Generational Warfare
What Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Zoomers need to understand about each other to avert the apocalypse.
Yesterday, I got a front-row seat to the backyard brawl, which is today’s gender relations. All of this happened on the same day.
3PM: 👴 THE BOOMERS
I came across an ad from RedBalloon, the right-wing job board.
The ad embodied the Gen X/Boomer attitude towards “the kids these days.”
“Young people are entitled infants.
They drink fake milk and decaf coffee like a bunch of P**SYS.
They want to work remotely. Gasp! Can you believe these assholes?”
I realize I’m lumping Gen X and Boomers together, but they seem to share similar attitudes toward “the kids.” The major difference? A Boomer wouldn’t have paid an agency to make this ad.
Hey, at least Gen X is engaging in culture, right?
6PM: 👦 The Zoomers
My Zoomer/millennial right-wing group chat blew up with tirades against boomers and millennials for destroying the earth.
“Boomers have wrecked the world, trading my future for a vacation in the Bahamas and a $90,000 Corvette. Most of my day is spent babysitting the diversity hires my millennial girl boss made. The rest of my actual work gets thrown in the trash by legal. I watch '80s movies because I want to return to a time when things were good, and boys could still be boys.”
8PM:👨 Millennials:
My men’s group (millennials) met.
My men’s group (Millennials) met.
Here’s the TL;DR of that discussion:
“My wife and I both work, and we never see each other. I'm exhausted. Good thing I bought a house before 2020—we can barely afford the mortgage as it is. Freaking Boomers, they won’t move over and let us take on real responsibility. If they did, maybe I could make enough money for my wife to stay home. And Zoomers? They aren’t getting married. These Zoomers are clueless. They need to get off their gaming consoles, get out there, and ask girls out. Why aren’t you married yet, Zoomer incels?”
Judgment Day Cometh
This kind of generational resentment is all around us—it’s just the air we breathe. We have no mercy, no love, and no respect for the unique challenges each generation faces.
That’s a sad story, but this is serious. Scripture tells us that judgment will come if we do not have a come-to-Jesus moment about this.
"He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
Malachi 4"6
And lest we think this is an idle threat, generational warfare seems to have been the precursor to the fall of every empire throughout history.
King Naram Sin of Chalde - 3800 B.C. (Before the fall of the Chaldean empire):
"We have fallen upon evil times and the world has waxed very old and wicked.
Politics are very corrupt. Children are no longer respectful to their parents."
Plato as Greek 427-347 B.C. (As Greek hegemony wained)
"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying."
Juvenal 127 A.D. (Approximately 300 years before the fall of Rome)
In his Satires, Juvenal laments the decline of Roman values, saying,
"He who once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns himself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things—bread and circuses."
We often read Juvenal as speaking broadly of “the Roman people,” but the ancients were rarely as abstract as that. What he means is “this generation of men” who should be striving and building a better civilisation for posterity have instead concerned themselves with pleasure.
Can't you see Juvenal sporting a mustache, drinking a half-calf coffee with oat milk while leveling this devasting critique against his elders for parading around Rome in their $90,000 chariot convertibles with their leather-skinned trophy wives hanging off their arms? ROME IS DYING, AND YOU’RE TRAVELING TO CAPRI FOR YOUR ANNUAL VACATION? COME ON DUDE, THE BARBARIANS ARE AT THE GATES.”
But I digress.
Charles de Montesquieu 1748 A.D. (40 years before the French Revolution)
"It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption."
Sounds awfully like song lyrics I used to sing growing up:
Tom Delong of Blink 182 2001 A.D
If we're fucked up, you're to blame.
Building Generational Bridges
So here’s where I’m at I want to build some bridges lest the apocalypse we’re all feeling in our bones cometh much closer.
We’ve got to start building some bridges, and we begin building bridges by understanding each other. I will attempt to help us understand each generation's defining features so that we might be more gracious toward each other’s wounds, needs, and weaknesses. Keep in mind that I write this from a masculine perspective.
I will begin with a summary by my friend
.“Boomers were isolated from consequences.
Gen Xers were isolated from their parents.
Millennials were isolated from truth.
Zoomers were isolated from God.”
Now, on to explanations.
Da Boomerman
My father-in-law drinks eight cokes a day and has almost no health issues. If I drank one Coke, I would have a panic attack, not sleep for a few days in a row, and possibly get sick. Similarly, my dad bought a lovely house in a Dallas suburb on a professor’s salary while my mom stayed home to raise us five kids, which is impossible for my generation. I have been tempted to resent them both for this. That’s a microcosm of the millennial GenZ relationship with boomers.
