Hey Zoomers, you're going to be a great generation
Look to the Folk Generation, then surpass them
This piece is heavily influenced by the world’s best thinkers about generations – Neil Howe and the late William Strauss. I was motivated to write it last night when I saw for the first time the One Voice Children’s Choir sing “Wake Me Up” by Tim “Avicii” Bergling (arguably the Millennials’ leading cultural figure to date) – and realized that the Zoomers are all right (even now) and already on their path to greatness. I attach the links to their song and Avicii’s original below for your listening and viewing enjoyment.
Were you born since about 2006? (Who knows yet where the dividing line is between Millennials and Zoomers?) My fellow Gen Xer Jonathan Haidt is trying to convince the world that the only thing that matters about you (and the last cohort of Millennials born just before you) is that you’re anxious. Don’t you believe it.
First of all, you are very young – and a vast time horizon lies ahead of you. If the last Zoomer ends up being born in 2029, the last Zoomer President (if in his or her eighties) will depart the White House after the election of 2112 or 2116. Given likely leaps in longevity, it could well be later. So start by taking the long view – all the way out to the 2110s and beyond – of your generation’s potential.
Second, own it. Own your generation’s anxiety. Doubt, ambivalence, self-questioning – these can be assets in many situations. And always remember this truth: uncertain people achieve great things too.
Third, there have been anxious generations before. Take a look at the 4 million Americans who made up the uncertain Compromise Generation born from 1767 to 1791. Take a look at the 22 million Americans who made up the neurotic Progressive Generation born from 1843 to 1859.
Most of all, take a long, steady look at the 49 million Americans who make up the Folk Generation born from 1925 to 1942. Because you’ve got a lot in common with them.
Yes, fortunately for us, many of them are still with us, our late-elders, our super-seniors, in their eighties and nineties. So you can still talk with them, before the opportunity runs out, and tap their memories, life experiences, and wisdom.
The people born from 1925 to 1942 have been widely called the Silent Generation because they were the anxious, play-it-safe youth and young adults of the 1950s. But they are every bit as great as the so-called “Greatest Generation” before them – the G.I. Generation born from 1902 to 1924. Every generation is great, and of the two, I would say the Folk Generation is greater.
Yes, the G.I.s took half the world back from the Fascists when they were rising adults. A world-historical achievement. But the Silent have had their own world-historical achievements.
Yes, the GI leaders set us on the path to go to the moon. But the Folk Generation actually got us to the moon. They made up the thousands of entrepreneurs and technicians who did the work at NASA and at the 1,000 contractor companies. They were Neil Armstrong and the 11 other men who walked on the moon.
I won’t delve too far into the political, but the Folk Generation was the Civil Rights Generation. They were the Little Rock Nine attending high school, the youth who sat at the lunch counters in Greensboro, James Meredith and other young adults who crossed onto college campuses, the Freedom Riders with their transcendent yet tangible valor, the three martyrs – Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman – and every civil rights leader you can think of from Malcolm X to Martin Luther King, Jr. They were Gloria Steinem and the women’s movement. They were Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, empowering Latinos. They were Harvey Milk and the gay rights movement. They were Tom Hayden and the Free Speech movement. They were Ralph Nader and the consumer rights movement. And they were Patrisha Wright and the disability rights movement.
Internationally, they were Vaclav Havel and the leaders of the human rights movement, including Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, the Helsinki Watch group in East Germany, the Solidarity movement in Poland (well, okay, Lech Walesa was a Boomer born in 1943), and the worldwide anti-apartheid movement. They helped bring down the Soviet Union and the racist regime in South Africa.
Add it all up and they should probably be called the Empowerment Generation. In our century, the great cause of inclusion, integration, equal opportunity, and empowerment goes on – and your generation will have your own achievements, all over the world, in this arena.
In the arena of culture, in just one paragraph here, the Folk Generation will long be remembered for musicians Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel (who proved that weepy can be great), Ray Charles, and Marvin Gaye; artist Andy Warhol; actors James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, and Morgan Freeman; and many, many others. There are so many great Silent filmmakers and TV show creators that one hesitates to mention only two: Martin Scorsese and Larry Gelbart (“M*A*S*H*”). In literature, there is everyone from the poet Maya Angelou to the playwrights Neil Simon, Lorraine Hansberry, and Harold Pinter to Broadway’s rock-opera lyricist-composer Andrew Lloyd Webber to the novelists (ugh!) Philip Roth, John Updike, and “the Beat Generation” writers along with (yes!) Thomas Keneally, Rudolfo Anaya, and Isabel Allende. And in your cultural achievements, your generation will almost certainly surpass theirs.
