put out. I was able to get this written in
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one day because it was mostly a personal reflection. It's
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a sort of generational assessment, and I felt comfortable being
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pretty loose with this because, frankly, the idea of generations
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is a pretty loose concept, I think we can say.
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As much as I enjoy reading things like Strauss and
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Howe's Fourth Turning, I also think that stuff is a
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little woo-woo, to put it mildly. But it is fun.
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It's fun like astrology, so to speak. So, tangent on
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that aside, I'm coming at this from a personal perspective,
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more personal than usual in a lot of ways, because
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even though it's been 25 years, and I would say
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that puts 9-11 in the realm of history rather than
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current events, we're still living in the world, I guess
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we could say, that 9-11 created. Though, as you'll hear
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very soon, I don't think that it was just 9-11.
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And in fact, I think the reason why this piece
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seemed to resonate with a lot of people is because
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the people who read it and were most, I guess
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we could say, interested were my fellow millennials of a
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particular cohort, those of us born in the mid to
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late 80s. And boomers seem to really like it too,
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but that's because they're in a more reflective mood anyway,
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entering their twilight years. And that's not an insult. I'm
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just saying what's true here. So I think that that
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is a helpful way to look at this, to look
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at 9-11. It was helpful for me. It was, it
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allowed me to get that reflective vibe out of me.
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And I wanted to share that with all of you.
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Thank you all for, you know, sticking with me and,
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you know, this isn't a normal episode, so I'm not
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going to do any announcements or any outro or, specific
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patron or sub stack thanks or anything like that. Just
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if you really like this stuff, please consider subscribing. If
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you haven't already, I really enjoyed doing this, uh, essay
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and I really enjoy recording this stuff for all of
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you guys, uh, whenever I do it. So thank you
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again to all of you. So my thoughts on the
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25th anniversary of nine 11. Permit me to tell you
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what you would have seen and heard.
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It will not be pleasant listening.
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If you're at lunch, or if you have no appetite,
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now is a good time to switch off the radio.
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An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible,
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whatever remains, however improbable, must.
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Be the truth.
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The European races were the destruction of the Jews in Europe.
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I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace
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is inside.
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I don't see any American dream. I see an American nightmare.
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Some say the world will.
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End in fire.
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Some say in ice.
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But what I've tasted of desire I hold with.
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Those who favor fire.
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But if it had to perish twice, I think I
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know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice
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is also great and would suffice.
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This is History Impossible.
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Back in 2006, Christopher Hitchens wrote his own reflections on 9-11.
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And.
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It had been about five years at the time of
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his writing, and what he said was very interesting. And
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like I said in the intro, it resonates today in
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a lot of ways. It feels prescient in a weird way.
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So I just want to open with reading what Hitchens
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wrote back in 2006. Quote, The time for commemoration lies
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very far in the future. War memorials are erected when
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the war is won. At the moment, anyone who insists
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on the primacy of September 11th, 2001 is very likely
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to be accused, not just overseas, but in this country also,
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of making or at least implying a partisan point. I
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debate with the anti-war types almost every day, either in
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print or on the air or on the podium, and
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I can tell you that they have been war-weary ever
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since the sun first set on the wreckage of the
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World Trade Center and the Pentagon in and on the
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noble debris of United Airlines 93. These clever critics are waiting,
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some of them gleefully, for the moment that is not
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far off. The moment that when the number of American
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casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq will match or exceed the
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number of civilians of all nationalities who were slaughtered five
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years ago today. But to the board's cynical neutrals, it
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also comes naturally to say that it is the war
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that has taken and is taking the lives of tens
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of thousands of other civilians. In other words, homicidal nihilism
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is produced only by the resistance to it. If these
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hacks were honest and conceded the simple truth that it
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is the forces of the Taliban and of Al-Qaeda in
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Mesopotamia that are conducting a Saturnalia of murder and destruction,
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they would have to hide their faces and admit that
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they were not anti-war at all. That is all very
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well said, and it is more to do with the
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debate that that was still raging when Hitchens wrote that
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piece about the war in Iraq at the time, which
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at that point was only about three years old, and
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the war on terror, which was almost five. But I
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think what he was getting at was, again, that word
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he used, primacy of 9-11. Because it was a moment
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of primacy, or a primal moment, maybe, or primary moment,
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however you want to put it. It was significant. 9-11
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was significant, no matter what, people might say otherwise. And
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like a lot of people out there in the world,
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I realized that, and I was trying to find a
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way to write about 9-11 on that anniversary that we've
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passed since this recording. Frankly, it's not particularly interesting, at
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least I don't think it is. I mean, maybe in
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conversation it is, to talk about where I was and
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what I was doing. I mean, for what it's worth,
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I was 15 years and walking into Spanish Level 3,
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and I saw the TV on, and that kind of
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put a pall over the rest of the day. I
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remember there being talk of the towers falling, but I
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didn't see it happen. In fact, I remember being skeptical
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that they fell, because I imagined they had tipped over,
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which I couldn't imagine happening. I had been to the
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World Trade Center as a kid, and I was just
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sort of aghast at that. I'm kind of shocked I
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didn't become a truther after that, given that I didn't
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understand how physics or structural engineering works. Not that I
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understand now, but that I have a better idea of
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how it works. Putting that aside, though, it was kind
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of an unreal day. And it did hit home eventually,
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especially when I saw the infamous photo of the Falling Man.
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But regardless, what I just said there, that's a variation
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on what many other people have said, many times, and
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especially this year, on the 25th anniversary. There is a
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corner of the discourse, though, particularly on Instagram Reels and
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likely TikTok by extension. I don't use TikTok, but I
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know that there's a crossover there. And that discourse really
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piqued my interest, which has been mostly millennials talking about
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the disconnect between Zoomers' perceptions of 9-11 and that of
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my generation, millennials, particularly of the older vintage, like I
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was saying, having freshly turned 40 here, by the way, guys.
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So Maybe that's also put me in a more reflective mood.
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I'm sure that's not too uncommon. But the point is,
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Zoomers apparently just don't get it. Like, that's the sort
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of general thesis, I would say, of these videos and
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of people who talk about this disconnect. They don't get
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why there was such importance attached to that day by
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boomers and Xers, obviously, but especially with millennials. And honestly,
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I can't blame them. Why would Zoomers... have any connection.
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Why would they get it? They were either in diapers
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when the Twin Towers fell, or they didn't even exist yet.
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We can't expect them to understand, just as I'm sure
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that they can't expect Gen Alpha or or whatever comes next,
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Gen Beta, I guess we can call them, to fully
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grasp the enormity of the COVID-19 pandemic. We'll be getting
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back to this, but it is important to remember that
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every generation has its trauma embedded in its collective memory.
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But this discourse, this reflective mood that I've been talking about,
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did get me thinking. about more than just 9-11, but
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more about the historical place millennials like me occupy and
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how cultural markers existed during our childhoods and early adolescence.
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This is the case with every generation. We're not unique
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that way. But the narrative that has emerged around the
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world that we grew up in is very interesting. That
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narrative was that we lived in a largely uninterrupted parade
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of optimism and throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s,
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really throughout the 1990s. There were certainly problems and conflicts,
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no era of history is completely idyllic, but the 1990s
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in particular were a very positive time, by most objective measures.
