"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannise their teachers."
I know it's a long quote, but it has meaning for what I'm going to say. And don't worry if you didn't read it all, I normally can't get through it without laughing once or five times at the word 'gobble'. It's just great. Anyway, the reason for the quote is because, although seemingly modern and really relevant to today's millennials, it's a quote from Socrates. The philosopher who lived 2400 years ago; he lived closer to the Pyramids of Giza being built than he did to the English Civil War.
So I use his quote to establish the millennials, my generation's, plight. It would seem that, just like Socrates', society has essentially not changed in the aspect of how generations view each other. We see our parents as children did during the Napoleonic Era, and parents view us just like parents saw their children during the Roman Empire. But, as a teenager, and especially one from the 1990s, I'm here to be stubborn and demonstrate how we're different; how we have it worse.
Let's look at, initially, the worst possible thing: war and suffering. The generation now have it splendidly well, with the longest and greatest peace-time in recent human history. There is no Cold War, and nuclear winters to be afraid of; no European superpower conflict, and no barbaric colonisation. We live, today, in a world of relative peace, where our parents and grandparents and grandparents may have died for us to live in it. Unless, of course, we include the latest form of war; terrorism. Of course, terrorism has existed for millennia, destroying spirits, hope and democracy. But only recently, due to the explosion of transport, information and technology has it become a new form of war: a way to actually gain something politically. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, that was terrorism. Now we live in an age of New Terrorism, where thousands of people can be murdered instantly through the use of transport, or through the use of new arms technology. Terrorists aren't going for the heads of state anymore, now they aim to kill anyone and everyone. They don't have political agenda, rather they terrorise to be terrorising, nothing more, nothing less. We now live in a world, created by those older than us, where thousands of people might as well be Heath Ledger's Joker.
So maybe war wasn't the best one to start with, since it's never been great, and really I can't blame my parents for a man who get's tactics and Tic Tacs confused, and then decided to invade/arm the Middle East. But enough of the US presidents from 1970-2008, the next topic of our plightful agenda is money. (I'm kidding, but to purposely name presidents would just be unfair, so you get to guess which Bush I'm talking about)
This is about the direct link of money to Millennials compared to those of Generation X. Living in the UK, and having lived in Dubai, been to the USA and most European countries, I hope I can have a somewhat unbiased opinion of how the perceived value of money has changed. But unfortunately that won't be true; you will have to make up your own opinion not just from me, but from everything. Money is a very vague and difficult topic to discuss, so I'll start with probably the biggest failures of Generation X to now: house prices. To buy a house, you will most likely (almost definitely) need to put down a deposit (5-10%) and then pay the rest in a mortgage over a certain time period, as expressed by whichever bank and/or pay-day lenders you're getting it from. This is what it's been for years, but only recently has the getting of the deposit actually become an issue. House prices have increased so much (And I can talk, I'm going to live in London and I literally have to work 30 hours a day so I can live there [literally]) that gaining that 5% minimum for a deposit might take 10 years. "But hold up... that's 10 years after you start work, even if you finish university and then work you'll be 31 and own a house" I don't hear you say. You're right, that isn't much. Even if you do have a family and have to get a 3 bedroom home when you're 31 which means having a great job (which is much more achievable since you went to university) then you're set, what am I arguing for?
We've missed two key points. The first key point is that the 10 years I stated it would take can only apply if you're debt free. So you can't have any university debt. Which is a problem, since most graduates have about £50000 worth of debt. But it's ok, since the debt is dissolved after 30 years, so you will be able to put down that deposit by the age of... 51. And then you won't be able to get the mortgage since the banks don't see how you'll be paying off a 30 year mortgage in a time-span of 14 years (assuming you'll retire at 65). But wait! That's only the first problem. And incase you were wondering, the answer to the first problem was that you should get a better job, you went to university after all. Which leads us on to our second problem; everyone's going to university. Not only do I spell it wrong every time, univercity has also become so saturated in the past 30 years that a degree now has the equivalent value of a-levels in the 1980s. This isn't exactly a problem, since it's amazing that the generation of today is smarter and brighter on average than anyone beforehand, just because we have so many resources in education. But that isn't why people are going to university; they're going because they want more money, and better jobs. Which ironically isn't happening because they're degrees are pointless because of that exact reason. University should be about learning, for the academics and for the people who want to excel in knowledge. I'm going to university so I can learn and debate better, so I can expand my capabilities and so I can become a better me for whatever I do. I'm not going to university so I can become a money-loving, wealthy business scoundrel. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be that, so would everyone else, but university isn't the way to go for it. You have a higher chance of winning the lottery.
There are many ways Millennials are disadvantaged, but probably the biggest, and most factual one, is climate change. Climate change has been proven to be related to human activity in the past 50 years, and the generations before us have done nothing (until very recently) to stop this. The ice caps are melting, temperatures are rising and animals are dying, and this is the biggest issue of our generation. The older generations saw it as there's to pine off to us, hoping we'd ignore it or it would just go away. Now, we stand in the face of adversity and need to change what people older than us have started. Climate change is the only issue that matters because if we don't care, our future generations won't be able to care.
So there we have it, maybe Socrates was right, maybe every parents and children see each other the same no matter the time frame. But one thing is for certain; each generation has to stand up against something, whether is be fascism, racism, sexism or terrorism. Today's generation need to stand up against climate change, against the tyranny of money and against terrorism. We need to fight back, like our parents, and their parents, and Socrates's parents. We are the new generation, now is the time we become the generation that matters, and who mattered.
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