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boomer files: financial meltdown and the crisis of mistrust
Since the average age of the Ann Arbor Vineyard is 33, I do a lot of hanging out with people half my age. Ebony, who is less than half my age, citing The Fourth Turning, told me recently that we boomers have some important work to do that her generation is depending on our doing. I think she meant in the culture at large, including the church. I’ve been feeling the same thing lately. The boomers have some work to do for the sake of their children and grand-children. Hence this first of a new blog category: the boomer files. First up: we boomers better find a way to trust the institutions that cannot work unless someone finds a way to trust them just a little. The global financial crisis tells us so.
My generation came of age in a time when the institutions built by our parents, the builders, were coming under intense scrutiny and suspicion, and for good reason. Like a war promoted by lies from our government (e.g. trumped up “body counts” during Vietnam), and a President (Nixon) who operated outside the law.
Boomers and the Politics of Mistrust
Ours are the politics of suspicion. We started the left leaning politics of suspicion during the sixties and then added the right leaning politics of suspicion during the seventies and eighties. Rush Limbaugh is one long diatribe against the media, the environmental movement, the left, and most of all, government. Nobody is to be trusted except those who don’t trust any of those things. Same tone as the hysterical left of the 1960’s and the conspiracy theories we heard after 9/11 that it was all a plot by the CIA to pass the Patriot Act. All typically boomer.
Now that we boomers are in charge of pretty much everything, we find ourselves in the strange position of not trusting the institutions we’re in charge of. Not the media. Not the political process. Not the financial institutions. Not the U.N. Not the E.U. Not the World Bank. Not the G7. Not even the NBA or the NFL. Not anything with initials, actually. (Or rather, only those things whose initials stand for mistrust of other things.)
Now it’s Coming Back to Haunt Us
All this mistrust that is. We’re in a slow motion global financial melt down. The meltdown itself was fueled by misplaced trust, but we can’t get out of the mess we’re in unless we learn to trust again. That’s a pickle, isn’t it? The people in a position to fix the mess are people we don’t trust. The executive branch, the congress, the G-7, the World Bank–you name it, we don’t trust it.
We trust the free market, but the free market could care less about us.
“A man said to the free market, ‘Sir, I exist!’ ‘That may be,’ the market replied, ‘but it creates in me no sense of obligation.’” (Stephan Crane, adapted.)
The free market may be free of concern about us, but it’s not free of our influence. If it’s institutions are broken, it will take some humans to fix it. But all the ones who have their hands on the levers of power are people we don’t trust. Yet they can’t fix it until we trust them to. This is the fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
Our Anger Has Made us Stupid
It has. That’s what anger does. The angry brain can’t do math very well. The angry brain can’t solve complex problems. It can execute simple solutions (run, fight, etc.). It just can’t come up with creative ones.
And much of our generational mistrust has been anger driven. I confess it myself. I enjoy politics, though I’m careful about who I talk to about it, being a pastor. It’s kind of enjoyable to hang with people who think like you do and vibe off each others anger about the bozos on the other side of the aisle. And this year we’ve got people on both sides who talk about how frightened they are that the other side will win. Compared with your run of the mill world leader or king, two decent human beings running, and we’re scared out of our wits about one or the other of them might win.
So How do we Learn to Trust Enough?
1. Lay off the anger accelerator for a while. “Do not be incensed because of the wicked.” It only makes you stupid. Unless what’s called for is to run away or fight like a madman. But God has your back covered. He’ll take care of the wicked, if you just worry about not being wicked yourself.
2. Appreciate the things that work about our broken institutions. Like our Congress. All time low approval ratings. Much to mistrust. Earmarks, etc. But they don’t break down into fisticuffs like some legislative bodies. They don’t challenge each other to duels. Some of them get caught and go to jail when they are found to have their hands in the cookie jar too long. Plus we’re the ones who vote ‘em into office.
And the Postal Service. Wow! You put a message on a piece of paper, seal it in an envelope, put a stamp and an address on the outside, put it in a mail box and a postal worker picks it up and sees that it’s delivered. You can even put money in the envelope and more times than not, nobody takes the money out before it’s delivered. (Though it’s a good idea to not advertise that you’ve got cash in the envelope.)
Your local Secretary of State branch office. Wow! Several reasonably convenient locations! A handy number system to insure fair service. You can get a license without bribing anyone!
