As a professor of philosophy, I get to have really interesting conversations with 18-21 year olds on a regular basis. Questions about the nature of reality and questions about the nature of humanity come up week after week. I work hard to cultivate an environment where every perspective is welcomed and valued. Students know that if they express a perspective different than my own, they’ll earn my appreciation, not my scorn. I tell them at the start of the semester that they can disagree with every opinion I have and earn an A in my class, and I mean it quite genuinely. It happens all the time.
I tell them that my goal is not to convince them to think the same way I do, but to challenge them to explore and challenge their own beliefs. Instead of answers, I’m hoping to lead my students to better questions.
In a recent class, we arrived at a point where I asked them a question:
“Do you think your generation, Gen Z, is soft?”
I asked this because I’ve heard many people speaking negatively about this generation, where safe spaces and trigger warnings are not entirely uncommon. There are plenty of media articles blaming younger generations for issues in American society today, particularly financial issues and social issues.
I’ve heard preachers rail about how off-the-mark these college and high school aged students are; ringing a ‘you kids get off my lawn’ vibe.
These accusations are lobbed publicly, so I knew my students would have heard them.
I took a moment and drew a version of the chart below on the whiteboard for a reference point:
When I asked the question, three or four of the students in a class of around twenty immediately nodded their heads. As I gave the moment room to breathe, a few other students shook their heads at me. I invited both sides to share whether they agreed or disagreed with the sentiment.
After leading a discussion, I asked the students if I could share my thoughts. I noticed several students steel themselves: taking a deep breath, lowering their chin, narrowing their eyes. I knew they were expecting me to give some kind of ‘back in my day’ kind of speech. I found this interesting, because it was well into the semester. These students knew I valued their perspectives and cared about them as people. But this topic is clearly one where they expect to be berated or belittled.
Instead, I told them that I could even begin to imagine having to grow up in a world of social media. Middle school, I asserted, sucked enough as it was. The idea that it could follow me home everyday was terrifying. Or the fear that I could suddenly find myself the target of a widespread, mean-spirited campaign with no warning? I’m not sure I could have dealt with that.
And the idea that they live in a world of 24 media companies that try to push the most extreme content at them day after day after day? And having to go through active shooter drills at school?
I told them that the emotional trauma they’ve had to deal with as a generation is substantial, and their task is to process it in as healthy a manner as possible. The very idea of categorizing an entire generation as strong or weak is so inconceivably lazy to me. Each generation has its own challenges and opportunities, and each has insights and perspectives to offer to one another, but human nature is to attack the ‘other’.
By the time I was done, nobody had a hangdog look, ready to be blamed and badgered. Even the ones who were quick to say their generation was soft were nodding their heads as I outlined the challenges they had faced.
(It should be noted that because I truly value Gen Z perspectives, I’m also willing to challenge them in some areas. The idea of anti-fragility, described in Coddling of the American Mind, is one such area. Safe spaces, trigger warnings and protests against some ideological speakers at universities have a place, but can also go too far and cause harm where the honest desire was to bring safety. San Fransicko is another book that looks at this dynamic on a city scale.)
In On the Brink of Everything, Parker J Palmer talks about growing older. One of his charges is to listen to younger generations, because they live at the horizon point, and see what is coming up. Those of us who are older move further and further away from the horizon line, and the only way we can know what’s coming is to listen to the ones who are able to see.
This is a place where the church should lead the way, but yet again, has largely failed to do so. Aside from Paul’s admonition in Galatians 3:28 that our faith identity should create unity across any other identity (something I reference regularly because it’s fundamentally essential in the Christian faith and we absolutely suck at it), we can look at 1 John 2:12-14 where the Apostle reinforces how all the age generations in a church have a valuable role to play.
Sadly, I watched one 40-something preacher go on a riff during a sermon about what he thought was ‘wrong with these kids today’ with applause coming from some of the older adults in the congregation. It made me sick, knowing that this preacher was going to harm the possibility of building community in favor of a lazy narrative to get applause.
The idea of blaming Gen Z or even millenials for America’s problems is utterly illogical, as the Boomers, Busters and Gen Xers have been in charge of organizations and finances for the past several decades. Let’s look at them first for existing problems.
But I digress.
My point is not to shift blame from younger generations to older ones. My point is that we are quick to attack, blame, and discount. We should be quick to listen and slow to speak as James admonishes us.
It has been said that people who were on the forefront of the last revolution are the first ones to fight the next revolution. In a church body, trying to get Gen Z to value Boomer, Buster or Gen X faith formations will only lead to resentment and divisions.
Older believers should have wisdom to offer younger believers (though this, clearly, is not always the case), but in any event younger believers will not (and probably should not) listen to someone who does not listen first in order to understand before seeking to offer input.
Statistics are clear that younger people are engaging in faith communities less and less as each decade goes on. Perhaps a community that demonstrates genuine appreciation and value for Gen Z instead of lectures and condescension could see something better than the status quo.
If you don’t have any people who are in Gen Z around you, find some, ask them questions, and listen to them. Or get comfortable with becoming more and more irrelevant to not only this emerging generation, but each one coming after them.