I wouldn’t say it’s any generation’s fault, it’s simply that, even in a (supposed) democratic age, the elites still have way too many tools to sway the public consensus in their favor. Most people ultimately get greedy when they have the option to do so, and there can never be enough safeguards to prevent that from happening (or maybe there can be and we just haven’t thought of them yet, who knows).
Our generation (but mostly, the Silent Generation and Boomers) have in a sense enabled the elites to do so, but can you really say it’s our fault when the game was rigged from the start?
Thank you too! I feel like a lot of times online discussions get derailed by tribal mentality, and that prevents both sides from understanding each other’s points, even when they might actually be similar. I think if we all focused on discussing our ideas without personal attacks or assumptions there would be a lot more intelligent dialogues, and while apparently not everyone agrees, it’s always nice when it does happen.
This is a valid reasoning, the issue is that mass media does its best to first convince you that there’s no issue, then that there’s an issue but the consequences aren’t that bad, then that the consequences are bad, but we can’t really do anything about it (the fact that Learned Helplessness is a named concept should be enough to tell how prevalent it is).
And even if someone manages to not fall for that and conceive a plan on how to change things, in a society where you have to work 40+ hours weekly for enough money to get by, how many people have the resources, time and willpower to work towards that plan?
I admit that my outlook might be too pessimistic, but I really feel like it’s going to be hard to correct course until there’s a very large amount of people in a situation so dire that they have nothing to lose. And while that could theoretically happen over time with the political landscape, I fear that for climate change we don’t have that much time.