The sexual revolution kicked off their no-consequences existence, access to contraception, and abortion, first legalized by Colorado in 1967. They also benefited from decades of economic stability and growth, particularly in the post-World War II era. As a result, approximately 85% of Baby Boomers own homes, as compared to 52% of millennials and 30% of Gen Z.
Due to their higher disposable income, Baby Boomers are now responsible for nearly 50% of all U.S. consumer spending. Boomers have continued to increase their spending even when other generations have cut back, which is scary because 45% of Baby Boomers have no retirement savings at all, and 28% have less than $100,000 saved. Not only that but boomers carry $1.2 trillion in mortgage debt alone, not to mention credit cards, auto loans, and medical debts.
This no-consequences, all-gas, no-breaks era they grew up in gave them no reason to question the institutions, so red pills go down hard for this generation.
The grace that I have for them is that this insulated life they’ve led is coming to a close. Their debtors will come knocking, and the lifestyle they lived will end. Their lives will slip away surrounded by kids obligated to be there for the gimmes.
It doesn’t matter which source of news they watch, CNN or Fox News, they will live to see the dream of the country they believed in fall to pieces.
On the other hand, if you get them talking about their career, garden, or sock portfolio and have the patience to wade through the 20-30-minute mandatory politics dump, you will learn a tremendous amount. Say what you want about boomers, but many are competent people.
Gen X
Last week I was at a bar with a client who called me gay for not having to call it a night at 1am. He was indubitably Gen X. I love him for it, and he loves me too (I think).
Gen Xers are tough, and they’d very much like for you to be too. These guys invented the mosh pit and metal music. They gave us Fight Club and South Park. They are often characterized as independent and rebellious. Why?
They didn’t have parents.
Gen X was born between 1965 and 1980, a time when women were entering the labor force in droves.
1940 - 18% of married women worked.
1960 - 30% of married women worked.
1978 - 51% of married women worked.
This was the first generation in history to be more or less raised by public schools and TV. These guys had to literally pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and if you were a dude, you better not show a sign of weakness or you’re “gay.” You better not make a mistake, or you’re a “retard.” My favorite clients are Gen X because they are a no-BS generation. They speak their minds and are much more willing to take risks than boomers.
Millennials
Many don’t know this, but I was one of the fastest high schoolers in the nation in 2006. My team was invited to Nike Team Nationals. We sucked it up and came in 50th out of 50.
But guess what, guys? My participation trophy is hanging on my wall. I got a trophy for SHOWING UP. And that is why GenX and Boomers hate us.
We Disneymaxed and are proud of it. It instilled in us a willingness to examine the problems of our age and a desire to solve them. Our nascent connectivity to one another and the budding internet gave us plenty of problems to examine. Millennials were raised on AIM and dial-up. We didn’t invent texting, emojis, or memes, but we sure did make them what they are today.
Another remarkable aspect of our upbringing is our isolation from adult relationships. Where GenXers still had relationships with coaches, teachers, and pastors, we only had each other.
Boomers were, for the most part, incapable of having genuine relationships with us. They were too busy with their own things, and in most cases, still are, but they wanted to ensure we were SAFE.
For those of you who don’t know, a safe environment is when you take 5000 high school kids, put them in a Petri dish of a public school together, give them cell phones, and make sure that no relationship is possible between adults and kids until you’re at least 21. I don’t think you could invent a better way to ensure poor outcomes except by giving them a phone at six instead of sixteen. Millennials, you see, raised each other with the loving support of digital connectivity.
This isolation from adults and digital connectivity makes reality malleable and opaque. Winning a fight in my high school circa 2006 meant spreading the rumor that you beat that other kid’s ass via text, aim, and Myspace.
Then, when we graduated college, every organization in the world hired us to write listicles like this:
This culminated in the events of 2020 with reality so awash with propaganda that reality disappeared.
In a post-truth world, your heart is really the only thing you can follow. So we are wracked with emotions that the other generations would not and could not help us process.
And yet, despite our lack of faith in ourselves, our faith in humanity is powerful. As I said, we raised ourselves. We are natural team players, and we love nothing more than to throw down for a cause we believe in. If you could only give us a vision worth sacrificing, we would lay down our lives.
Unfortunately, boomers have a tough time trusting us to do that due to our gluten-free diet and consumption of oat milk with our half-cup coffee.
Gen Z
Gen Z is living in post-society America. They have no culture but internet culture, no truth but the vibe, and they are the most nihilistic generation to walk the face of the earth. Given phones on average at 12, they are digital natives.
Gen Z is the most diverse generation in U.S. history, with around 48% being non-white. While Millennials at least grew up with a somewhat homogenous cultural experience, for the most part, Gen Z walks the digital planes untethered to place or time. They say all peoples are my people, all gods are my god, all genders are my gender, and all cultures are my culture.
