Cut Zoomers Some Slack ｜ 1⧸16⧸25
Episode Stats
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158.9318
Summary
Generation Z, or the Zoomers, have an attitude that can feel alien to their predecessors. They also face a unique set of challenges that their elders have a hard time conceiving of, much less addressing. The nature of identity, spirituality, family, and economics have shifted under the feet of Generation Z, and it s time for the right to lead its younger generation, rather than disparaging them.
Transcript
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So you're hosting the family barbecue this week, but everyone knows your brother is the grill guy
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and it's highly likely he'll be backseat barbecuing all night. So be it. Impress even
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the toughest of critics with freshly prepared Canadian barbecue favorites from Sobeys.
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Every generation loves to give the kids that come after them a hard time.
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Socrates was famous for calling these lazy, disrespectful, and decadent,
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founding a tradition that continues to this very day. In fairness, these criticisms can carry a
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degree of truth, though elders making them rarely take ownership over creating the environment which
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led to the spiritual and cultural degradation that they're complaining about. While Generation Z,
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or the Zoomers, have an attitude that can feel alien to their predecessors, they also face a
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unique set of challenges that their elders have a hard time conceiving of, much less addressing.
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The nature of identity, spirituality, family, and economics have shifted under the feet of the
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Zoomers, and it's time for the right to lead its younger generation rather than disparaging them.
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It should be said from the outset that I am not myself a Zoomer. I was born just a few years
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into the millennial generation while Gen Z ranges from ages 13 to 28, but many of the problems that
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plague the Zoomers have an origin that predates them. The most common response given to young people
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complaining about their employment opportunities and financial future is to just work harder and pull
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themselves up by their bootstraps. For the individual, there's some value in this advice.
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No matter how terrible your circumstance is, the only thing that you can personally control is your
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own effort and attitude. But at a societal level, this is a disastrous stance. As a nation, we have a
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duty to create an environment where young people can be successful, build a family, and invest in a
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brighter future for their own children. When baby boomers were coming of age, America was flush with
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opportunity. Most jobs didn't require a college degree, and a store manager could expect to afford a home
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and take care of a family on one salary. Grandparents still fondly tell stories about how they could pay
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for their college education by just working a part-time job and maybe picking up some extra shifts in the
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summer. Starter homes existed in decent neighborhoods and cost less than one year of tuition at many
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universities in the modern day. Most importantly, the majority of children came from intact families
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that modeled the degree of normalcy and had parents that felt an obligation to pass wealth and opportunity
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down to their children. At 14 years old, I rode my bicycle to work for my first job at the neighborhood
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subway. I strongly believe that participating in menial jobs as a teenager is a great rite of passage
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which teaches you to connect with the average person and stay humble. But most of the employees
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were high school kids, and every manager or assistant manager was an adult without much of a sense of
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ambition. No one was paying for college, much less buying a home or supporting a family just by making
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sandwiches. We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight. Rocky's vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this
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economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet! Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we
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land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice!
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On behalf of Air Canada, nice travels. Wi-Fi available to aeroplane members on equipped flights sponsored by
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Bell. Conditions apply. See your Canada dot com. Today, many entry-level positions that would grant much
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needed job experience are filled by illegal immigrants who will work for less and aren't subject to the same
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labor restrictions. Zoomers are told that college is the gateway to a middle-class life. But the white males
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among them quickly find that the doors of higher education are closed because they don't meet the necessary
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diversity requirements. Those that make it into university then pay an exorbitant tuition that totals over the
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down payment for a home just to get the same accounting job that their parents received after
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working an apprenticeship. Once they graduate, those same workers are then informed that any jobs which
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haven't been shipped overseas are being granted to foreign labor brought in to compete with them on an
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H-1B visa. For the Zoomer, the reality of dating and marriage is even more bleak. Gen Z comes from
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increasingly broken homes with little positive relationship behavior to model. The church,
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one of the most critical social institutions for moral instruction, meeting a quality spouse,
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and guiding individuals through the difficult moments in a marriage, has been abandoned. Young
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people are left to resort to dating apps, which are personally degrading and offer a very low margin of
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relationship success. Young women, facing a large amount of debt which they accumulated in college to get a
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job, can't rely on their husband's income to sustain their household, and are therefore hesitant to
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start a family. The American dream was always about becoming middle class, or what the French called
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bourgeois. Middle class status was not just about achieving some arbitrary salary number, but about
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independence. Wage workers, or the proletariat, were reliant on their employers for their day-to-day
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existence. They were usually renters, unable to achieve any level of stability, always anxiously
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waiting for the next check to come in. The aspiration to become middle class was the aspiration to free
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yourself and your children from dependence on the system. A middle class family owned their own home,
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their own car, and very often their own business. The excess capital accumulated allowed the middle
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class family to invest, save for retirement, and grant new opportunities to their children.
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Civic organizations, fraternities, guilds, clubs, and churches created a web of social institutions
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that allowed the government to stay small while communities flourished. The leisure time and excess
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capital of the middle class allowed for the creation and maintenance of these institutions,
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which freed generations of Americans from dependence on corporations and the government.
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Today, the American middle class has been proletarianized. Home mortgages have expanded from 15 to 30 years,
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and that's just for those lucky enough to participate in a market where costs continue to skyrocket.
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Car loans have been increased in duration, while many are choosing just to lease instead of owning the
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vehicle at all. Healthcare, education, housing, and food have all experienced runaway inflation,
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while wages have stagnated in comparison. Two college-educated parents often need to work
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long hours at jobs where they compete with foreign labor just to afford a home and a child or two,
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leaving those young ones to be cared for by strangers and educated by the state. For most workers,
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the middle class just means the ability to afford both Netflix and Hulu, not a road to prosperity
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and independence. Zoomers are not uniquely entitled or lazy, but they were born into a culture that
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hollowed out many of its key social institutions to increase abstract measures of economic success like
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GDP. Many of the generations preceding the Zoomers forgot that economic growth doesn't exist for its own
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sake, but to better the life of the people who achieve it. If you destroy faith, family, and
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community in the process of manufacturing inflated quarterly earnings reports, you can't be surprised
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when the next generation is cynical about their ability to enter the world and succeed.
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Now to be clear, none of this lets Zoomers off the hook. They're still ultimately responsible for their
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own decisions, but conservatives should be looking to encourage young adults, not mock them.
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Opportunity still exists, but both illegal and legal immigration need to be drastically reduced to
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ensure that American citizens are the ones gaining access. The college stranglehold on credentials
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needs to be abolished, and DEI requirements in education and employment need to be punished with
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the strictest legal severity. Conservatives who claim to care about family values need to help to
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cultivate the community institutions that make families possible and mentor young leaders. Offer the
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next generation a future that they can be proud of, rather than mocking them for the world that they
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I'll see you in the next generation a future that I'll see you in the next generation.
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