We probably don’t write enough around here about the economy and how the current economic downturn is affecting families and societies. The Atlantic article below ends on the point “…both inside and outside the U.S., lengthy periods of economic stagnation or decline have almost always left society more mean-spirited and less inclusive, and have usually stopped or reversed the advance of rights and freedoms.”
But I was also interested in this article for what it has to say about fatalism. I’ve blogged a few times recently about fatalism in Islam, but it’s important to put that in the context of fatalism in the larger society.
Ron Alsop, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the author of The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace, says a combination of entitlement and highly structured childhood has resulted in a lack of independence and entrepreneurialism in many 20-somethings. They’re used to checklists, he says, and “don’t excel at leadership or independent problem solving.”
Alsop interviewed dozens of employers for his book, and concluded that unlike previous generations, Millennials, as a group, “need almost constant direction” in the workplace. “Many flounder without precise guidelines but thrive in structured situations that provide clearly defined rules.”
All of these characteristics are worrisome, given a harsh economic environment that requires perseverance, adaptability, humility, and entrepreneurialism. Perhaps most worrisome, though, is the fatalism and lack of agency that both Twenge and Alsop discern in today’s young adults. Trained throughout childhood to disconnect performance from reward, and told repeatedly that they are destined for great things, many are quick to place blame elsewhere when something goes wrong, and inclined to believe that bad situations will sort themselves out—or will be sorted out by parents or other helpers.
“Millennials” are those born between 1980 and 2001. On the other hand, many first-generation Muslims in the US are entrepreneurial, so it seems there are good examples in the community, though whether Muslim ‘millennials’ have been raised to value those examples or to integrate to the college-educated class culture described above is another question.
