The Millennial Spirit and the Progressive Wall

[Metaphysics_of]

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the depressive tendencies of the millennial/gen z generations (I will be bundling these two generations into the millennial label for the rest of this writing). There is a common idea thrown around that questions if "x" is a truly unique phenomenon or has been a facet of society since the beginning of civilization. The thought has swirled around often in the soup of public consciousness that the qualities of millennials can be boiled down to this notion and point to consistencies in rebellious, liberal youth culture of previous generations. On the other end of this naturalist approach is the purely constructivist one that millennial qualities can be explained by the information revolution and a rejection of the shortcomings of modern society interpretable by Marxian critique. Through personal experience and the muddled ramblings of political theory, I find no resolution of truth in the agreement to these predominant interpretations. To say that my interpretation comes from a mixture of naturalist and constructivist thinking would be quite unimaginative, so I will say that the millennial story is one of actualization; it is about the fundamental progression of human development and the challenges faced in its higher stages.

I will begin with the assumption that a human being is largely materialistically determined; that the environment we reside in acts as a mold to a very loose human template. Specifically, I begin with the assumption that material means influence human capacities, priorities, and values in a similar vein to the idea behind Maslow's hierarchy. With this in mind, an interpretation of history:

Modern western thought can be seen as a product of the development of the European middle class and its relation to the "alien state." What I mean by this, lies at the roots of the economics of the late feudal era. With stability came the rise of secondary markets in Europe, and with them, the story of a new middle class. This new urban society with some surplus wealth, is able to taste the pursuit of their own devices and their own success as do the traditional nobility. Yet the principality they find themselves in is not for them. It is the engrained authoritarianism of medieval founders that leaves no place in the state for a class wishing to exercise its new power and influence. Without the routes to fulfill their higher desires, commercial philosophy is introduced; alienated from statecraft and denied the security of the nobility, this new middle class envisions a cruel "state of nature" way of life of survival in the marketplace. This leads to the rise of individual right, and in due time, the accumulation of wealth by the bourgeoisie, allowing for enough leisure and freedom from basic needs to allow itself to exercise its power and seek fulfillment once reserved for elites; statehood. It is here where postmodern ideas begin to take form. This materially successful market actor is now the precursor for the citizen of a nation; a unity of individuals by the free will of their aspirations for something greater. As would be later envisioned, this class would lead to the formation of a single minded society that pursues the higher aspects of human purpose allowed for by surplus material means to exercise and progress the scope of human faculties. This was a wholly new philosophical idea for the time and can first be seen in action in the French Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In concrete form, this type of state has only existed briefly. The few cases I believe it to have taken form are first: Lenin's Russia, where the notion of a single will was quickly degraded by a lack of material means leading to some notion of what we view as the communist stereotype; a unity out of material necessity instead of a unity out of the agreement of free wills to aspire to something greater than purely material lives. Second would be Nazi Germany, which although having a united and large scale middle class, was made possible only by constant military expansion and the strictest definitions of citizenship resulting in the greatest moral atrocities the world has ever seen. The final state that saw a period of postmodern transition was the United States in the 1950s. Revitalized after the world war with a prosperous middle class, a truly national identity was formed, and supported by a mix of market and state economics developed the aspirations of world peace, hegemony, and space exploration. To avoid another paragraph, we can just say that in the decades that followed, the middle class once again found themselves either alienated by the state or no longer possessing the material means necessary to aspire to higher ideals. The surge of neoliberalism under Reagan that reaccumulated wealth for what is now an upper middle class, led t0 the pursuit of fulfillment of the individual in the private sphere.

Millennials are born out of this legacy. The security of means that has been maintained from commercialism has born another generation of those aspiring to something higher than the material. Characterized as free spirited, individualistic, and idealistic, this group is no longer bound by any feeling of market necessities and once again seeks unity to greater ideals. The idea of identity is intrinsically tied to postmodernism. For when the spirit of the individual is realized, it is the ultimate realization of the self to become the creator, to shape the material around them into their own image so that the envisioned ideal be made physical; that the internal is seen in the external.

It is here however, where the naturalist notion once again resurfaces. The millennial is inherently defined by youth, more specifically, the millennial is defined by the transition to adulthood. The depressive spirit of the millennial can be attributed the trajectory of unrealized post modern visions. It is in the path of childhood that these generations are raised to the idealisms of life, the heights of science, the errors of the past, and the turn of the millennia public education system focusing on individual development. With this trajectory, there is the belief of high order in the world, of greater purpose, yet when reaching adulthood, this trajectory falls away. The millennial is left to question if their childhood vision was true when they enter a society that is not prepared to offer the fulfilling roles of higher purpose millennials were directed towards in their upbringing. It is once again the story of a group that has surpassed their societal position, yet has no space to exercise themselves. It is from this lack of fulfillment in higher human capacities that leads to existential dread and nihilistic discontent. How are millennials to interpret this? A product of a declining society that represents them? A failure of self? These are the thoughts that linger in the background of the millennial psyche. In the wake of cultural unrest, it is this thinking that births the spirit of limitation. Limitation of society, limitations of what oneself is capable of, it is this view that sets the seeds for conservatism. I invoke in no way the contemporary discourse of what liberalism and conservatism imply. Conservatism is not philosophically a view of social values nor a belief in a certain system of government. It is the belief in the truth of limitation; that we are not capable of something better; that there are things we cannot overcome. When this sentiment comes to dominate an individual, there no longer remains life, just a body that seeks to maintain the world and its values in a point of stasis at the sacrifice of ambition.

There is an interesting trend that can be observed in generations where ambition lay solely in previous ones. Raised to a certain standard of living, the new generation seeks to maintain the shadow of this lifestyle. But over time, without the drive and ambition to improve all that is left is a perpetual cycle of decline where fulfillment remains constantly out of reach in the face of material fluctuation at the economic cost of maintaining a certain way of life. One accepts his pessimism as the fate they are given and their family line comes to an end with them.

Are existential struggles best addressed by material or spiritual means? Yes material change would restore means but without ambition there is no incentive to drive the change. A spiritual teaching to revitalize faith ones potential in another option, but this requires a level of mental discipline and imagination that might be lost upon a majority of people who have no strength of self to reference. In Nietzchean terms, the birth of spirit comes from the victory of wills. After the Peloponnesian war left many reminiscing for the golden era that preceded them in Ancient Greece, it was Isocrates who put forward the idea that Persia be attacked in the years leading up to the rise of Alexander the Great. It was the overcoming of the Persian superpower that originally created the Greek spirit. It is in conflicts, in victory or defeat that we find out what our "destinies" are. It is in the application of the force of self that makes us realize that we are better than we appear to be, that perhaps before our victory we had only lost our way; that our spirit had been within us all along.

With a better conclusion requiring another type of writing entirely, I will say for now: "to war my friends."