Fears of the future

An Adbusters article titled “Generation F*cked: How Britain is Eating Its Young” confirmed some of my recently surfaced fears about growing up in the new millennium. I worry that “depth” is slowly disappearing as a cultural value—that we’re experiencing a “mass shallowing” of our cultural experience. This shallowing comes courtesy of a slew of minute, myriad erosions to meaningfulness: like overpowering consumerism, standards-based achievement measures, or the decline of public value (like public spaces or the public domain). The Adbusters article describes the outlook for youth in Britain, and in doing so, chronicles a future look at how things already seem to be for some kids in the United States:

The first stirrings of major intergenerational conflict are already being noted. The basic rights of the recent past – a safe job, free education and healthcare, secure homes to raise a family, a modest but comfortable old age – have slipped quietly away, all to be replaced by a myriad of vapid lifestyle choices and glittery consumer trinkets. Excluded from a national social housing scheme sold off by their parents, unwilling to give birth in the UK’s draconian new system of rental accommodation which gives tenants no more than six months grace from eviction, and unable to afford homes of their own in 85 percent of the country, today’s iPod generation is stunted: trapped halfway between childhood and adulthood. It now takes them until 34, on average, before they can afford a house, let alone have a family of their own. Little surprise that they are such a woeful models of grown-up responsibility for their younger siblings to emulate. Mom and Dad aren’t much better. By blowing their children’s inheritance on 80 percent of the UK’s luxury good purchases, from SUVs to cruises and antiwrinkle creams, Britain’s baby-boomers seem hell bent on ensuring that, even without coming resource shortages such as Peak Oil, their offspring will be the first generation in living memory to have a lowered standard of living.

Honk if you felt a pang of déjà vu. Take a look at the article and feel free to hit me up with some comments.