Death of a Generation: Part I
Generation Z is supposed to change the world — but what if we’ve already failed?
“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
I: THE SUPERMAN FALLACY
Recently, the world has come to a crossroads of many varying crises; ecological, virological, economical, and societal. The evening news, almost daily, reports events that once would have taken up months of airtime. However, these crises have not arisen from a simple cast of the die of fate, nor are they unrelated in origin and cause. The seeming irregularity of the present moment is due to a system under stress which no longer can maintain an appearance of structure or stability. But what has been the systemic response to the juncture of these varying crises caused by a rapidly collapsing neoliberal system? In short, the spectacle of the capitalist system has begun, over the past decade, to create a fiction in which Generation Z is portrayed as a savior, a ‘superman’, for the future of Earth and civilization. Thus, the blame is shifted from capitalism to moral or generational blame — reinforcing the integrity and security of the system of neoliberal capitalism which caused these existential crises in the first place.
The objective of this essay is to expose the ‘superman’ fallacy of Generation Z and to deconstruct the thoughts, ideas, and systems from which this fallacy arose. Furthermore, this essay will contend that, unlike contemporary thought in many circles, Generation Z is in all circumstances even more susceptible to the institutions of capitalism and the degrading effect of capitalist realism upon the collective psyche.
The fiction that Gen Z is some sort of ‘savior’, is perhaps the most dangerous of the modern era. It functions much in the same regard that the wider public regards various works of “revolutionary” or “counter-culture” entertainment: a way to express hope for the future and to feel as though one has done something to challenge or change the world — all while giving into the capitalist system even more by consuming their media and giving them profit. As Mark Fisher states in Capitalist Realism — Is There No Alternative?:
“… anti-capitalism is widely disseminated in capitalism. Time after time, the villain in Hollywood films will turn out to be the ‘evil corporation’. Far from undermining capitalist realism, this gestural anti-capitalism actually reinforces it… What we have here is a vision of control and communication much as Jean Baudrillard understood it, in which subjugation no longer takes the form of a subordination to an extrinsic spectacle, but rather invites us to interact and participate … But this kind of irony feeds rather than challenges capitalist realism. A film … exemplifies what Robert Pfaller has called ‘interpassivity’: the film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity”(Fisher, 16).
While Fisher focuses on films like Wall-E to describe ‘interpassivity’, the broader message is that a broad swath of media — not just film — contains counter-cultural or revolutionary aesthetic or messaging in order to reinforce actions of ‘interpassivity’. In the same vein, then, is the systemic categorization of Generation Z into the role of ‘hero’ by the news media. In the past years, stories have abounded of such inspirational or ‘world-changing’ young people such as Greta Thunberg, the survivors of the Parkland school shooting, the Young Democrats, the Sunrise Movement, etc. Each and every time these individuals or groups come forward with a set of legitimate demands, a repeating pattern can be observed which lends itself to the superman fallacy created around Generation Z.
Firstly, a group or individual from Generation Z will come forward with demands on a specific set of issues: these are varied and many and arise from many circumstances. Secondly, the capitalist media identifies the group or individual and begins a process of separating the person from their goals and ideas. Thirdly, the capitalist media idolizes them and paints them as an abstract ‘voice for the future’, ‘voice of hope’, ‘radical’, etc — this message, of the individual stripped from their core demands, is then injected into the wider population through mass media until all that remains of the group or individual is an abstract idea or value (‘climate justice,’ ‘racial equality’), rather than tangible goals or substance (decarbonization, police abolition). The overall effect of this media process is the removal of the person from their goals — the creation of a personality spectacle. Time and time again, the capitalist media has beaten down radical or even mildly reformist groups and people and turned them into simple abstractions of their ideas which can be marketed, packaged, and sold to keep the wider populace content and servile.
Though it seems absurd, this process of separating the force of change from its goals can also happen to entire generations. The same process of ‘interpassivity’ created around individuals can also be created around generations. It is widely regarded that Generation Z is highly politically active. The origin for this political energy can be found in the material conditions that Generation Z was born into — a declining economy, rampant inequality, never-ending war, and most importantly, a climate on the brink of collapse. The reality of these situations is present and clear within the members of Generation Z and is the main engine for their continuing political action. However, within this energy for change also lies the greatest trap: the superman fallacy.
The ‘superman fallacy’ could be described as the ultimate conception of interpassivity — the ultimate removal of forces from the change from tangible goals, the supreme abstraction of all material forces. It is, in essence, the fiction that Generation Z will ‘save’ everything. This mantra is repeated incessantly, constantly permeating throughout the mass media machine. The blame of guilt and burden for the world’s problems is placed upon the symbolic shoulders of a single generation, thereby placing them in the impossible situation of a savior. In essence, it is the fiction that Generation Z can fix a remarkably catastrophic world, one whose material conditions are rapidly degrading, while still maintaining the broad mechanisms of capitalism. The superman fallacy says, “Fight! You are the future!” while simultaneously giving life to the same system which destroyed our very future.
It is clear that the superman fallacy, at its heart, is simply a construction of the existing spectacle of modern society, meant to redirect anger at the broader system towards passive consumption and guilt. As Guy Debord says in Society of the Spectacle,
“This is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by ‘intangible as well as tangible things,’ which reaches its absolute fulfillment in the spectacle, where the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which simultaneously impose themselves as the tangible par excellence”(Debord 36).
Debord here describes exactly what the superman fallacy plays into: passive consumption of simple, digestible images. So too has this happened with Generation Z. This generation, spurred on by the rampant commodity fetishism and interpassivity complex, has become nothing more than a collection of vague hopes and dreams. Where once lay real action among the youth now lies a grave of abstractions and generalizations. But this is the wicked nature of the spectacle — these false abstractions become the real. They are imposed unilaterally through all the functions of the spectacle and present themselves as the truth: Generation Z is the ‘voice of the future’, the ‘saviors of the planet’, when in reality we are little more than a directionless youth seeking some meaning in a world which only presents absurdity.
The ultimate and final goal of the superman fallacy within the framework of the spectacle is that of endless consumption. It desires to impose this impossible task of a ‘savior’ upon the minds of an entire generation, and, to fill the void created by the hopelessness of being savior, encourage rampant consumption, thereby solidifying the power of the capitalist system. One can hear it this message constantly — “sign this petition!”, “go vegan!”, “read this slideshow!”, “recycle!”, etc. Everywhere, at all times, this dull monotony of false hope imposes itself to assuage the desperation of a generation never meant to save everything and everyone all at once.
END PART I