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It was the only time in my life that there
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was a budget surplus in the United States, just to
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give you an idea of how remote that time actually feels,
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those of you who are tapped into such things. But
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it was actually a time of innovation as well, particularly
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around technology, which millennials were at the forefront of using.
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Many of you have no doubt heard about that, and
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it's true. I remember my first dial-up modem connection at home.
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It was 1998, I want to say. And it was remarkable.
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As slow as that 56k modem actually was. I remember
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using Google before there was even an I'm Feeling Lucky button.
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Now that's crazy to me to think about. There was
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also a cultural renaissance at the time, particularly with film.
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I mean, that's sort of my hobby horse at the time.
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It's hard not to get any cinephile going about 1999,
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and for good reason. And there was also a renaissance
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with television. Star Trek was at its peak, and The
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Simpsons was creating a comedic vocabulary, just to name my
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two favorite titans from that era. Video games were coming
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into their own. 3D graphics were finally normal by the
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late 90s. And music... I mean, you can't leave out
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music when talking about the 1990s. It was exciting. It
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was always feeling fresh and new. Grunge, pop-punk, alternative, hip-hop,
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R & B, and electronic music, they changed everything. That
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cannot be overstated. Now, obviously, again, I will be the
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first to admit that this is a lot of nostalgia
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that I'm throwing at you. But it's also indicative of
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how the pre-911 world was something truly different than what
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came afterward. Because it was. It was very different. 9-11
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was not just a national trauma. It was a national trauma,
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but it was more than that. It was a generational trauma,
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where we, as in millennials, all realized, or came to
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believe at least, that our safety, that we had taken
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for granted, was no longer guaranteed. This was hardly an
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uncommon observation. by millennials or otherwise, but it was particularly
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acute with millennials. I part with the apparent consensus, though,
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in that I think the traumatic process for millennials began
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earlier than 9-11. Al-Qaeda's attack on America was a significant moment, globally,
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for sure, but for millennials, I believe, it served as
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confirmation of something that we had already suspected for a
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few years. That was because, in 1999, something unthinkable and
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seemingly unprecedented had occurred.
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The investigation into the high school massacre is slow moving
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and dangerous. The two gunmen who went on the rampage
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booby-trapped the building and even themselves. All day long, investigators
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have searched the homes of both teenage killers. In one
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of them, police say they found bomb-making materials. Specially trained
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officers searching the school today found close to 30 explosive
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devices all around the building. Authorities have also revised the
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death toll, now saying 15 people were killed, including the
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two gunmen. Most of the bodies are still inside the school,
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but families of the murder victims have been notified. NJ
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Burkett begins our coverage. He is live in Littleton, Colorado.
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NJ. And, Roz, we're being kept far away. The building
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off in the distance is still sealed off. As you said,
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the bodies have not yet been removed. A total of
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15 people are believed to have died here, 12 students,
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one faculty member, and the two young killers. Investigators say
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this attack appears to have been carefully planned for a
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long time.
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One by one, students returned to Columbine High and left
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bouquets of flowers in a park half a mile away.
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A little bit of pain, a little bit of everything
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at once.
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It's deep, you know, but.
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It's got to be strong.
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Parents, hug your kids. Pray to be happy that you're
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with them. Kids, grab your friends, hold them tight, and
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never be mad at people because it could happen in
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a second that they'll be gone.
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Investigators found their first pipe bomb in the parking lot,
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and the Denver Bomb Squad immediately sealed off the building.
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Robotic cameras later found the entire school was booby-trapped. Eric
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Harris and Dylan Klebold had apparently committed suicide, but investigators
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say they spent their final moments rigging the building and
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their own bodies with more than two dozen pipe bombs.
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Amid the gunshots and bomb blasts, hundreds of students ran
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for their lives. stalked in their own school by two
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of their own classmates who went on a rampage.
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People were getting shot.
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All around me.
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There was a guy at a table right next to
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me and her, and they just shot him, and then
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walked away, and then he was just sitting there in
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a pool of blood.
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Detectives now believe they entered the school through a back
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door and stormed down the hallways. They cornered students in
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the cafeteria and the library, where there was nowhere to run.
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Witnesses say they laughed as they fired their weapons, executing
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their classmates who begged for their lives.
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They were shooting anyone of color wearing a white hat
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or playing a sport, and they didn't care who it
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was and it was all at close range. Screaming after
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they'd shoot up something, they'd go, woo!
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Just a pleasure for them.
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This morning, students packed a prayer service at a local
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church and stood in the parking lot, embraced one another,
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and wiped away their tears. Graduation was less than two
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weeks away. Amber Burgess is Columbine High School's homecoming queen.
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I don't even know if people are going to be
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able to walk back into school again and see empty chairs.
291
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It would be horrible.
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00:16:51.360 --> 00:16:54.059
I want to say right up front that mass shootings
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at schools in particular did not begin at Columbine. In fact,
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the first reported school shooting I found out was in 1840.
295
00:17:03.590 --> 00:17:06.650
when the law professor John A.G. Davis was assassinated by
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a student taking part in the riots occurring at the
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University of Virginia at the time. And there were many
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other after that, including in the 20th century into the 1990s,
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00:17:15.430 --> 00:17:20.789
before Columbine. But Columbine, in a way, and probably a
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00:17:20.789 --> 00:17:23.589
very important way, was different. And that was because of
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the media coverage, but also because of the scale and
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00:17:27.369 --> 00:17:31.839
the mythos that began to surround the event, thanks again
303
00:17:31.960 --> 00:17:36.119
to the media coverage. While it took many years for
304
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:39.240
the reality of the Columbine Massacre to emerge, namely that
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the main perpetrator was a true psychopath with annihilationist tendencies
306
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and his buddy was largely just a lost loser along
307
00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:50.089
for the ride, the response to this mass killing was
308
00:17:50.190 --> 00:17:55.210
one dominated by external explanations. It was the music the
309
00:17:55.250 --> 00:17:58.930
killer supposedly listened to, usually claimed to be Marilyn Manson,
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00:17:59.009 --> 00:18:01.730
though the killers had no interest in his music. They
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00:18:01.750 --> 00:18:05.519
were into harder industrial stuff. It was the violent video
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games they played. I mean, it's true that they did
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00:18:08.180 --> 00:18:12.769
play Doom, but they became more fixated on mods that
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00:18:12.849 --> 00:18:15.849
replicated their future crime after they decided to commit that crime.
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00:18:17.289 --> 00:18:19.730
It was the lack of meaningful security at school. It
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was access to firearms. It was literally anything that had
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nothing to do with the reality of the situation, which
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00:18:27.849 --> 00:18:33.069
was the fracture that existed in the killer's minds. No one,
319
00:18:33.269 --> 00:18:37.150
or very few, could face that possibility, because what do
320
00:18:37.170 --> 00:18:41.430
you do about something like that? So, the blame turned outward,
321
00:18:41.650 --> 00:18:45.049
and millennials, most of us being kids at the time, remember,
322
00:18:45.730 --> 00:18:49.369
largely encouraged by media coverage and their parents' worries, came
323
00:18:49.410 --> 00:18:54.319
to believe, however subconsciously, that even the relatively safest place
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00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:59.319
outside of home, that is, school, was a potential combat zone,
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00:18:59.940 --> 00:19:04.440
where we could be killed at any moment. We lived
326
00:19:04.579 --> 00:19:08.980
with this perception of unsafety every day for two years
327
00:19:09.019 --> 00:19:13.380
that followed Columbine. Emergency procedures in the case of such
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00:19:13.420 --> 00:19:17.960
an event were drilled into school staffs. In early 2001,
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00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:21.160
when I was a freshman in high school, my school
330
00:19:21.180 --> 00:19:25.170
experienced a bomb threat. And despite the incredibly flimsy evidence
331
00:19:25.190 --> 00:19:27.049
that the threat was actually real, and it turned out
332
00:19:27.089 --> 00:19:31.589
that it wasn't, all 2,000 or so students were evacuated
333
00:19:31.630 --> 00:19:35.809
across the street to the YMCA gymnasium within 15 minutes.