In science, technology, and business, there is everyone and everything from Gordon Moore and Intel to Charles DeLisi and the Human Genome Project.
Which generation do we think built Silicon Valley and other dynamic tech economies: Austin, Boston, Raleigh-Durham, Seattle, Burlington, and Urbana-Champaign in the U.S. and Cambridge, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia abroad? You are no doubt already imagining how far your generation will take things – without any geographic limitations.
Which generation produced the world’s first digerati -- Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Gerald Levin, John Malone, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Schwab, and Ted Turner? And your generation will produce even more and even greater tech-business leaders.
My own generation remains grateful to the great “Silent” authors Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt, George Gilder, and Tom Peters – who taught us when we were young adults how to enter the Third Wave of the Information Age, adapt to accelerating change in our hi-tech high-touch economy, follow the megatrends, and thrive on chaos. And we continue to appreciate Carl Sagan, who taught us how to think scientifically.
It’s a safe bet that your generation too will excel at venture capital, start-ups, management, trend forecasting, flattening hierarchies, and career mobility.
In the media, where to start? So many great journalists, including David Broder, David Halberstam, and Ted Koppel and the “Big Three” TV anchors: Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw. The first great talk-show hosts like Joyce Brothers and Phil Donahue. And the man who brought real wisdom into our lives via PBS: Bill Moyers.
Your generation, too, will open up our society to a range of voices, reveal personal and institutional secrets, and – let’s hope – show a deep respect for readers’ and viewers’ intelligence.
Finally, the Folk Generation produced the world’s greatest generation of psychological thinkers, psychologists, and therapists. There are too many to mention, but my personal favorites are Stanislav Grof (the greatest thinker in psychiatry and consciousness in human history), Lawrence Kohlberg, and Carol Gilligan as well as Michael Murphy and the human potential movement. We look to you for your own range of achievements in this field.
The Folk Generation has been far from perfect. Like every generation, they’ve left some big messes behind for future generations to clean up. Often the world needed (and didn’t get) less of their non-judgmental relativism and more of the GIs’ toughness and steady hand, the Boomers’ clear vision and moral zeal, or GenXers’ ice-cold realism and pragmatism.
But at their best, the Folk Generation displayed the same qualities that your generation is likely to display at your best: workplace cooperation, professional competence and expertise, flexibility, a sense of fairness, and a capacity for introspection, ambiguity, nuance, and complexity.
This generation of nice, polite, and humane optimists made America a fairer and more communicative, responsive, and inclusive place. And they led the world into unprecedented multilateralism and interdependence.
Even their doubts, ambivalence, and skeptical questioning of themselves and America led to some good things. Second-guessing is not always the right move, but often our second guess is better than our first.
At their best, the Folk Generation plumbed their inner wellsprings with a self-conscious humanity and a tender social conscience. Sound familiar?
At their best, they were humble, considerate, and able to defuse conflict by getting people to talk with each other – from therapeutic groups to talk shows to televised town halls. They excelled at personal and small-group communication. They excelled at getting people to open up, mingle, relax, relate, and express themselves. So, I think, will you.
And at their best, the Folk Generation reached out to people of all races, cultures, and handicaps. They championed the underdog. And they listened with open minds, they engaged in give and take, they synthesized competing theories and agendas, they compromised and mediated, and they bridged gaps and built consensus. Study their example, then exceed it.
Sure, learn what you can from Jonathan Haidt. But never let his obsession with your anxiety define you. Own your anxiety, and then bring your empathy, sensitivity, conscience, and refinement into our world – which is currently in desperate need of all four.
Remember, young Zoomers, as you begin making your first marks in our national and global culture, that there was a time when poignant Folk anthems struck their deep chords of wisdom in our hearts. There was a time when empowering and impassioned dreams and movements – with all their peaks and magic moments – defined America. There was a time when these gifted, inspired, persuasive communicators spoke directly to our souls.
And your generation, born from about 2006 to about 2029 – which will get a better name than “Zoomers” when you do some great, defining thing together in the 2030s – can take great pride in being the world’s New Folk Generation. And then surpassing them in every field and in every way.
Wake Me Up - Avicii | One Voice Children's Choir | Kids Cover (Official Music Video) - YouTube
And if you’ve never heard and seen the video of the original song by Aloe Blacc, Mike Eiziger, and Tim “Avicii” Bergling, it’s got 2.3 billion views and it’s a beaut:
A lot to think about, Mike! Nice ideas here. 😊