A friend sent me an article by Jeffrey Arnett from the Huffington Post. It carries a bold title: “’The Empathic Civilization’: The Young Pioneers of the Empathic Generation.” Apparently, polls indicate that for the young Americans belonging to that generation (18-19 year-olds) the whole planet is now their playground – woops, “playing field.” Almost a quarter of them see themselves working abroad, and maybe most “expect to be able to vacation, live and shop anywhere they like.” They “want people in developing countries protected from the depredations of multinational corporations and the destructive fiscal policies of multinational lending institutions.” And they are more tolerant and inclusive than any previous generation, easily reaching across “across boundaries of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic group, and religion.” Good for them, but this is almost too good to be true. If these young people care so passionately about the larger world and the inhabitants of distant places with unpronounceable names, why do they know next to nothing about anything surpassing their immediate experience - which is often encapsulated within a cocoon of peer-to-peer chatter and incessant electronic buzz? This is the rhetorical question asked by Mark Bauerlein in his recent book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). His title is a bit too provocative, but he does cite countless studies to prove his point.
I think I have a better label – I would call the young people carrying the attitudes described in Arnett’s article "the unmoored generation." There will always be wonderful exceptions, but are we really facing a future where masses of youngsters will effortlessly connect emotionally to people from different cultures around the world? I deeply doubt it. I think the research Arnett summarizes captures the last stage of a process Tocqueville once described. He observed that in modernizing societies "the bond of human affection is extended, but it is relaxed" – until at some point any discernible difference in the intensity of emotional connectedness to members of one’s own community (however defined) and to distant strangers evaporates. We may be approaching that point, and using the word “empathy” to describe this coming existential posture strikes me as quite misleading. I am reminded of Gert Gerken who back in the 1990s was already speaking of the “new indifference” which comes from the inability to place the deluge of stimuli and information inundating one’s consciousness into any coherent and meaningful framework. Until most fixed categories start to melt, and even once unproblematic things like gender identity become negotiable. So, an even more apt – and teasing – label could be the “whatever” (or “whatev,” as they prefer to express themselves) generation – a term thrown around by some marketers and trend spotters. Of course, the relaxed tolerance Arnett describes creates a much less tense and discriminatory environment for all kinds of marginalized groups, and this is to be welcomed. And having everything up in the air and being able to pick, choose, mix, and match at will an unlimited variety of things and experiences must generate an exhilarating sense of boundless personal freedom. But it all comes at a price. That price probably includes the ability of a critical mass of upcoming adults to build a coherent picture of the larger world and achieve a degree of emotional attunement to their social environment, even to their own true needs – despite the recent explosion of extracurricular and study-abroad programs aimed at mass-producing “empathy.”