334
00:19:37.450 --> 00:19:43.069
Herding 2,000 teenagers into anything is like herding cats. So
335
00:19:43.109 --> 00:19:45.890
basically what I'm saying is, the teachers were well-prepared, and
336
00:19:45.930 --> 00:19:48.519
the chaos one might expect from a bunch of teenagers
337
00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:50.200
being told that they didn't have to go to class
338
00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:54.140
for the rest of the day was minimal. It was
339
00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:57.119
a really fun day, actually, and everyone was in good spirits.
340
00:19:57.140 --> 00:19:59.960
I have vivid memories of this, but that was because
341
00:20:00.019 --> 00:20:03.490
we had internalized a potential threat that we had drilled
342
00:20:03.529 --> 00:20:07.390
into us ever since Columbine. It had normalized. We'd had
343
00:20:07.470 --> 00:20:12.619
two years to normalize it. But that threat was still
344
00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:19.119
confined to one thing. That is, schools. The trauma of
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00:20:19.140 --> 00:20:22.440
the Columbine mass shooting was a disruptive force, and it
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00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:26.430
affected the wider culture for sure, but the threat remained
347
00:20:26.509 --> 00:20:31.150
relatively contained, at least in our minds. That all changed
348
00:20:31.690 --> 00:20:35.069
on September 11th, 2001. American 11, are you trying to call?
349
00:20:35.130 --> 00:20:37.160
The cocktail is not answering.
350
00:20:37.180 --> 00:20:38.160
Is there a problem?
351
00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:40.799
Our number one is in staff and our five is
352
00:20:40.859 --> 00:20:41.359
in staff.
353
00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:43.519
I am going to call from Washington. I am in
354
00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:47.119
a situation where the Americans learned a possible hijack. What's
355
00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:49.109
going on, Betty? Their craft is erratic again.
356
00:20:49.670 --> 00:20:50.690
What's the problem?
357
00:20:52.390 --> 00:20:54.269
Are you ready?
358
00:20:57.250 --> 00:21:00.450
Betty, talk to me.
359
00:21:00.690 --> 00:21:01.529
Betty, are you there?
360
00:21:02.750 --> 00:21:03.089
Betty?
361
00:21:06.009 --> 00:21:06.289
Betty?
362
00:21:09.180 --> 00:21:11.099
The plane just hit 737.
363
00:21:11.099 --> 00:21:11.640
What?
364
00:21:11.859 --> 00:21:12.079
The 737.
365
00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:12.299
It what?
366
00:21:12.339 --> 00:21:13.650
The world just hit 737.
367
00:21:13.640 --> 00:21:15.660
Who are you talking to?
368
00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:19.509
Oh, God. Oh, my God.
369
00:21:19.589 --> 00:21:20.750
United 175, New York.
370
00:21:21.789 --> 00:21:23.430
We have some problems over here right now.
371
00:21:23.730 --> 00:21:25.509
We might have a hijack over here, too.
372
00:21:26.789 --> 00:21:27.869
Jules, this is Ryan.
373
00:21:28.170 --> 00:21:30.690
We're on an airplane that's been hijacked.
374
00:21:30.730 --> 00:21:31.789
Things don't go well.
375
00:21:31.809 --> 00:21:32.829
I'm looking good.
376
00:21:33.349 --> 00:21:34.349
I just want you to know.
377
00:21:34.230 --> 00:21:35.589
I absolutely love you.
378
00:21:35.609 --> 00:21:36.869
I want you to be good.
379
00:21:36.890 --> 00:21:39.670
Go have a good time. Same to my.
380
00:21:39.549 --> 00:21:40.630
Parents and everybody.
381
00:21:41.269 --> 00:21:45.410
I just totally love you and I'll see you later.
382
00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:49.640
Bye, babe.
383
00:21:53.779 --> 00:21:56.160
What are those people going to do?
384
00:21:56.400 --> 00:22:00.819
All the elevators are blocked out.
385
00:22:01.960 --> 00:22:02.640
Oh, my God.
386
00:22:02.759 --> 00:22:03.980
So both towers are now.
387
00:22:05.099 --> 00:22:08.240
Okay, I got an aircraft six miles east of the
388
00:22:08.259 --> 00:22:09.220
White House.
389
00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:14.130
Crystal City, just north of Crystal City.
390
00:22:14.609 --> 00:22:16.630
Just to the north of your town.
391
00:22:16.789 --> 00:22:18.009
Yeah, stop all departures.
392
00:22:20.769 --> 00:22:21.369
Pentagon just got hit.
393
00:22:21.390 --> 00:22:23.049
God damn it, I can't even protect my NCA.
394
00:22:23.069 --> 00:22:24.619
United 93, that traffic for you is 1 o'clock, 12
395
00:22:24.619 --> 00:22:27.410
miles eastbound, 370.
396
00:22:34.220 --> 00:22:34.920
Negative contact.
397
00:22:34.940 --> 00:22:39.019
We're looking at United 93.
398
00:22:39.009 --> 00:22:40.720
United 93, Cleveland, if you hear the sound, right down.
399
00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:42.509
I got that piece of dust.
400
00:22:43.009 --> 00:22:44.130
You put it right next to me.
401
00:22:44.470 --> 00:22:45.369
We have a ballpark.
402
00:22:45.410 --> 00:22:46.910
Get out of here.
403
00:22:47.549 --> 00:22:54.069
Get out of here.
404
00:22:54.109 --> 00:22:55.509
Get out of here.
405
00:22:55.549 --> 00:22:59.630
Tuesday, 9.47 a.m. Hi, baby. Baby, you have to listen
406
00:22:59.650 --> 00:23:02.359
to me carefully. I'm on a plane that's been hijacked.
407
00:23:02.440 --> 00:23:04.680
I'm on the plane. I'm calling from the plane. I
408
00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:06.569
want to tell you I love you. Please tell my
409
00:23:06.609 --> 00:23:10.910
children that I love them very much. And I'm so sorry, babe.
410
00:23:11.369 --> 00:23:13.890
I hope to be able to see your face again, baby.
411
00:23:14.309 --> 00:23:14.849
I love you.
412
00:23:14.869 --> 00:23:15.789
Bye.
413
00:23:19.150 --> 00:23:19.730
We're 56865.
414
00:23:19.710 --> 00:23:24.980
We have a, I believe it is a Boeing 757.
415
00:23:24.980 --> 00:23:26.240
Can you see him up there, sir?
416
00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:28.759
That's confirmed. It looks like he's rocking his wings.
417
00:23:29.710 --> 00:23:30.029
Roger.
418
00:23:30.109 --> 00:23:31.509
He's rocking back and forth.
419
00:23:31.529 --> 00:23:33.380
Number five six eight six five five five, as you
420
00:23:33.390 --> 00:23:35.680
stay away from that aircraft, go north as fast.
