Dear Bret Stephens, I was going to write a satire column about you and your hatred for the millennial generation, which I am a part of, today. It was going to be a good one.
As you noted, there is a kind of power in being able to mock someone. Considering my generation’s comparable lack of economic power, we take what we can get.
But just like your typical, lazy, entitled millennial, I am deviating from the task. My editor and I have known each other for some time, and there is a privilege that comes from that, as you know.
My generation is the one you helped send to war — an all-volunteer force that has been fighting for nearly two decades — and as much as I could dunk on you for this alone, I also see that this is part of where your disdain comes from.
Leo Tolstoy once wrote that we don’t like the people we hurt. It makes sense. The people we hurt remind us of the less-than-attractive aspects of our nature.
In that sense, mocking millennials is a self-defense strategy. Our culture rewards self-aggrandizement and is repulsed by humility, if the current president is anything to go by. If you said, “Some of you went to war because of guys like me, and that feels weird to me now, insulated as I am from that reality,” it might dent your career. And it’s not as if selfish millennials would come to your rescue then, would they?
The culture of selfishness is interesting, because it has so many facets. Financial selfishness is praised by people of your background. And while privileged people won’t do it in the open, behind closed doors, “among people like us,” it’s OK to laugh at those who are not well-connected, worldly and/or ruthless enough to be that kind of selfish.
I say, “people like us,” because while I’ve never been wealthy, I did have the privilege of a private education, and my life has led me to many interesting places. One time, for example, I was in a meeting where a couple of men like you were in discussion about a business strategy with a man who was much wealthier, even by their standards.
Sitting in the kind of hotel that celebrities are always ducking in and out of, they were bemoaning labor laws and sighing over how badly some countries need a Thatcher.
At no point did the men in that meeting — well-dressed, well-spoken, polite — consider that they were actually talking about making life harder, less dignified and less predictable, for people like me. I smiled along, and focused on which portions of the intricately patterned carpet were snatched out by the slanted light.
In your column, you talked about empathy, and you are right, just not in the way that you think. You see, it is difficult to empathize with people whose struggles you can’t imagine.
Being a writer, however, means having to imagine. I think this is why I have so much empathy for Joe Biden, the man you defended from millennials in your column. His life has been touched by horrific tragedy and I believe that he’s touchy-feely with women because he was socialized early on to believe that that kind of conduct with men is “gay.”
He is far from my ideal candidate, definitely not when Liz Warren is also running, but that’s not a reason to personally despise someone. The people who pretend otherwise are mostly dick-waving on Twitter. Or in their New York Times columns.
The problem with empathy for the financially underprivileged, as opposed to empathy for prominent statesmen, is that people find the topic unattractive.
Who wants to hear about that time I couldn’t afford dental insurance, wound up with an infection after trying to save on a root canal, had my gum fill with so much pus that a picture of the swelling was taken for a textbook, passed out from the pain, wound up needing a biopsy after part of the bone in my jaw was revealed to have turned black, was lectured on “this is how people can die,” and lost that tooth and its neighbor a few years later?
Pretty gross, right?
It’s much more palatable to frame the topic of financial struggle as an issue of personal responsibility. If only people like me would stop buying iPhones and getting haircuts — we too could pay off our student loans and own a house and not be hags with broken teeth by the time we turn twenty-five!
The dirty little secret we don’t like to bring up is that consumption acts as social currency. Nobody is going to hire you — forget about promoting you — if you don’t look the part. An Uber you can’t afford means arriving to an interview on time, as opposed to late and covered in sweat. The right accessory can sometimes telegraph belonging better than a resume.
Of course, today we are mostly chasing jobs that offer little security. That’s the other dirty little secret — low unemployment looks good on paper, even if the quality of jobs and the protections they offer has drastically gone down.
Is it “histrionic” to point all of this out? Because I’m not a fan of “cancel culture,” and you can’t force me to participate.
You see, you laid out a carefully worded trap with your column. You dunk on millennials, we dunk on you, you yell, “I TOLD YOU!! THESE PEOPLE ARE GARBAGE!!” and can then safely go back to avoiding the real issue. I’m not falling for it.
What I want, instead, is an understanding that something has gone wrong in this country. There is a reaction to all of the things that are going wrong — a chain reaction, actually, because pitilessness, the quality you decry, is bigger than our online interactions. It is one of the hallmarks of a more unequal society, a society of tired, pissed off people, a far cry from the world of hyphenated last names and dinner party banter.
We were talking about millennials, but the problem is greater than us. We have witnessed a great hollowing, not just of our finances, but of our institutions.
We can’t fix what’s happening if we refuse each other empathy.
That’s why, Bret, the feeling is not mutual.
Photo: Quinn Dombrowski