12 Winters Blog

Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the phrase “the Lost Generation” in referring to the young Americans who emerged from the First World War years with shattered belief systems. The brutality and totality of the conflict left them confused, hopeless and directionless. The values that previous generations could believe in, could rely on, had been eviscerated and subverted by the war’s carnage.

As a high school English teacher, as someone who has been teaching predominantly seniors for the last 37 years, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the image of a “lost generation” in the context of today’s seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. These are young people who have grown up with technology, who have had their own tablets and cell phones from an early age, who have lived much of their lives on social media.

The term “social” media seems, in retrospect, ironic because in fact their technology has cut them off from each other in meaningful and fruitful ways. They tend to exist in digital enclaves of like-minded others who repeat and reaffirm their view of the world — no matter how misguided or downright false that view may be.

Their Snapchat threads and Twitter feeds are filled with trivial details about each other’s lives, and “news” regarding athletes, entertainers, and flash-in-the-pan Internet celebrities.

Most do not read books, even for school if they can help it.

But the furthest lost of this New Lost Generation are those young people who have grown up in a Trump-supporting environment, which is almost without exception a Fox News environment, a Breitbart environment, an InfoWars environment. What little awareness of the broader world they have is refracted through these deliberately distorting lenses.

They wholeheartedly believe things like . . .

Mexicans and other Hispanic people are pouring unchecked into the country through an all but nonexistent border, murdering and raping and selling drugs while also reaping the benefits of hardworking Americans’ tax dollars with free housing, healthcare, and schooling.

Muslims are terrorists, and many such Muslim terrorists have crept into the United States through the southern border, embedded among the hordes of Mexican murderers, rapists and drug dealers.

Guns are inherently good, and the more “good people” who own guns the safer other “good people” would be. Mass shootings wouldn’t take place if more good people were carrying guns — apparently all the time, everywhere.

Christians are inherently better than non-Christians. The separation of Church and State is at the root of all our country’s problems. The government needs to be more overtly Christian, and so do public schools.

Socialism is inherently bad. Only lazy people want “free stuff.” Government handouts make people weak — and increase the national debt.

Public schools and universities are filled with liberal teachers and professors who want to indoctrinate conservative young people into being liberals with their radical and dangerous leftist ideas. Discussing issues related to ideologies and public policies is a form of leftist brainwashing that must be guarded against.

Journalists are the enemy of the people. Any reporting on the President and his supporters that is negative must be false, made up for malicious purposes.

Democrats advocate ideas that are not simply wrong: they are dangerous.

Meanwhile unwavering support of Donald Trump has taught this New Lost Generation that . . .

Disrespectful, name-calling rants on Twitter are fine. Even if those rants are racist, misogynistic, or xenophobic.

Spreading misinformation and baldfaced lies is fine. In fact, opinions are the new facts for the New Lost Generation.

Infidelity to your spouse is fine. Lying about it is fine. Paying off people to conceal it is fine. Conspiring with others to keep it a secret is fine.

Women are to be used, cast aside and (if necessary) bought.

Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists are fine people.

Coequal branches of government is a myth. The Executive branch, especially the President, is supreme.

Checks-and-balances is a myth. Any attempted check is a conspiracy and a coup.

The Rule of Law is a myth. Officers of the court, members of Congress, requests for information and interviews, even subpoenas are powerless and meaningless. Laughable in fact.

The Constitution is meaningless.

Majority-rule is meaningless. Democracy is a pointless concept. The minority can rule if they play dirty enough, if they band together single-mindedly enough.

Accepting and even encouraging assistance from another country — including a geopolitical enemy — to win an election is fine. Only results matter. The method is without substance or consequence.

Making money — as much money as possible, in any way possible, partnered with anyone who can make it happen — should be one’s greatest goal in life. One shouldn’t let ethics, common decency or even the law stand in one’s way of making money.

If people or the environment is harmed, even destroyed, in the service of making money, so be it.

Claiming oneself a Christian without adhering, even remotely, to values associated with Christianity is fine. Saying the word is all that matters. Actions are something else entirely.

Donald Trump will be out of office someday, but his corrupt legacy will live on exponentially via the New Lost Generation — unless they can manage to find their way and save themselves. In spite of it all, I hold out hope. I must.

(Photo found here.)