I don’t know, those are two thoughts off the top of my boomer head. Thoughts which are not boomeresque, but need to become so. Because we’re the grown ups now. And everything that makes the world work–marriage, families, churches, governments, banks–depends on enough trust. After all our deconstruction and all our “you can’t pull a fast one on me!” wisdom, we’ve got learn how and what and who is worthy of at least a little trust.
The Art of the Well Placed & Limited Trust
Mistrust. That’s easy and instinctive for us. The art of the well placed and limited trust, that’s another task. Note: well place and limited. That requires that we get ourselves informed. Maybe not just from ideologues. Talk to calm, thoughtful people with different perspectives. Maybe read the complete idiot’s guide to whatever. Learning the art of the well placed and limited trust, is a task we need to apply ourselves to. And not just for our generation’s look-out-for-number-one sake, but for the sake of those who depend on us. The great and growing mass of people half our age, who will inherit the earth.
Tags: anger, congress, financial crisis, institutions, mistrust, politics, rush limbaugh, the fourth turning, trust
October 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Well, I don’t know. I don’t think Boomers have a corner on mistrust. Take our country’s founders. They structured a form of government that was specifically designed so that no branch had more than a modicum of power, the citizenry had the ability to impose its will through elections, referenda, and recalls, the branches were encouraged to balance one another’s power, minority rights were expressly protected, and there was a contract that guaranteed how the government would operate.
But I do think that Boomers have not accepted the responsibilities of grownups. They have driven the country into a debt so deep, it is difficult imagining how we will get out. This is a poor legacy for their children and grandchildren, no pun intended.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Ken,
Who exactly are we supposed to trust? And how will this help? I’m struggling with your premise. You’re right that mis-trust is driving the financial crisis, but it’s not mistrust by the average baby boomer. The source of the mistrust is the financial system itself. The banks don’t trust each other because they figure if the other banks took as much risk as they did and covered up as well as they did, then….well, they have no basis for trust. So they refuse to loan money to each other and this is at the heart of the problem today.
Those boomers that trusted the financial system to regulate itself have every right to be mad. Those institutions they trusted started playing with fire. All these new financial products? Turns out nobody knew how they worked in the wild (kind of like the problems of genetic engineering or fancy new weapons).
Should we be incensed? No, I understand you’re point (having heard you’re wonderful sermon on Sunday), but incensed and anger are not synonymous. Nor do I think the solution is to trust. The last thing we should do is sit back and “trust” those in government to “fix it for us” without standing up for the poor and oppressed.
Why should we give a free pass to the banks without taking stock and re-examining the flaws in our system that led to this?
October 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Ken
This is not the time to trust what we have but to tear down what is corrupt and worn. Now is the time to tear down a corrupt wall street, throw out all the imcumbents in political office, have the usa file for bankruptsy, and in other words clean house. You Boomers have no heart for what has to happen, then us Xers need to take the bull by the horns and fix your disasters that have come to nest.
Btw, you boomers have created mega churches that serve mostly the leaders and not the normal person in the audience. its entertainment not church. I have watched this guy’s video Lonnie Frisbee, one of the unnamed founders of the vineyard. He had it right we give up control too easily to leaders who abuse it to no end.
I think its time to abandon these so called churches and go to home churches. Let them rot where they stand, another corrupt institution that needs to die.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:12 am
If you could replace mistrust with “pointing the finger” I think you would be on to something. Maybe better summed up in your later boomer title: “our generation’s look-out-for-number-one sake.” It appears that every time something affects are wonderful peaceful utopia called America, there is a need to find the “evildoer” as if there is someone or something to blame for the decline in our 401(k) or homeland security. If we can just get Bin Laden, then our problems will be solved. If we regulate Wall Street…then this will not happen again. Not very often does this country turn inward and look at the plank in its own eye…to use Jesus’ speak.
I hear the voices loudly: “It’s the liberals…It’s the Right Wing Religious folks, it’s North Korea (not any more apparently)… it’s Exxon….and now it’s Wall Street!” Well…what about the evil within?