421
00:23:35.319 --> 00:23:38.000
As you can. United nine three, have you got information
422
00:23:38.019 --> 00:23:39.160
on that yet? Yeah, he's down.
423
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:40.420
He's down?
424
00:23:40.539 --> 00:23:42.059
Yes. When did he land?
425
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:44.359
He did not land. Oh, he's down?
426
00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:46.710
Yeah, somewhere up northeast of Camp David.
427
00:23:46.730 --> 00:23:51.029
Sean, it's me.
428
00:23:51.170 --> 00:23:52.869
I just wanted to let you know I love you,
429
00:23:52.950 --> 00:23:53.809
and I'm stuck at.
430
00:23:53.789 --> 00:23:55.069
My building in New York.
431
00:23:56.460 --> 00:23:58.210
There's lots of smoke and we just want to get
432
00:23:58.289 --> 00:24:02.349
it out, but a lot of people are waiting.
433
00:24:02.369 --> 00:24:03.710
Number two, we'll chase them right.
434
00:24:03.750 --> 00:24:07.259
Ladies and gentlemen, we're not ready to die, but it's
435
00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:08.019
getting bad.
436
00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:08.720
Go, go, go!
437
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:18.980
I'm on the 85th floor.
438
00:24:19.079 --> 00:24:20.240
I'm gonna die, aren't I?
439
00:24:20.279 --> 00:24:22.299
No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna die.
440
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:25.180
Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, say your prayers. We're gonna think positive
441
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:27.119
because you gotta help each other get off the floor.
442
00:24:27.140 --> 00:24:28.349
I'm gonna die.
443
00:24:28.390 --> 00:24:35.690
It's a new type of war.
444
00:24:37.309 --> 00:24:37.869
That's what it is.
445
00:24:53.250 --> 00:24:56.599
To say that 9-11 changed everything is an understatement. I
446
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:01.299
think I've made that clear throughout this. Outside of the
447
00:25:01.339 --> 00:25:05.769
school setting, things previously taken for granted, things like freedom
448
00:25:05.809 --> 00:25:10.529
from surveillance, freedom from buffed-up state security apparatuses, and freedom
449
00:25:10.569 --> 00:25:13.579
from rampant and performative patriotism, just to name a few,
450
00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:19.819
quickly became normal. War was no longer an abstract idea,
451
00:25:20.259 --> 00:25:24.099
or something that would conjure memories of the smashing 100-hour
452
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:28.259
victory of the Gulf War, and it instead became tethered
453
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:32.400
to the cultural memory of the Vietnam quagmire, thanks largely
454
00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:38.809
to war-skeptical boomers. Millennials, at least those old enough to vote,
455
00:25:39.369 --> 00:25:42.950
were now the fighting generation, and there was a very real,
456
00:25:43.230 --> 00:25:47.369
if ultimately deeply misguided, fear of a resurgent military draft,
457
00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:54.109
especially after coalition forces engaged with Iraq in 2003. Dissent
458
00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:56.150
against that war took on a new meaning, but in
459
00:25:56.190 --> 00:25:59.710
my memory, it was mostly driven by the aforementioned boomers
460
00:25:59.789 --> 00:26:03.410
tapping into their own experiences with Vietnam, and less by
461
00:26:03.609 --> 00:26:09.980
a bubbling awareness of war-anxious millennials at the grassroots. I'm
462
00:26:10.019 --> 00:26:13.500
not saying millennials were manipulated into being war-anxious. As the
463
00:26:13.559 --> 00:26:16.440
bodies of American servicemen began to pile up, it certainly
464
00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:21.359
became a very real concern. But the boomer-driven anti-war rhetoric
465
00:26:21.380 --> 00:26:24.410
certainly fed into and off of all of that concern.
466
00:26:26.609 --> 00:26:28.769
The best way as I see it to illustrate the,
467
00:26:29.670 --> 00:26:32.250
we could call it the post-traumatic malaise that began to
468
00:26:32.289 --> 00:26:35.769
fall over millennials in the years following 9-11, is not
469
00:26:35.789 --> 00:26:39.789
to point to large-scale geopolitical developments, but rather to to
470
00:26:39.809 --> 00:26:44.490
look at the culture we consumed and eventually created. While
471
00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:48.079
there were certainly exceptions, some of the most popular films
472
00:26:48.140 --> 00:26:53.700
of the era, especially produced after 2003, were relentlessly pessimistic, cynical,
473
00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:57.900
or otherwise dark, seeming to peak in 2007, and contrary
474
00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:00.170
to the fans of 1999, that's the best year for
475
00:27:00.210 --> 00:27:03.849
films in my lifetime, sorry. But you had releases that
476
00:27:03.910 --> 00:27:07.250
year like Zodiac, about the Zodiac Killer, or the assassination
477
00:27:07.269 --> 00:27:11.210
of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford. or Michael Clayton,
478
00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:13.369
or Gone Baby Gone, or There Will Be Blood, or
479
00:27:13.430 --> 00:27:15.930
No Country for Old Men. All of those films, in
480
00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:18.779
one way or another, plunged us into some of the
481
00:27:18.859 --> 00:27:22.039
bleakest views of the human condition seen in films since
482
00:27:22.059 --> 00:27:27.319
the heyday of the late 1970s. Music popular with millennials,
483
00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:30.119
particularly those who had dabbled in the 90s and early
484
00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:33.329
2000s incarnations of the goth and punk scenes held over
485
00:27:33.369 --> 00:27:37.029
since the 1980s, that music took on a similar edge,
486
00:27:37.769 --> 00:27:41.200
if only in aesthetics. but also lyrical content, in a
487
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:43.700
lot of ways. I haven't bothered to look at the
488
00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:46.519
actual numbers, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I
489
00:27:46.559 --> 00:27:49.400
find it hard to believe that Hot Topic did not
490
00:27:49.460 --> 00:27:54.430
see its best years in sales from around 2001 to 2008.
491
00:27:54.630 --> 00:27:57.670
The rise of emo and screamo bands, known for trafficking
492
00:27:57.750 --> 00:28:01.029
almost exclusively in a kind of anguish, as well as
493
00:28:01.069 --> 00:28:04.529
the persistence of hard industrial rock and angry punk music,
494
00:28:05.410 --> 00:28:09.130
that was a testament to this stuff. look no further
495
00:28:09.150 --> 00:28:13.150
than Gerard Way, directly citing 9-11 as the inspiration for
496
00:28:13.190 --> 00:28:16.970
him to quit his illustration job to form his monumentally
497
00:28:17.009 --> 00:28:22.910
successful pop-punk screamo band, My Chemical Romance. Can I see
498
00:28:22.950 --> 00:28:24.839
you right here next to me?
499
00:28:24.859 --> 00:28:40.170
With my dark body I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid.
500
00:28:40.569 --> 00:28:41.910
I'm not afraid.
501
00:29:25.700 --> 00:29:29.509
Culture in the 2000s, even at its brightest, always had
502
00:29:29.549 --> 00:29:35.200
a harder edge. Even the sun-dappled, underrated in my opinion,
503
00:29:35.420 --> 00:29:39.970
soap drama masterpiece, The O.C., rarely paused in its indulgence.
