2023: The Heroic Millennial
October 1, 2023
By AHNZ
Every era has its Heroic Generation. According to the Strauss-Howe Model I ascribe to the era we still live in today is the Millennial Saeculum (1946-??) which is named after its Hero Generation, the Millennials (b.1982-2001.) The prior Hero Generation flourished during WW1 and are called the G.I. Generation in American history but more rightly the ANZAC Generation for New Zealand. Before that, we had a Pioneer-Settler Hero Generation who tamed the land, colonised, and fought the Ango-Maori Wars in the 1860s. The Heroic are a generation of warriors who are born to face a Crisis but how are they doing?
“You were the chosen one!” said Obi-Wan in exasperation to his young Hero turning bad (Darth Vader!) in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005.) Indeed, things were not looking too rosy for the new Heroes as they passed into adulthood despite the high expectations anticipated for them by Neil Howe and William Strauss in their book Millennials Rising (2000.) “…Millennials have been regarded as special since birth and have been more obsessed-over at every age than Xers..” they wrote.
“From conception to graduation, this 1982 cohort has marked a watershed in adult attitudes toward, treatment of, and expectations for children. Over that eighteen year span, whatever age bracket those 1982-born children have inhabited has been the target of intense hope, worry, and wonder from parents, pollsters, pundits, and politicians.”- Millennials Rising; Neil Howe and William Strauss (2000)
A key hallmark of a Heroic is that they grow up as protected children after a spiritual awakening event (eg Woodstock, Nambassa, Flower Power, Hippy-Dippy,..) They are highly Collectivist; Team-work orientated rather than individualised. The ANZAC Generation grew up under the (Woke) Liberals, especially William Pember Reeves who proclaimed the death of individualism itself in the early 1890s and played a large role in facilitating that. This generation are warriors who face the Crisis (aka Fourth Turning) that will save and found a new historical saeculum. No wonder our ANZAC Generation, initially born of protesting, had our Parliamentary Debating Chamber decorated according to their struggle after the previous one Accidentally Burned Down. Ref. 1918: Great War Debating Chamber, AHNZ
These Collectivist Generations never do death to individualism permanently but they do have their day. It comes much to the perplexity of the Nomad Generation (eg Generation X) as many videos of The Dadbod Veteran (image below) attest.
The Millennials certainly have lived up to their Hero archetypes as the ANZACs did too. However, they have been warriors of a different kind of war. A Culture War. They are Social Justice Warriors.
“When Strauss and Howe wrote Millennials Rising (2000) they were in awe of what this new generation would become. The authors foresaw the principles but not the expression that would be taken. In fact the strong Millennial ‘values’ and ‘drive’ have gone toward expanding entitlement and a new era of Identitiy Protective Cognition, Outrage Industrial Complex, Political Correctness.” – Millennials Hurting, AHNZ
“The G.I.s’ most important link to the Millennials is in the void they leave behind…no other adult peer group possesses anything close to their upbeat, high-achieving, team-playing, and civic-minded reputation. Sensing this role unfilled, today’s adults have stressed the teaching of these (G.I.) values to Millennial children—who themselves are gravitating toward the G.I. archetype as the only available script for correcting or complementing the Boomer persona. You don’t rebel against Boomers by being uber-Xers. You rebel by being G.I. redux, a youthful update of the generation against which the Boomers themselves rebelled, so famously, in the 1960s and 70s.” – p51, Strauss and Howe (2000)
All of this theory forms essential framework for figuring out the Anarchist History of New Zealand. This post is written to focus on one particular Heroic Millennial in the newspapers today, French backpacker Emilie Genez.
Genez (born 1988) came to New Zealand on a working holiday visa that included our COVID Pandemic Lockdown years. She has apparently contributed her story and photos to the media. The story features a triumphant Genez posing at a vineyard holding her weapon (cell phone) high above South Island hills with the headline: French backpacker takes on Cromwell cherry orchard in $320 fight over principles. Ref. Stuff (September 2023)
The nature of this Millennial Hero’s fight is worth recounting as it encapsulates the sort of conflict the West is in the midst of right now.
Emilie signed on for seasonal work for New Zealand Cherry Corp in Cromwell, Otago. She never showed up for that job.
Not only was Cherry Corp out of a worker they were out of a camper too because Emilie had reserved a spot for her van that excluded others from using it; She had paid $320.00 for it.
When Emilie decided to skip out on the job and the site she asked for a refund and did not get it. That’s when the Warrior Went To War!
Emilie phoned it in from home in France, getting the Disputes Tribunal to handle her case for her. And, she won it! Again, using her secret weapon and apparently main aptitude: Not showing up!
“Because we aren’t New Zealanders and are just passing through the country, and working in different areas doesn’t mean we don’t deserve respect,” – Genez, Stuff (2023)
“Despite winning the Tribunal hearing, Genez had not turned up for it, he said. Genez said she missed the hearing by 30 minutes after mixing up the days. She was in France at the time, and it was 2am, she said.” – ibid
“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.” – 2020: Millennial Fetal Contentment, AHNZ
“What exactly caused the bizarre cultural change our society has gone through? Anyone over a certain age can see that our society has radically changed, almost overnight. People over X age seem to have one whole set of views, and people under X seem to have a completely different set…So-called progressive and Neo-Puritan wokelings have been taught from a young age that there is always some superior power that can force other people to do its bidding…Millennials/Generation Z kids essentially went to high school on a different planet than you. Their high schools are highly policed, locked down, constantly nervous, camera ridden prisons. They grew up in a society totally different from the one that existed just a few years before…They NEED a central power to mediate for them. They have no internal mechanism to deal with it on their own… they never had a reason to develop one. They’ve been conditioned that whenever someone says something against their concept of social norms, a central force (be it teacher, mother, policeman, admin) comes down and takes them away. ” – Vito Rispo, Facebook (2021)
Emilie’s generation have no internal locus of self-responsibility to deal with life’s problems. They have been raised by parents and teachers who groomed and conditioned them to simply cry out for help and be rescued by some Boss or Institution.
I would guess that the managers of the cherry orchard belong to an older generation, probably Gen X, and have different norms and expectations. They lost their legal case essentially because they didn’t codify their expectation that if someone takes a spot and a job from someone else at the last minute it’s NO REFUNDS! You’ve got to get that stuff in writing and $320.00 is a small price to pay if that lesson is learned.
The Emilie problem was caused by her not showing up herself and not taking responsibility. The Emilie problem was also resolved by her not showing up herself and not taking responsibility. There is everything in favor of supporting this behavior and re-enforcing it. It’s the same response young people today offer when they petition and protest in attempts to change the weather. Someone else is supposed to do the work because they have cried out.
Our current crop of Millennial Heroes signaled early on in life that they were the inheritors of the ANZAC Heroes. Even this cartoonist (image, left) observed the turn-out of the Millennials at ANZAC Day memorials. But the sort of Crisis they came to meet was a Social Crisis and the kind of warrior they are is Social Warrior. As per usual in New Zealand history it was something different. Something nobody counted on.
—
Image ref. The Dadbod Veteran, a GenX in Mid-Life makes many amusing videos reacting to the Millennials. Ref. Youtube
Image ref. Malcolm Evans observes in cartoon form ‘Anzac day and the new generation’, New Zealand Herald (2001); Alexander Turnbull Library
Ref. It might be interesting to see this case appear on the Disputes Tribunal Decisions database. Still too early to find it as of now (October 2023)
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