That is to say, they have no people, no God, no gender, and no culture.
The byproduct of this is a curious combination of denial and hedonism.
Some say the will to power is the only thing left once you kill God. GenZ embraceth not The Will to Power but only The Will to Party. While we Millennials dutifully obeyed all COVID mandates, GenZ partied their face off.
Want to see the big difference between Gen Z and their Gen X parents? Compare this video (Sunday Best) with the famous scene from the Gen X film Office Space. Gen Z’s revolution includes no fighting. At least Gen X and Millennials care enough to take the printer out back and beat the crap out of it with a baseball bat. The Gen Z answer is to don 90’s throwback clothing and ignore the problem.
Their philosophy is clear: There is no point in life. Why fight? Why try? Why take anything seriously? We’re all just a bunch of atoms floating through space. Just party man.
This has, of all things, led to the complete breakdown of sex relationships. It’s hard to date seriously when floating in space and unwilling to take risks or make commitments. After all, why get locked into a committed relationship when the love of your life is only 10,000 swipes away?
A recent survey suggests that nearly 44% of Gen Z adults (ages 18-24) are not planning to marry or are unsure about marriage compared to 25% of Millennials at the same age. A study by the Guttmacher Institute found that about 15% of Gen Z adults aged 18-23 reported having no sexual partners since turning 18, compared to 6% of Gen Xers at the same age. Much has been written of this in other places, so I will limit it to this brief overview. No wonder my bro Walt Bizmark and other GenZ vitalist influencers talk about sex all the time.
But who can blame them for being afraid of commitment? Everything costs more these days, from rent to college to cars. The world feels stacked against them in every way. This leads to a state of perpetual adolescence, where the hurdles to marriage, family, and success seem so overwhelming that few even try. Gen Z guys who are trying are heroes.
These digital natives have a well-developed and subtle sense of humor. Red-pilling the dudes of this generation has been relatively easy. Giving them a pathway out of their stupor, however, is a gargantuan task. Mentorship, therefore, is a primary solution to the mire in which they find themselves.
So, there you have it. Now you understand the generations—their weaknesses, strengths, and perspectives. Our current generational relationships are marked by suspicion, envy, and resentment, a state that can only lead to destruction. My hope is that by fostering an understanding of the generations and their discontents, we can approach one another with more grace.
I believe that conservative Americans are evolving into a people. Being part of a people means caring for the generations that came before us while supporting those that come after. We can’t change how each generation was raised or behaved, but we can approach each individual with greater curiosity and compassion.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:3-5
Informational, but what to do about it?
One thing I noticed with my parents (and this applies to every generation) is they imprinted on the world as it was in their late teens and early twenties. They judged everything by that imprint. It was impossible to tell my father cars were getting too complicated; after all, in his day (he was born in 1930 in rural California,) one could disassemble a whole vehicle with a handful of sockets and a couple screwdrivers. He simply would not update his thinking about cars. Nor could he update his thinking about government (dad, it's far more corrupt than it was in your day!) and art? HELL NO, that ain't no way to make a living. Artists are bums or grifters. Auto/medical insurance a rip-off? What do you base that on (in tones that indicated to me, 'you are wrong and I will prove it to you.')
He continued to be appalled in his last years at what the world had become. I was amazed at that.
How could you fail to notice the changes?
I have seen this tendency in others too...they guide their thinking by the thinking they developed early on. Few seem capable/willing to update their worldviews. It's amazing to see some old guy insisting the cops are the 'good guys,' and criminals are the 'yucky people.' All one need do is get the attention of the state and POW! you are now one of the 'yucky people' for having done something as appalling as importing frozen lobster in bags instead of boxes. Yes, that's a law.
I teach blacksmithing at my association. I generally teach newbies to make a nail or an arrowhead or a simple hook. Practical, basic. I am astonished to meet guys in their twenties who've never driven a nail into wood, nor worked with any tools, nor built anything. They are often paralyzed when challenged to hit something with a hammer. They make this face, this shocked expression. They are unable to follow and execute basic instructions after watching me demonstrate. I have a gift for teaching; finding myself unable to bridge the gaps and get student going frightens me. These kids are handicapped in a way that I do not understand.
What will these man-lings do when collapse hits and they are left stupefied, unable to to such basic things?
Updating our worldview, our most basic assumptions, is now SURVIVAL. Become aware of your assumptions and challenge them. We are in the middle of a complete societal inversion on the precipice of a complete economic collapse. Old people will NEED young people to work, to do the things they can no longer do. Young people will need the old because we know stuff.
As an older millennial, I feel like that Sunday Best song is the "mirror of Galadriel" for understanding Gen Z.