504
00:29:40.339 --> 00:29:44.119
of teenage characters grappling with things like alcoholism and drug addiction,
505
00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:49.289
suicidal stalkers, and even attempted murder. This was also the
506
00:29:49.309 --> 00:29:53.750
height of cynical turptitude, with shows like Law & Order SVU,
507
00:29:53.829 --> 00:29:56.769
Special Victims Unit, where the monster of the week formula
508
00:29:56.809 --> 00:30:00.559
pioneered by the X-Files in the 90s, was copy-pasted but
509
00:30:00.579 --> 00:30:03.559
with the twist of depraved sexual crime of the week.
510
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:07.579
And lest we forget, this was the era of self-destructive
511
00:30:07.619 --> 00:30:11.480
reality and competition shows like Fear Factor, The Swan, and
512
00:30:11.509 --> 00:30:14.569
the beginning of the nightmare we call the Real Housewives franchise.
513
00:30:15.349 --> 00:30:20.789
The point was always seemingly the same. People are vile animals.
514
00:30:21.309 --> 00:30:23.670
How can we dispute this? See with your own eyes.
515
00:30:24.470 --> 00:30:31.490
And nowhere and no one is safe. Now, this isn't
516
00:30:31.529 --> 00:30:34.609
to say that millennials were all miserable. You could probably
517
00:30:34.630 --> 00:30:36.529
hear it in my voice. There's a bit of nostalgia there,
518
00:30:36.670 --> 00:30:40.190
even for all this dark stuff. Like I said, 2007,
519
00:30:40.190 --> 00:30:43.809
best year for cinema, in my opinion. So it's important
520
00:30:43.829 --> 00:30:48.119
that we shouldn't generalize too readily, but it's safe to
521
00:30:48.170 --> 00:30:51.339
say that most of us weren't beyond the usual angst
522
00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:56.079
that accompanies adolescence. We were in high school and then college,
523
00:30:56.099 --> 00:30:59.279
and despite all the disruptions that 9-11, the war on terror,
524
00:30:59.299 --> 00:31:01.960
and the Iraq war had wrought, The world kept turning,
525
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:07.640
and adulthood was fast approaching. For a clear majority of millennials,
526
00:31:08.180 --> 00:31:12.569
college was a foregone conclusion. It was a logical continuation
527
00:31:12.609 --> 00:31:15.210
of the education we were receiving even as the world
528
00:31:15.230 --> 00:31:19.369
seemed to fall apart after the Twin Towers collapsed. This
529
00:31:19.410 --> 00:31:24.869
was before, right before, the 2010s bloat of higher education administration,
530
00:31:25.390 --> 00:31:29.099
Title IX overreach, and the rise of safetyism. and other
531
00:31:29.160 --> 00:31:31.720
things that we kind of take for granted in 2026.
532
00:31:31.720 --> 00:31:37.769
Individual expression and freedom were still, at least on paper,
533
00:31:37.869 --> 00:31:40.950
at a premium, but also in practice, and we all
534
00:31:40.990 --> 00:31:45.059
believe that our personal development was just part of the process,
535
00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:52.000
enabled by the collegiate experience and of becoming gainfully employed adults. Then,
536
00:31:52.700 --> 00:31:55.829
the autumn of 2008 came around. and the Great Recession
537
00:31:55.910 --> 00:31:58.309
we had been hearing about for around a year finally
538
00:31:58.369 --> 00:32:02.029
reached its apex, just as many of us graduated from
539
00:32:02.109 --> 00:32:06.259
college and matriculated into the job market that was supposedly
540
00:32:06.690 --> 00:32:11.599
going to be waiting for us. The generational trauma associated
541
00:32:11.640 --> 00:32:15.079
with the Great Recession was different than the ones felt
542
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.180
immediately after the Columbine Massacre in 9-11, in that it
543
00:32:19.220 --> 00:32:23.089
was more slow-moving and and one that millennials began to
544
00:32:23.130 --> 00:32:27.170
discover for themselves on an individual level, as opportunity after
545
00:32:27.210 --> 00:32:31.369
opportunity for gainful employment seemed to just disappear, especially for
546
00:32:31.410 --> 00:32:33.130
those of us who saw fit to pursue a degree
547
00:32:33.170 --> 00:32:37.690
in the liberal arts. Now, given the proliferation of memes,
548
00:32:38.059 --> 00:32:41.240
some pretty funny memes, I'll admit, out there about feminist
549
00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:45.220
puppet theater majors and the like, it might be surprising
550
00:32:45.259 --> 00:32:48.339
to learn that the degree itself was what was supposed
551
00:32:48.380 --> 00:32:51.059
to matter. Not the area of expertise that we studied.
552
00:32:53.400 --> 00:32:54.160
Was that naive?
553
00:32:54.460 --> 00:32:54.740
Sure.
554
00:32:55.339 --> 00:32:59.319
Probably. But that was not the message that we were given.
555
00:32:59.819 --> 00:33:02.700
You get the degree, you get the job. That was
556
00:33:02.740 --> 00:33:07.140
the narrative. And while my own degree, psychology, was plenty useful,
557
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.880
especially if I deigned to try to continue my education,
558
00:33:09.900 --> 00:33:15.049
I knew many other people whose own degrees became woefully
559
00:33:15.089 --> 00:33:19.319
inadequate to face a more specialized job market. which was
560
00:33:19.380 --> 00:33:23.039
inevitable after the recession hit, and a lot of those
561
00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:26.960
people simply re-entered academia as students to weather the economic storm.
562
00:33:28.869 --> 00:33:30.589
It might have worked in the short term, but many
563
00:33:30.630 --> 00:33:33.230
were not spared from the economic devastation that awaited us,
564
00:33:33.990 --> 00:33:37.210
and the downstream effects continued for the next several years.
565
00:33:37.990 --> 00:33:41.740
The class of 2009 is facing the toughest job market
566
00:33:41.779 --> 00:33:45.440
in a decade. Six million jobs lost and a 9.4
567
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:49.940
percent unemployment rate. But despite those bleak numbers, new grads
568
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:58.269
are trying to stay optimistic. A day of celebration for
569
00:33:58.289 --> 00:34:04.609
these Eastern Washington University grads. Pictures with friends and family,
570
00:34:04.730 --> 00:34:06.750
a sense of accomplishment and joy.
571
00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:08.199
Very proud of her.
572
00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:10.900
So excited for her, too. Four years of hard work
573
00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:13.530
to get to today, walking away from their alma mater
574
00:34:13.570 --> 00:34:16.309
with a diploma in hand. But ask anyone in the
575
00:34:16.369 --> 00:34:19.130
sea of caps and gowns what they'll be doing after graduation,
576
00:34:19.510 --> 00:34:22.269
and you'll most likely get this answer. Looking for a
577
00:34:22.289 --> 00:34:22.929
job now.
578
00:34:23.210 --> 00:34:25.989
Just nervous because the hygiene market isn't so great right now,
579
00:34:26.010 --> 00:34:28.300
but definitely excited to be graduating.
580
00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:30.739
I plan to start looking for a job. Hopefully some
581
00:34:30.760 --> 00:34:33.480
special education spots will open up around Spokane.
582
00:34:33.929 --> 00:34:38.389
According to CareerBuilders.com, 43% of employers intend to hire new
583
00:34:38.449 --> 00:34:42.389
college grads this year. That's down from 56% in 2008
584
00:34:42.389 --> 00:34:43.130
and 79% in 2007.
585
00:34:43.130 --> 00:34:47.010
A lot of graduates.
