2020: Millennial Fetal Contentment
December 30, 2021
By AHNZ
Heroic Generation archetypes thrive in structured environments; They love having clear rules laid out so they can follow them. Instructions are to be followed without questions and with clear consequences. They thrive on duties and obligations, rewards and punishments and countdown timers. They are stressed by environments requiring them to be self-starting independent individuals.
Heroic Generations
eg. Long March generation, China
eg. GI Generation, USA
eg. Blitz Generation, UK
eg. Summer Afternoon, NZ
eg. Millennials
When enough Millennials reached young adulthood in the 2010s they cried out in pain. The real world wasn’t like the highly structured environments of their daycare centers or schools. Suicide, self-harm, depression, deviancy, drugs, self-mutilation (eg tatooing,) shock-hair colouring, and piercings became epidemic. When enough young Millennials had the chance to be an influence they promoted ‘Safe Spaces’ and Feminism and Gender Pronouns and Climate Change Catastrophisation and Racism to try to change their uncomfortable world into a place they felt at home.
Since then the Millennials have continued to turn the whole world itself upside-down to make their point of view seem upright. For example, this meme (image, right) says “I don’t have to eat less! You have to stop body-shaming!” and ‘I am not racist if I’m antiwhite’ and ‘It’s not cheating it’s polyamorous’ etc. The old Conformity stressed the Millennial as pointed out in detail in AHNZ’s Millennials Hurting post. Since then the Millennial attitude has transitioned to becoming the Innovation group (Wokism) and now, as of 2020, the Conformity group (COVID Hysteria.)
At last the Millennial can sleep soundly at night. Now we are all living in an hysterical world full of rules and regulations the Millennial feels safe and secure. Other generations are stressed at what the world has become and have trouble sleeping or living a normal life at all. This is what it was like for the Millennial up until recently as they cried themselves to sleep in a fetal position afraid of the competitive material world and its lack of ‘social justice’. The Millennial dream is everyone else’s nightmare.
Needles (in the arm,) nostrils (test probes up the,) masks, ‘Traffic Light’ systems, QR code tracing, policed border crossings, lock downs, managed isolation and quarantine, closed borders, censored media, limitless money-printing, medical professionals made redundant, jab, jab jab, jab jab boost,…and all the rest of the new mainstream “normal.”
Other generations find the Millennials’ environment (they have colonised our world now) increasingly stressful. Even exhausting to the point of not knowing if we can endure. The Millennial has been prepping for this kind of space they are adapted to all their lives. They can do this all day, all week, all year,..for them it is never supposed to end.
“One young adult in every five has sought mental health treatment in the past year, as New Zealand’s first online generation struggles…19 per cent of them “thought about or attempted suicide” in the year before they were last interviewed in 2014-15, aged 26…Auckland psychologist Dr Joe Guse said the astounding figures revealed the pressures that the “millennial” generation is living under..“Fifteen per cent of the Dunedin cohort had engaged in “self-harmful behaviours such as self-battery and self-biting””- Anxious online millennials reach out for help…“A quarter (24 per cent) of the Dunedin cohort at 26 had experienced an anxiety disorder in the past year and 16.5 per cent had experienced depression – similar to the 28 per cent of Competent Learners who felt anxious, and 18 per cent who felt “sad for no reason”, “quite often” or “lots of times” in the past year.” – NZ Herald, 2010s: Millennials Hurting, AHNZ
“So true. The annoying thing about the pandemic is not the rules and regulations, it’s the lack of perfectly coordinated systems and teamwork. So many Millennials on Twitter are complaining about not enough coordination and rules being too relaxed.” – Facebook comment; Julie Buren, Millennial
“Julie Buren as well they should complain about that. More people of all ages should. Anyone with any sense does.” – Facebook comment; Eric A. Meece, Millennial collaborator
According to the Washington Post, Millennials overtook Boomers as the largest U.S. population group in 2019. The following graph is a result of an open project AHNZ has to map the generational composition we live in. If we could figure out the changing population cohort of Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z etc. for New Zealand then it would be easy to see where our history trends came from. The figures come from Estimated Resident Population by Age and Sex, Statics New Zealand.
These generational statistics are subject to some ‘pollution’ in terms of culture because New Zealand has lots of migration. However, at face value the following graph shows that Millennials have been the most populous cohort since 2003. Social change was certain once this group reached adulthood.
According to the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory a constellation of generations such as we have now has always coincided with a ‘Fourth Turning’ or ‘Crisis’ period.
So, in March 2020 New Zealand started terraforming rapidly into Millennial Paradise. That generation has not felt so protected since childhood. Finally the young adults were able to snuggle up with their Rey Skywalker doll under their Transformers Beast Wars matching sheet sets and get some quality sleep in their parent’s house where they still live.
