I recently attended my niece's graduation dinner. The girls looked catwalk-ready in their gowns, heels and makeup, while most of the boys appeared to be auditioning for adulthood (or perhaps a high school stage production of Glengarry Glen Ross). My niece grew up in one of the wealthiest areas in the Lower Mainland and attended one of the best high schools. Her background and social connections - to say nothing of her high grades and hard work - will serve her well as she makes her way into the world.
It's always risky to generalize about generational differences, with unique personalities branded with abstract nouns like "boomer" and "Gen X." That said, countless North American helicopter parents have raised their offspring in a relay race lifestyle of playdates, athletic events and homework. They have told their kids that everything they create is brilliant, every accomplishment golden. But what happens when a generational sense of entitlement collides with shrinking work and wage opportunities? For millennials without the privileges of my niece, who suspect they will be denied the living standards of their parents and grandparents, I would expect some sense of rage.
Yet there is an untapped greatness in young people, even when it isn't inflated by parental overpraise. The educator Joseph Chilton Pearce mused on youthful idealism in his 1992 book, Evolution's End. "First, starting at around age eleven, an idealistic image of life grows in intensity throughout the middle teens. Second, somewhere around age fourteen or fifteen a great expectation arises that 'something tremendous is supposed to happen.' Third, adolescents sense a secret, unique greatness in themselves that seeks expression. They gesture toward the heart when trying to express any of this, a significant clue to the whole affair."
When teens begin to recognize the hypocrisy and cant of the adult world, Pearce observed, some begin to effect postures of cynicism and rebellion - an understandable response, if not always an adaptive one.
On the one hand kids hear how our way of life is trashing the planet. On the other hand, the educational system, the media, and their own parents tell them they must compete for success in this very system. Some kids recognize this crazy-making cognitive dissonance for what it is, and feel it in the place that Pearce identified: their hearts.
With their budding "inner greatness," the hearts of adolescents - male and female alike - are an intergenerational, renewable resource for social planners. We all know military recruitment draws heavily on the hero archetype, something that resonates with male teens, even if they don't play first-person shooter games. But how can it be that a kid just out of high school is considered old enough to kill foreigners but still too young to drink alcohol in a public place? Likely because adolescent "inner greatness" phase offers a narrow window for cannon fodder recruiting appeals.
Many youth, idealistic or otherwise, have a very conflicted attitude toward our lifestyle of consumption. Perhaps this discontent played a part in the Vancouver Hockey riot in 2011, which involved more than a young, drunken mob posing for Facebook shots. The throng of convicted rioters and looters included a third year biochemistry student from UBC and a 17year-old "star athlete" water polo player who tried setting fire to a police car. So this wasn't just about barbarians from the 'burbs going on a meaningless bender. It was more like a class-blind rage among young adults, which found a convenient spark outside one of our corporate thunderdomes. The criminal behaviour begged for punishment, but it was much a socioeconomic storm warning as a beer-fueled microburst.
The writer Michael Meade once noted that "in many tribal cultures, it was said that if the boys were not initiated into manhood, if they were not shaped by the skills and love of elders, then they would destroy the culture. If the fires that innately burn inside youths are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel the warmth."
British Columbians live in a beautiful setting, mostly free from the privations that afflict people in the developing world. But any society, rich or poor, that thwarts the idealism of youth does so at its own peril. Best wishes to the grads of 2013: we've left you some tough homework. www.geoffolson.com