586
00:34:45.469 --> 00:34:49.389
Are pretty nervous, especially with teaching. It's a budget concern.
587
00:34:49.409 --> 00:34:52.760
A lot of teacher positions are getting eliminated or cut back.
588
00:34:53.059 --> 00:34:55.699
Despite the crash course in Life 101 that's waiting for
589
00:34:55.860 --> 00:34:58.480
thousands of new grads in the Inland Northwest and across
590
00:34:58.539 --> 00:35:02.039
the country, these Eagles are staying upbeat and proactive.
591
00:35:02.659 --> 00:35:05.239
Economy is really bad, you know, there's not too many jobs,
592
00:35:05.300 --> 00:35:09.679
so we have to just go for it.
593
00:35:10.619 --> 00:35:13.969
Employment certainly bounced back as the years went by into
594
00:35:13.989 --> 00:35:16.570
the 2010s thanks to the rise of the gig economy,
595
00:35:16.670 --> 00:35:20.650
but a third painful lesson about the perpetual uncertainty and
596
00:35:20.710 --> 00:35:23.309
danger was being drilled into the heads of millennials in
597
00:35:23.329 --> 00:35:26.510
the late 2000s and early 2010s thanks to the recession.
598
00:35:27.929 --> 00:35:31.119
The mileage on how well we rode this period out varies,
599
00:35:31.159 --> 00:35:34.789
of course, but The explosion of late aughts, early tens
600
00:35:34.869 --> 00:35:39.250
party culture helps reflect our desire, millennials' desire that is,
601
00:35:39.289 --> 00:35:41.809
to live in the moment and not concern ourselves with
602
00:35:41.829 --> 00:35:46.489
the potential consequences for pounding shots, snorting powders, and swallowing
603
00:35:46.510 --> 00:35:50.449
pharmaceuticals of which our parents' generation frankly could only dream.
604
00:35:51.710 --> 00:35:56.250
The irony of engaging in risky, perhaps even nihilistic, self-destructive
605
00:35:56.269 --> 00:35:58.889
behavior while also being imbued with the sense of the
606
00:35:58.949 --> 00:36:02.070
world's danger is about how none of us are safe
607
00:36:02.250 --> 00:36:06.570
ever and that people are vile animals, is not lost
608
00:36:06.670 --> 00:36:11.869
on me, but it's not an uncommon coping mechanism. Thus,
609
00:36:11.929 --> 00:36:14.789
if anything, it adds weight to the notion that we
610
00:36:14.829 --> 00:36:18.650
were a generation that identified itself with subsequent mass traumatic
611
00:36:18.690 --> 00:36:25.380
events in the midst of adult development. As best I
612
00:36:25.409 --> 00:36:28.780
can tell, this helps explain a lot of cultural trends
613
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:32.179
that that began to become mainstreamed as more and more
614
00:36:32.199 --> 00:36:36.340
millennials entered the workplace, including radical redefinitions of things like
615
00:36:36.429 --> 00:36:41.969
harm and justice. Such things, I wager, would not have
616
00:36:42.010 --> 00:36:45.409
taken on such a radical purchase if the world the
617
00:36:45.469 --> 00:36:48.630
millennials believed they were promised had not changed the way
618
00:36:48.690 --> 00:36:53.690
it did, after Columbine, after 9-11, and certainly after the
619
00:36:53.730 --> 00:36:57.480
Great Recession's downstream effects, the last of which simply seemed
620
00:36:57.519 --> 00:37:00.550
to be the final confirmation of of everything we had
621
00:37:00.610 --> 00:37:06.789
become conditioned to believe about the world. Every generation, like
622
00:37:06.809 --> 00:37:10.429
I was saying before, loses its innocence in one way
623
00:37:10.489 --> 00:37:15.630
or another. For the greatest generation, it was the Great
624
00:37:15.650 --> 00:37:19.989
Depression and World War II. For boomers, it was the
625
00:37:20.010 --> 00:37:22.730
killing of JFK and, arguably to a lesser extent, the
626
00:37:22.769 --> 00:37:29.219
Manson murders. And Vietnam, in its own way. But for millennials...
627
00:37:29.670 --> 00:37:34.510
We were sold this notion, fairly or otherwise, and came
628
00:37:34.530 --> 00:37:37.730
to believe that we had gone through a trilogy of traumas,
629
00:37:38.949 --> 00:37:40.659
and none of them seemed to have a silver lining.
630
00:37:41.980 --> 00:37:44.179
That's the one area where I feel like there is
631
00:37:44.199 --> 00:37:48.659
a little bit of uniqueness to what millennials experienced. The
632
00:37:48.679 --> 00:37:53.969
greatest generation saw unprecedented wealth creation. The boomers further reaped
633
00:37:54.010 --> 00:37:57.059
those benefits and were largely able to replicate them and
634
00:37:57.099 --> 00:38:00.079
instill that optimism in their progeny, however misguided it was.
635
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:03.820
I know I'm leaving out Xers, but they're kind of
636
00:38:03.860 --> 00:38:07.219
a cusper generation, and they probably deserve their own analysis,
637
00:38:07.260 --> 00:38:09.050
and I don't feel like I'm equipped to talk about it,
638
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:12.219
so I defer to them and to the much elder
639
00:38:12.260 --> 00:38:14.280
millennials who were born in the early 80s to talk
640
00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:18.800
about that stuff. Millennials, though, those of us born in
641
00:38:18.860 --> 00:38:22.750
the mid to late 80s and early 90s, everything just
642
00:38:22.789 --> 00:38:26.329
seemed to get worse. I don't want to make too
643
00:38:26.389 --> 00:38:30.750
much of these traumas or start engaging in the unearned
644
00:38:31.010 --> 00:38:35.840
existential performative pessimism that has become such a tiresome shorthand
645
00:38:35.900 --> 00:38:40.980
among many of my cohort. But I do understand such
646
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:46.760
sentiments about the world ending and so forth. The supposed
647
00:38:46.820 --> 00:38:49.860
norm of school shootings, the greatest attack on American soil
648
00:38:49.880 --> 00:38:51.500
by a foreign power since the War of 1812, and
649
00:38:53.030 --> 00:38:56.260
the greatest financial crash of living memory since the Great Depression,
650
00:38:56.780 --> 00:39:01.039
were very effective at embedding within the generational psyche that
651
00:39:01.500 --> 00:39:03.900
no one was safe and that there was no light
652
00:39:03.940 --> 00:39:08.550
at the end of the tunnel. By the time the epilogue,
653
00:39:08.590 --> 00:39:11.230
I like to call it, of millennial generational trauma hit,
654
00:39:11.250 --> 00:39:15.190
that is the COVID-19 pandemic, there was less shock among
655
00:39:15.230 --> 00:39:18.829
millennials than there might otherwise have been. It was shocking
656
00:39:18.869 --> 00:39:21.179
in a lot of ways, but Most millennials I knew
657
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:23.400
were just kind of, they went with it. They didn't
658
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:27.269
find themselves at too much of a loss. They adapted
659
00:39:27.769 --> 00:39:30.980
as best they could pretty quickly. Obviously, that didn't last
660
00:39:31.039 --> 00:39:34.019
very long, but it still wasn't the kind of shock
661
00:39:34.039 --> 00:39:36.710
that I think it was to younger generations, we'll say.