Millennial activist Pania Newton, for example, won her fight to have Big Government give her the land she desired at Ihumatao. She could rest at last. She could sleep the sleep of a generation that likes an interventionist hard-governing State in order to wind down. Millennials have re-made the world these past few years and 2020 and 2021 have been blissful for them. While other generations have been stressed by the new controls, Millennials have finally been able to curl up in fetal contentment. Of course this cannot last. ‘Good times’ create weak men, and weak men create hard times; The Crisis/Fourth Turning comes close behind adults who self-identify as infants.
Reality bites at Ihumatao which, after another year, still doesn’t even have a steering group let along any housing development. New Zealanders need places to live, productivity, employment, growth. We cannot live off of unearned good vibes and rest. Pania Newton’s generation gets to feel virtuous and rest but that relies on spending someone else’s money as well as stopping someone else from generating more. Ref. Ihumātao Update: One Year On, We Still Don’t Have A Steering Group, Let Alone Housing; Scoop
Generations with a disposition toward engaging with reality know this about economics which is why this great 2020/2021 Millennial Slumber Party is stressful to us. Why, then, do the Millennials get their way? They may be the new adult cohort but their numbers are no match for the middle-aged Generation X and the Elder Boomers combined. Why do we who are not Millennial Victimhood Culture members allow this group to dominate society? Why do we let politicians like Jacinda Ardern and Kiri Hannifin exploit this situation and tank our economy and culture?
The short answer is, as observed and pin-pointed in August 2021, the Boomers defected to the Millennials…
“National vaccination depends on the Boomers now. As of today (12 August, 2021) all Boomers have been mustered for their sheep drench…Well then, we’re doomed. Selfish Boomers have consistently made bad choices for the direction of New Zealand all their lives so why would they do anything differently now? The Statist Generation will comply if only to lord it over the rest of us how ‘heroic’ and ‘brave’ they are to the rest of us. Game over.” – Will The Boomers Vaccinate?, NZB3
“Well, baby boomers changed the world with promotion and acceptance of drug culture, self centeredness, making divorce an easy and ok option despite effects on families and societies, leaving home the latch key kids, we made free love a “right” and brought AIDS into the world with our free spirits.. and behaviors.. and THAT was all foisted upon the world too.. we were in charge of the work place and made our own way of doing things the “expected” way despite OTHER generations thriving on collegiality and structure..so, if the Millennials.. who are now approaching middle age.. thrive in a different environment, I believe it is time for baby boomers to step aside and hand over the reins.Like it or not, new generations come up in the lineup and others have to step down and learn to live with new ideas and societal norms… We ARE all in this together!!…I think in retirement, some conformity or just “going along” is normal,lol! ” – Facebook comment, Madeline Hill Kasian, Boomer
“Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war, invaders create avengers.” – Ultron, Avengers II (2015)
“Against this civic energy came a Generational Schism: The Hippies, Radio Hauraki, the youth culture, the Feminists, BLERTA, The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival, Road Warriors, Nga Tamatoa…” – Anti-Establishment Youth: The Rise of the Baby Boomers, AHNZ
Boomers have indeed become submissive in their old age and just want to go along to get along. To stay cool and part of the in-group Conformity rather than put out to pasture. Madonna is a leader in this march, desperate to pretend to be affiliated with a youth and Conformity she cannot be part of. Other generations at this point simply became the archetypical grandmother.
The Boomer transformation from protesting orders-givers is what Strauss Howe refer to by the classical concept of ‘enantiodromia: The Natural running of things into their opposites. Boomers from the 60s and 70s (eg. Tim Shadbolt, Hone Harawira) marched in the streets and organised massive resistance to mainstream society. They railed against structured environment, they disrupted the will of society and elected officials to the point of being arrested or even killed over it. That was then. Now the Boomer has flipped into their shadow self. Now the Boomer has become submissive to society’s rules, government’s mandates, and simperingly compliant in the ‘going along to get along’ they once viciously attacked their elders for during their youth. The Boomer has become the Millennial’s great accomplice either actively (eg. Tim Shadbolt, Hone Harawira) or passively. For the passive the fear of being told “OK Boomer” was enough of a warning shot to accelerate their enantiodomiatic flip-flop because they have a Madonna-like terror of being discarded as full participants in society. In other words, they are scared about being anomic deviants in Robert Merton’s Deviance Typology framework.
Note: The earlier precedent for Boomer Enantiodromia is found in our GI Generation who fought WW2. Our warriors, in particular, who were energetic and wild killer rebels (eg. Charles Upham) transformed in elderhood to deeply conservative nurturers of heritage and history to an unprecedented level; Equal and opposite reaction. The GI and Millennial Generations are both versions of the Heroic Generation archetype. No wonder Millennials, when they were little kids, created a participation boom in ANZAC ceremonies that was remarked upon at the time.1
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1 Children of Anzac (Looks at the resurgence of interest in Anzac Day by young NZers. Considering why that might be,) Hank Schouten,Dominion Post (2003); National Library
Image ref. Malcolm Evans observes in cartoon form ‘Anzac day and the new generation’, New Zealand Herald (2001); Alexander Turnbull Library
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