I heard on the news the other day about some study
suggesting that many millennials care more about politics than sex. Fortunately, many of those millennials will
never have children. The study prompted a
sex therapist to comment that dating strictly within one’s political party is
making people too comfortable.
I wonder how someone goes about creating such a study. What questions do they ask the participants,
and how do they come to their conclusions?
Still, there probably is legitimacy to this study. And to be fair to millennials, they’re probably not the only ones who
think like this. I’ve recently witnessed individuals ending
years of friendship over political disagreements. In conversations with total strangers
(workplace or social settings, restaurants
and bars), I’ve heard people volunteer
their opinions on anything from abortion to climate change while assuming that I
am in total agreement. And the result? People appear foolish doing this.
People appear foolish when they can’t see more than one side
to any issue. Whether they’re from left,
right or center, I imagine them picturing themselves as the champions of freedom
… by wanting everyone to think as they do.
I heard once that there are two prongs to conformity in
America:
- Corporate identity. Since the 1960s, corporate advertising has turned Americans envious. To fit in, we have to drive the right car and wear the right clothes. Even own a cellphone.
- Governmental oversight. With a $5 trillion budget, the federal government can reach just about everything – including private behavior. (The irony is that the most vocal critics of the current administration propose to make the government bigger.)
It comes down to the same thing
in either case: we’re afraid. In
the 20th Century, we followed lots of
tyrants out of fear. In the 21st
Century, we join groups because we’re afraid of being alone. To belong, we endorse causes, products and messages while not giving it much thought. Sometimes we do this in places like Facebook
and Twitter. (Facebook, by the way, now
has a net worth of $470 billion and takes in close to $56 billion each year.)
We seem to be doing well at making each other
miserable. In the last month, we’ve
heard of people buying admissions for their children to enroll in prestigious
colleges. There was another mass killing
at a mosque in New Zealand where the killer filmed the shooting to appear on Facebook. There’s more talk about immigration and building
a wall. And the Mueller Report is
another argument starter.
If millennials (or anyone else) do care more about politics
than sex, it makes me wonder if they have lost all sense of fun. Maybe they are more afraid of disapproval
than being alive.
March 28, 2019