662
00:39:38.309 --> 00:39:41.289
The pandemic and how our government handled it, in other words,
663
00:39:41.369 --> 00:39:45.250
was just further confirmation of what these previous traumas suggested
664
00:39:45.449 --> 00:39:50.679
was the nature of our existence. As annoying and even
665
00:39:50.820 --> 00:39:55.219
dangerous as I find trauma discourse, I actually find it
666
00:39:55.300 --> 00:39:58.500
less surprising as a trend when I think about the
667
00:39:58.539 --> 00:40:04.550
historical events that punctuated the cultural gestation of millennials. Similarly,
668
00:40:04.570 --> 00:40:08.349
the meme about millennial drinking patterns and drug use being, well,
669
00:40:08.409 --> 00:40:11.170
kind of crazy, because it was pretty crazy, makes a
670
00:40:11.210 --> 00:40:14.949
lot more sense. Not as an excuse for those things,
671
00:40:15.050 --> 00:40:17.880
but as an explanation for the mindset of that drove
672
00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:21.179
so many of us to those behaviors and the pessimistic
673
00:40:21.260 --> 00:40:26.610
outlooks I'm describing. Unfortunately, though, I do believe it did
674
00:40:26.789 --> 00:40:31.269
inculcate within us a fatalistic attitude that has robbed many
675
00:40:31.469 --> 00:40:34.969
my age of the ability to meaningfully take ownership over
676
00:40:35.070 --> 00:40:38.820
our lives and express real agency as we enter our 40s.
677
00:40:41.030 --> 00:40:44.610
It's not that millennials were coddled. I'm kind of done
678
00:40:44.630 --> 00:40:47.690
with that characterization. Some certainly were, but I don't think
679
00:40:47.730 --> 00:40:52.030
that was the problem. It's that many of us became
680
00:40:52.070 --> 00:40:57.579
convinced that the world happens to us rather than the reality,
681
00:40:58.219 --> 00:41:01.960
which is that we engage with the world, which is
682
00:41:02.019 --> 00:41:08.949
sometimes hostile. Parenting and education definitely play parts in this dynamic,
683
00:41:10.150 --> 00:41:13.550
but bad parenting and bad education are is really more
684
00:41:13.650 --> 00:41:18.610
guilty of reinforcing the attitudes created by events outside of
685
00:41:18.650 --> 00:41:24.619
human control. One can see how this has manifested long-term
686
00:41:25.019 --> 00:41:27.500
with at least some millennials, specifically those who feel the
687
00:41:27.559 --> 00:41:31.280
need to announce their desire not to have children as
688
00:41:31.340 --> 00:41:36.179
some sort of act of divine selflessness. It's usually paired
689
00:41:36.219 --> 00:41:39.889
with a vague invocation of the world today, in so
690
00:41:39.909 --> 00:41:43.730
many words, sometimes supported with references to abstract dangers like
691
00:41:43.829 --> 00:41:47.530
climate change, systemic racism, war and genocide, and now especially,
692
00:41:48.010 --> 00:41:51.650
seemingly every day, with AI, but with very little effort
693
00:41:51.670 --> 00:41:55.900
to meaningfully address the agency being enacted with the decision
694
00:41:56.159 --> 00:42:01.019
to not have kids. My partner Molly and I, you
695
00:42:01.059 --> 00:42:03.760
guys who are supporters of this show, know her from
696
00:42:03.780 --> 00:42:07.260
the pop quiz or from the infinitesimal possibilities subseries that
697
00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:11.159
we sometimes do, We've been together for over 16 years,
698
00:42:12.590 --> 00:42:14.510
and she and I have no desire to have kids.
699
00:42:15.570 --> 00:42:19.269
Having children is just not on the table. When this
700
00:42:19.309 --> 00:42:23.170
comes up in conversation, which thankfully has been relatively rare,
701
00:42:24.570 --> 00:42:26.619
one can sense a sort of excitement on the part
702
00:42:26.880 --> 00:42:31.039
of people who immediately assume that it's because we can't
703
00:42:31.139 --> 00:42:34.139
bear the thought of bringing a child into the world today.
704
00:42:36.230 --> 00:42:39.570
For a while, I simply shrugged that off and let
705
00:42:39.610 --> 00:42:42.449
people believe what they wanted to believe about my and
706
00:42:42.650 --> 00:42:46.739
my partner's decision. But I've come around to simply being honest.
707
00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:51.139
We are not having children because we don't want to
708
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:55.440
have children. As the kids like to say, it's not
709
00:42:55.480 --> 00:42:55.880
that deep.
710
00:42:56.619 --> 00:42:59.250
Climate change is a hot topic in Washington and around
711
00:42:59.269 --> 00:43:02.070
the world with millions of people changing their habits to
712
00:43:02.110 --> 00:43:04.389
help save the planet. But would you give up having
713
00:43:04.550 --> 00:43:07.780
children because of climate change? Joining us to talk about
714
00:43:08.019 --> 00:43:10.139
birth strike is the host of In Case You Missed
715
00:43:10.159 --> 00:43:11.510
It by HuffPost, Heather Gardner.
716
00:43:14.360 --> 00:43:15.099
Happy Monday.
717
00:43:15.199 --> 00:43:18.260
Okay, so this birth strike phenomenon is something that I've
718
00:43:18.280 --> 00:43:21.199
sort of had like casual conversations about with friends, but
719
00:43:21.239 --> 00:43:23.239
I didn't know that women were actually considering this.
720
00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:25.360
Yeah, it's not just women either. It's a lot of men,
721
00:43:25.460 --> 00:43:28.659
couples specifically, who are talking about all of the reasons
722
00:43:28.719 --> 00:43:30.960
why they will or will not have children, and now
723
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:34.599
they're just considering climate change. And for these birth strikers,
724
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:37.480
that is the number one reason. And they have declared,
725
00:43:37.719 --> 00:43:40.639
signed it into the universe, that they will not have
726
00:43:40.699 --> 00:43:43.590
children or have any more children because of climate change.
727
00:43:44.389 --> 00:43:47.210
I have long suspected that the people who proclaim their
728
00:43:47.250 --> 00:43:51.969
desire not to have children for abstract, external reasons are
729
00:43:52.050 --> 00:43:56.719
actually kind of ashamed about not producing progeny. That is,
730
00:43:56.760 --> 00:44:00.079
of course, their business. But it reflects what I'm talking
731
00:44:00.139 --> 00:44:02.559
about when it comes to how millennials have been affected
732
00:44:02.619 --> 00:44:05.820
by a full decade of traumatic events, to say nothing
733
00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:09.969
of the profound disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, where
734
00:44:10.010 --> 00:44:14.239
it has conditioned many of us to believe that Not
735
00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:17.590
just that we have no agency, but that for us
736
00:44:17.639 --> 00:44:20.829
to believe that we have agency is an exercise of
737
00:44:20.989 --> 00:44:26.610
dangerous naivete. One can see how this has fed into
738
00:44:26.670 --> 00:44:31.070
politics with very little trouble. This attitude, spanning the entire
739
00:44:31.110 --> 00:44:34.300
political spectrum, by the way, with an ever-present acceptance of
740
00:44:34.469 --> 00:44:40.619
illiberal means at best and authoritarian prescriptions at worst. It
741
00:44:40.739 --> 00:44:44.909
is not worth relitigating anymore. 21st century American illiberalism here.
