I regard myself, perhaps wrongly, as a decent communicator, even if a bit snarky at times. I’ve dedicated most of my ministry energy to explaining complex ideas in biblical studies to determined church attendees. I’ve always liked to think that I could explain anything to anyone… until now.
When I was a Sylvan tutor working with students who had learning challenges ranging from laziness to disability, there were times that my frustration would show through as I took angle after angle stretching my “splainin’ skills” to the limit. I’d have to say to my student, “I am not frustrated with you. You are doing great. I’m frustrated that I can’t think of a better way to explain this to you… okay?”
This is how I increasingly feel as I attempt to engage the rising tide of “Millennials,” at least quintessential Millennials, those who represent in mind and attitude all that has come to characterize those born from around 1980-2000 as they are maturing into adulthood.[1]
Frankly, I find them snotty, sneering, disagreeable, arrogant, and unthinking.
“Ummmmm… and you wonder, Dr Sargent, why they don’t want to listen to you?”
Fair point. A display of frustration can cut off channels of communication… but I’m confessing here, so I have to be honest about my feelings. Besides, believe it or not, I mean this in the most kind and broken hearted way.
- They are the indoctrinated ones, sold hook line and sinker on socialist ideology, radical feminism, Evolution, the homosexual agenda and every other atheistic offering of the mind, even if they claim to believe in God and Christ. These are a litmus test for “honest” conversation with them, for access to their minds. Fail it and they have nothing left for you but dismissive scorn.[3]
- They seem to have taken Obama’s admonition to heart, believing (without having to actually do anything other than vote their political paramours into office) that they are the solution to every problem in our society. This was, by the way, the central point of a recent college graduation speech I had the misfortune to hear.
- They are deeply prejudiced against the past and those they deem “of the past.” They are so prejudiced that nothing one says or shows them that stems from these troglodytes is admissible to their minds as evidence that demands a verdict. They wipe it all away with the voice of the Borg… “White, Old fashioned, patriarchal, racist propaganda!” or worse, FOX NEWS!!!![4]
- They despise the very idea of traditional Judeo-Christian family values and structure, and they rage, sometimes openly, at anyone who comes even close to defending them.
- Their “community” is global… which means that they are individuals adrift in a sea of individuals, trusting that the powers that be will take care of them if they falter.
Have I finally met my match? Have I finally found a group I cannot teach, who cannot understand me? Or am I like Martin Luther, a man trying to explain himself and the Scriptures to people who have already determined to kill him?
I think… emphasis on think… cuz this is new to me and I need a decade or so to process it all… that part of the problem is found at such fundamental levels that any attempt at a reasoned discussion on the issues is almost impossible without first addressing these foundations… hopefully without setting off their many mental tripwires. They not only reject out of hand certain ideas about God, Humanity, and Reality, but they reject any moral statement that cannot be defended through the reasoning processes they have inherited.
What reasoning processes have they inherited, you ask?
Millennials have inherited a dialogical reasoning process that has been hamstrung by an overwhelming and fictitious cause-effect narrative from the left.[5]
More on this later in my posts, “Have You Tripwired Your Mind?” & “Hey Millennials! Hollywood is a Bunch of Big Fat Liars!”
[1] “Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, considers Millennials along with younger Gen Xers to be part of what she calls “Generation Me”. Twenge attributes confidence and tolerance to the Millennials but also a sense of entitlement and narcissism based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among Millennials compared to preceding generations when they were teens and in their twenties. She questions the predictions of Strauss and Howe that this generation will come out civic-minded.” (Generation me: Why today’s young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled—and more miserable than ever before.); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials
[3] Some will say, “relationship” is the key… but truthfully, I’ve not found it so. Their sense of relationship blanch shallow and self-serving, in my eyes at least, barely rising above the level of “LOL” typed into a smart phone… which they prefer to meaningful conversations with the people in the room with them. They like their relationship to be fun… devoid of open consideration of issues.
[4] I once raised a point about Obama from a video clip of him addressing some of his constituents when he thought no camera’s were running and a Millennial said to me, “Did you see that video on Fox News?” I said, “It was a several minute video of Obama,” what difference does it make who released the unedited video? He scoffed, “If it came from Fox it’s fake.” I said, “You think they got an actor to pretend to be Obama?” He merely said again, “If it came from Fox it’s fake.”
[5] I do not care for the term, “Left” since it tends to mingle social categories with political ones. There are distinguishable groups at work in the United States whose short-term common values tend to force them together in people’s minds, usually under the term “Left,” even though their ultimate ends are quite different. So, for now, “Left” will have to do.
