Unresolved end to saeculum possibility?

[Eric the Green]

(06-09-2022, 07:57 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(06-09-2022, 07:36 AM)David Horn Wrote: Millennials have no memory of "when things were good" if you apply an unbiased measurement to "good times".  There is a 5 decades long march to the right that has empowered the powerful and weakened the already weak.  It's as if a bedridden polio victim looked back on the "good times" when she could still walk with leg braces and crutches.  As a society, we need to aim much higher, but the memory of that target is fadin with the aging populous who do remember.

But millennials were children during most if not all of the 3T, and were largely protected from what you describe. With exception for the few who acquired great wealth, most of us who grew up working class or above were quite a bit better off then than we are now. It wasn't the best. It certainly wasn't the 1T, but unlike Zoomers, we grew up in an environment where we had enough to lose to be attached to some sort of structure. Zoomers are more likely to say "None of this is working. They have nothing more that they can take away from me, so I might as well go in balls deep".

Millennials had the advantage of parents who cared about them and taught them high values, in general. Many did not have good material supports though, since neoliberal philosophy had trimmed back social and economic supports to poorer people, including unions and minimum wages, and the middle class was shrinking which meant many parents could not adequately support their family. Millennials have faced huge obstacles to come of age and find a place in society and make a decent living, not to mention follow the careers they were educated for. Some of them did well in spite of this, no doubt. But the cost of education saddled many with lifetime debt. Rising housing costs made it hard for most to afford a home, and rents and mortgages became too high a proportion of their income. They complained, probably justly, that we boomers did not give up status positions so millennials could rise within workplaces and get jobs that they wanted.

This situation will get worse for Gen Z and the Alpha Wave, unless neoliberalism is overturned (it was recently retained by one senator) and climate breakdown is stopped and reversed. Younger generations also face an unsafe society here in the USA, and increasingly so, as guns proliferate and needed reforms continue to be blocked.