742
00:44:45.550 --> 00:44:48.190
There are far better places for that, and the evidence
743
00:44:48.230 --> 00:44:51.130
has existed in polls for many years and continues to
744
00:44:51.269 --> 00:44:55.670
exist in a troubling way. The point is that the
745
00:44:55.750 --> 00:44:59.340
pillars of individual liberty, which are built on a belief
746
00:44:59.380 --> 00:45:02.820
in individual agency, have lost their appeal with a lot
747
00:45:02.840 --> 00:45:08.079
of people, especially younger people, millennials and Zoomers included. And
748
00:45:08.099 --> 00:45:11.239
the reason for this, above all other reasons in my opinion,
749
00:45:12.170 --> 00:45:17.960
lies in mass psychological disposition. Any Psychology 101 class will
750
00:45:17.980 --> 00:45:22.420
teach you that dispositions have many ingrained aspects, personality in
751
00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:26.380
other words, but that they are also conditioned over time.
752
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:31.199
The malleability of personality is a very long-standing debate, and
753
00:45:31.219 --> 00:45:36.320
the consensus of personality psychologists at this point is largely
754
00:45:36.409 --> 00:45:39.429
that it is indeed a mixture of both, but that
755
00:45:39.449 --> 00:45:44.260
we can't discount how it's molded over time. When an
756
00:45:44.320 --> 00:45:48.280
entire generation is conditioned to believe that nothing is certain,
757
00:45:49.179 --> 00:45:52.170
and therefore nothing is safe as a matter of course,
758
00:45:52.690 --> 00:45:56.710
thanks to a rapid succession of generational traumas, such an
759
00:45:56.849 --> 00:46:01.449
outcome of personalities trending towards the illiberal and the collective
760
00:46:01.949 --> 00:46:10.460
is hardly surprising. As fundamentally dishonest, irritating, and, well, frankly, silly,
761
00:46:10.780 --> 00:46:13.519
as I find this rise of performative pessimism on the
762
00:46:13.579 --> 00:46:17.119
part of millennials and the Zoomers rapidly following suit, I
763
00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:22.929
want to make it clear. I get it. My choice
764
00:46:23.010 --> 00:46:27.630
to not engage in such apocalyptic prognosticating was simply that,
765
00:46:27.889 --> 00:46:33.090
after a while. It was a choice. Admittedly, my natural
766
00:46:33.110 --> 00:46:37.710
contrarianism has played a part as well. I have been hypersensitive,
767
00:46:37.829 --> 00:46:42.329
probably too hypersensitive, according to some people, to serious complex
768
00:46:42.369 --> 00:46:45.989
concerns becoming social signaling trends for decades at this point.
769
00:46:46.829 --> 00:46:49.650
It took me all of 20 minutes to tap out
770
00:46:49.690 --> 00:46:52.639
of the anti-war movement on the day of the Iraq
771
00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:56.380
invasion back in 2003, largely because I felt really creeped
772
00:46:56.500 --> 00:47:00.059
out by the speaking in unison. So, sue me, that
773
00:47:00.179 --> 00:47:03.400
is a dispositional trait on my part. But it is
774
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:07.449
still important for me to say that not engaging in
775
00:47:07.510 --> 00:47:10.530
this kind of, I guess you could say, rote pessimism
776
00:47:10.949 --> 00:47:13.280
was still a choice. It was a hard choice, but
777
00:47:13.300 --> 00:47:17.219
it was a choice. And it really wasn't an easy
778
00:47:17.280 --> 00:47:19.980
choice for me to make, especially the longer I studied
779
00:47:20.019 --> 00:47:24.320
history and politics. As anyone who reads or listens to
780
00:47:24.360 --> 00:47:27.159
my work knows, there are some dark periods in history
781
00:47:27.199 --> 00:47:29.940
that I engage with, where the human condition reveals itself
782
00:47:29.980 --> 00:47:32.840
to be little better than the kind seen with chimpanzee
783
00:47:32.900 --> 00:47:37.599
tribes in the wild. And yet, We aren't chimpanzee tribes
784
00:47:37.639 --> 00:47:41.070
in the wild. We are subject to incredible forces much
785
00:47:41.110 --> 00:47:44.530
larger than ourselves. My fascination with pandemics and natural disasters
786
00:47:44.570 --> 00:47:47.929
in past episodes should probably make it clear that I
787
00:47:47.969 --> 00:47:51.389
do accept this reality. But at bottom, we are all
788
00:47:51.429 --> 00:47:56.989
the same. Creatures uniquely capable of making conscious choices, even
789
00:47:57.050 --> 00:48:01.250
if those choices are bad ones. The idea of a
790
00:48:01.289 --> 00:48:06.650
coddled generation or two, that doesn't scare me. The idea
791
00:48:06.670 --> 00:48:09.409
of a generation that believes we can't make any meaningful
792
00:48:09.510 --> 00:48:14.710
choices for ourselves without being destroyed, that is an idea
793
00:48:14.750 --> 00:48:20.070
that does. That does scare me. As Cormac McCarthy wrote
794
00:48:20.090 --> 00:48:22.800
in Blood Meridian, we look out at the world and
795
00:48:22.860 --> 00:48:26.179
see a land of some other order out there whose
796
00:48:26.300 --> 00:48:32.599
true geology was not stone but fear. But McCarthy wasn't
797
00:48:32.699 --> 00:48:35.610
saying that we need to despair at the darkness. of
798
00:48:35.630 --> 00:48:38.849
that vast, uncaring universe to which we are all subjected.
799
00:48:40.389 --> 00:48:43.429
He was invoking the awe that we should feel at
800
00:48:43.469 --> 00:48:50.119
that universe. With awe, one hopes, comes respect. And respect
801
00:48:50.760 --> 00:48:54.320
is a choice. And that respect allows us to engage
802
00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:59.739
with that universe instead of just cowering in fear and
803
00:48:59.800 --> 00:49:01.889
waiting for it to make our decisions for us.
804
00:49:03.809 --> 00:49:10.090
You were a child. Crawling on your knees toward it
805
00:49:11.630 --> 00:49:18.420
Making mama so proud But your voice was too loud
806
00:49:22.360 --> 00:49:29.530
We like to watch you laughing You pick the insects
807
00:49:29.750 --> 00:49:38.369
off plants No time to think of consequences Control yourself
808
00:49:39.489 --> 00:49:46.860
Take only what you need from it A family of
809
00:49:46.920 --> 00:49:57.150
trees wanting to be haunted Control yourself, take only what
810
00:49:57.190 --> 00:50:06.230
you need from it A family of trees wanting to
811
00:50:06.349 --> 00:50:15.090
be haunted The water is warm, but it's sending me
812
00:50:15.269 --> 00:50:27.849
shivers Her baby is born, crying out for attention Her
813
00:50:27.949 --> 00:50:36.820
memories fade, like looking through a fogged mirror Two decisions
814
00:50:37.059 --> 00:50:41.039
are made and not bought But I thought this wouldn't
815
00:50:41.119 --> 00:50:47.289
hurt a lot I guess not Control yourself Take only
816
00:50:47.389 --> 00:50:56.030
what you need from it A family of trees wanting
817
00:50:56.650 --> 00:51:06.449
to be haunted Control yourself Only what you need from
818
00:51:06.829 --> 00:51:33.380
it A family of trees wanting to be haunted Thanks
819
00:51:33.559 --> 00:51:36.349
for watching!