Occupy Wall Street. Anonymous. LulzSec. Millenials. These are words that are bandied about by a media that scarcely understands them. I’m sure you’ve heard things from both sides of the street at this point. That they’re simultaneously our generation’s freedom fighters and a bunch of spoiled hipsters. That they are the most idealistic and the most dissipated of youths you will find.
This is important, because they are both.
Millenials, the MTV generation, the “new kids.” They go by many names, and none of them fit all of them. I know, because I’m one of them.
I would chance a guess that a majority of the people currently occupying wall street are between the ages of 22 and 30. Most of them have attended college, and a large portion of them have degrees. A large percentage of them are in debt to the government or a variety of banks, because the cost of college has multiplied and the willingness of the government to allow you to go into a debt you can never pay off has massively increased. They have graduated and moved on to a world which has no work or place for them.
People have (fairly or not) compared their movement to that of the social equality and civil rights movements of the 60s. The great irony, perhaps, is that those who were in their 20s and 30s during that time are (as a majority) looking down on this movement as whining and illegitimate concerns of a spoiled generation. To add to the irony, a large portion of World War II/Korea vets (in most cases the parents of that 60s generation) have joined the march and the occupation of the streets.
The primary differences between the generations are not necessarily in the actions and methods of the people, but in the ideals. Millenials grew up with heroes like Robin Hood (the Prince of Thieves as well as the Man in Tights). They were told by the heroes of the grunge generation that selling out was still a crime worse than starving.
To be fair, they may be of the understanding that the world is more fair than it is. Maybe they think that there is justice in the universe that will reward them for their ideals. Maybe they trust that their hard work will pay off, when the real world has much more pragmatic ways of rewarding and punishing the people for what they do. But here’s the scary part…
If the ideals are to be believed, these people are willing to sacrifice personal wealth and financial gain in order to sleep more soundly, in order to feel that the world is more just. Believe that or not, we’ve already discussed that these people are in debt, they are without work, and they don’t have riches to give up. They have absolutely nothing to lose, and they are ready to risk it.
Sleeping in the streets is much easier when you have no home to go to. Sacrificing your personal wealth is much easier when you have so little to give. They have worked for a very long time for something they feel they’re entitled to. Whether you agree with them or not, they’re ready to earn their rewards. And they are perfectly willing to take it off the hides of those they think earned their wealth in unscrupulous manners.
This is why they should scare you.
I am a member of this generation, but I’m not in the streets. I have very little student debt of my own, although my wife has a fair amount. I am gainfully employed and I find myself doing only better each year. I should be terrified that these people will make people like me –who have worked hard our whole lives and managed to succeed– completely redundant. We will have to pay our hard earned dollars to help them when they couldn’t succeed on their own, and possibly give up our jobs to them.
I’m not scared. If the tides turn, and I end up having to pay a larger portion of my taxes towards people who I went to school with, people who I worked and sweated and lived with on a daily basis, so be it. The thing that we both agree on, however, is those proverbial Neros who burned their own companies to the ground while they escaped in golden parachutes are the ones who should be paying. They are the target of these protests. Bernie Madoffs, Goldman Sachs, and other people who succeeded by fleecing their own clients and employees: these are the people who are in the crosshairs.
Why should Occupy The Streets Scare You, considering you’re most likely not one of those people?
Because every action you take puts you on one of the sides. Are you on the side of people who may be whining too much but are pissed off that they have been fleeced by white collar criminals, or would you rather side with the criminals and hope that they give you a pittance of their stolen wealth?
Now I know, a lot of people are going to say “My dad made a million dollars being honest” or “My uncle is a small business owner who employs a lot of people.” If you’re scared of these people, it’s because you’re not supporting them. You should be. They have good skills and they are idealistic: you should be hiring them. They’re probably remarkably cheap right now too.
Whining that they’re whining instead of doing what you can to make them successful like you is a waste of your time: it’s not time spent fixing the problems that we’re facing.
People have (again fairly or not) compared this movement to that of the Tea Party. The biggest difference in this case? There are far more of these people, and they have a lot more free time to protest.
This should scare you, because for better or worse: the world is about to change. Let’s hope it goes well for a majority of us.