I think its time for the boomers to get a little introspective as they consider their legacy and start determining who they are living for, not what. The latter could be erased in the stock market at a moment’s notice….this we now know. And if the boomers want to sit down and chat with the next generation…I’ll be more than happy to pick up the tab for a coffee and/or breakfast. Thanks Ken for starting this new topic and allowing people like me to join in.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I would have to agree Ken, us generation Xers have huge mistrust in just about anything. Personally I look to my younger siblings (both Gen Y) for some direction at times because of some strange reason those of us in Gen X have these distorted perceptions of the world around us.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Great post! Gotta say I’m one of the Gen-Xers who is having some trust issues with our wonderful institutions of government, finance and business. Last time I checked the national debt was 10 trillion. That’s $10,000,000,000,000. I think that’s like $35,000 for every man, woman and child. Ouch! I’m trying to have some trust that I’m going to see some of that social security money I’m paying out each month–not sure it’s gonna happen. As for our companies and businesses, I think the recent meltdown speaks for itself. A lot of people got burned trusting their retirement savings to these folks. Smart people like that couldn’t possibly be so wrong, right? Not sure if there wasn’t a little too much trust that Wall Street is a guaranteed money maker. Or take my sorry example: trusting that our leaders really knew what they were doing and had good information when they invaded Iraq. Oops! I dunno… trust in any of these institutions is going to be very slow in coming for me, although I would love for it to happen.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Yay! You read the book, Ken!
Interesting thoughts here. I really was compelled by Strauss & Howe’s theory that the recent past generation most like the Baby Boomers were the post-Civil War “Missionary Generation” who became the muckrakers, progressives and social reformers in their youth during the “mauve decade” of the 1890s, and later became the Wise Old Men of the global Great Depression and World War II. Before that, we had the post-Revolutionary War “Transcendental Generation” who were the authors of the second Great Awakening and the Transcendental and Abolitionist movements of the 1840s, then (messed up) during the Civil War Crisis.
The task of the Boom is to take the good lesson of your youth, the valuable critiques of what you guys saw wrong with your elder-built world and, in the world of Greatest Gen-member Langston Hughes, “help me make the world anew.” The current youth gen, Generation Y (who MUCH prefers to be called “the Millennials”) are aching to make the world anew but just like the Greatest Generation and previous Hero generations, need the guidance of wise Prophet elders. The Boom must realize that they’re that Elder generation. The reason why we’re floundering is because the generation that McCain, Reid, and Pelosi come from is *not* the Greatest (who are mostly in their late 80s to 100s now), but the Silent generation, who were the children of the depression and WWII. Their generational function is NOT to lead, but to bring sensitivity and consciousness… just like the function of Nomadic generations like X is to bring practicality and to throw on the brakes.
I have every faith in the Boomers to do this. I was hoping that they didn’t have to lose their entire retirement savings and SocSec to wake up and realize that they weren’t the youth and that 2 1/2 generations were following them waiting for their marching orders… but this year is a wake-up call, I think, between the financial crisis and the election. Some Boomers are gunning for Grey Champion status… see Bono, Al Gore, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. I suspect others will join a new coalition of “Wise Old Men” for the threats of the early 21st century… terror, the climate and energy crises, etc.
(If any reader doesn’t understand the stuff I’m taking about here, you have to read the work of generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe, whom historians laughed at when their book came out 11 years ago… but those of us who are fans have just shaken our heads over the past decade as the historical cycles they’ve identified have held true…)
October 16th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Funny, as I read these posts, I look back on my country of birth, Brazil, and think: what took you so long?
This cynicism that has been growing in the US has been there in Brazil for a long time.
When I moved to the US, I was amazed at the honesty of your average American, how well government worked and just how well run this society was compared to
Brazil.
Brazil is a nation where corruption rules. We have politicians that make your average US politician seem like mother theresa, we have 20,000,000 rich and 120,000,000 in poverty. Horrendous crime and no national pride.
It is sad seeing this great nation slowly fall apart. Look a Brazil and you will see what this nation may look like in 20 years.
Why is it that everything in this world eventually collapses? Nothing good lasts.
October 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Crisis, what crisis? I still have food in my cupboard and money in my pocket. The soup lines are short, the freeways are packed, the lights are still on, and the emergency room is still taking patients. Sure times are tough, but I don’t think they’re desperate.
America has a lot of accumulated wealth, it would take years of an economy like this to drag us down.
I still have hope! Heck, maybe we’ll stop consuming so much in the mean time. That could actually be a good thing for all of us.
The sky is not falling yet.
October 17th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Forgot to add one thing….
I too fall into that Gen X group, and it is true that I don’t trust anyone or anything. I think thats why even faced with the challenges of today that I have an attitude similar to those who sat around drinking brandy while the Titanic sank. I’m not worried because there is nothing I can do that will prevent the Titanic from meeting it’s fate. So thats why I don’t worry or panic, I just hope I can survive the swim. At least the brandy will keep me warm!