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USA TODAY MONDAY, MARCH 12,2012 THE FORUM 9A
Millennials aren’t amoral, adrift
By Tom Krattenmaker
To hear it from the handwringers,
the up-andcoming
generation cannot
tell right from
wrong. “Most of our young people
have absolutely no concept
of morality,” radio host Laura
Schlessinger declared last year.
Columnist David Brooks calls it
“depressing” to think about today’s
young adults and, as he
wrote in The New York Times in
September, “how bad they are at
thinking and talking about moral
issues.”
There’s a “dark side” to young
adults’ moral lives, laments the
subtitle of a new book. But before
we succumb to resignation
or rage, it’s good to realize
there’s a bright side, too. Data
and innumerable examples
show that today’s young adults
are a generation marked by impressive
social commitment and
dedication to using their lives
and careers for the greater good.
It’s not that there’s a shortage
of morality among the so-called
Millennial generation, which
reached adulthood post-2000. It’s just that
they have different morals, and different
ways of articulating them. Thank goodness.
Ageneration ‘adrift’?
What of that dark side, as it’s termed in a
book by sociologist Christian Smith and a
trio of co-authors? For Lost in Transition: The
Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood,
the researchers interviewed
230 young adults and found a
lot to worry about, including
destructive behavior around
alcohol and sex and a sense of
morality that is ambiguous
and “adrift,” as the authors put
it. This is a generation, they
write, of “young American
men and women ... whose
lives are far too often confused,
disturbed, and sometimes
badly damaged by some
of the cultural and institutional
features of emerging adulthood.”
To conservative commentator Dennis
Prager, this is the grim fruit of growing
godlessness. “Secularism is ... terrible for
society,” Prager wrote in a National Review
commentary picking up on Smith’s findings.
“If moral standards are not rooted in
God, they do not objectively exist. ...
Millions of American young people have
been raised by parents and schools with
‘How do you feel about it?’ as the only
By Alejandro Gonzalez, USA TODAY
Don’t believe the doomsday hype
about this supposedly wayward
generation. ‘Different’ does not
mean ‘devoid.’
On
Religion
Monday focus
Faith. Religion. Spirituality.
Meaning. A weekly
column seeks to illuminate
the national
conversation. Read
the series online at
religion.usatoday.com
guide to what they ought to do.”
Isuggest we consume a few grains of salt
with these bleak observations. Remember,
seemingly every older generation laments
the apparent waywardness of the up-andcomers.
It’s not as though the current generation
in charge has a handle on morality.
And just as every generation has a Charles
Manson or two, so also does it
have a few Albert Einsteins. As
one who works on a college
campus teeming with socially
committed young people, I’m
in full view of a side of this
emerging generation that
might even make you optimistic.
Yes, it’s true, as critics point
out, that younger Americans
tend to be less religiously
affiliated than older generations.
But data show they are
nearly as likely as their elders
to pray and believe in God. While their
support for gay rights might suggest moral
confusion to social conservatives, they are
just as likely as older Americans to judge
abortion morally wrong. Are these signs of
ageneration with no regard for morality, or
one with its own convictions about what’s
right and what’s wrong?
If you’re around Millennials much, you
know they tend to voice their morality
with more humility, even hesitation, than
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the old guard. That’s partly because
they are legitimately suspicious
of easy answers to complex
questions, and their moral
compasses tell them that condemning
others is rarely the
right way to treat people.
Depending on the issue, Millennials’
morality, when you
drill down to its core, can be as
black and white as that of any
old-school culture warrior.
You’ll discover this if you talk
with students on a campus like
mine about the imperative to
reduce carbon emissions, or to
make sure ethical means of production
went into the food they
eat in the dining hall and the
sweatshirts they buy in the college
bookstore.
A2010 study finds more than
aquarter of college students volunteer.
That’s on par with the
percentage of Americans overall
— and a nice counterpoint to
Jersey Shore or what you might
hear about the binge drinking
and sexual hook-ups that pervade
college campuses.
As for the devoutly Christian
members of the Millennial generation
(There are still quite a few.), you
will not hear them shouting about the need
to elect conservative politicians and “take
back America for Christ,” in the parlance of
their more outspoken evangelical elders. In
my encounters with younger Christians,
they’re very serious about Jesus, but intent
on channeling that conviction less toward
hard-edged politics and more toward service
to their community and world.
Ashifting Focus
Gary Schneeberger of Focus on the Family
— an organization long associated with
conservative politics and religion — speaks
of Millennials as a generation that looks to
religion as a force for tolerance and “peace
in society,” not fighting culture war battles.
Hearing someone like Schneeberger elaborate
on Millennials, you might even start
feeling good about the correctives this new
generation is bringing to a society plagued
by hyper-individualism and greed. Millennials
care about “social justice issues,” the
Focus official notes, and they long to be
part of a larger cause. Does that sound like
amorally clueless generation? Or one that
could be our best hope?
Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer
and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of
Contributors. His next book explores how
younger evangelicals are changing the face of
faith in American culture and politics.
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Candidate media-bashing
popular, but a losing tactic
By Peter Funt
An unsavory element in the
current Republican presidential
campaign is the overt contempt
candidates are showing for the
news media. Yes, the media are
easy, sometimes deserving targets,
and huffy outbursts against
journalists during debates usually
bring cheers from the crowd and
could help fundraising. But as a
strategy, it’s misguided.
Though the season of GOP
presidential debates has ended,
the candidates continue
to fire away.
When Rick Santorum
was asked by Charlie
Rose on CBS about the
controversial statement
of his top Super
PAC supporter regarding
contraception, the
candidate turned on
the host: “This is the
same gotcha politics
that you get from the
media, and I’m just
not going to play that
game,” he snapped.
The shoot-the-messenger
tactic doesn’t often faze
reporters, most of whom tend to
have pretty thick skins. If anything
it undermines the integrity,
such as it is, of the campaign,
while diminishing the candidates.
What works for speakers
As a longtime observer of the
human condition and our culture,
I’ve found the most persuasive
and trusted speakers are those
who respond candidly, and positively,
to all questions.
Sure, by showing contempt for
reporters, the GOP contenders are
throwing red meat to the most
conservative voters, as reflected
in a Pew Research Center poll
showing 74% of Tea Party
Republicans believe there is “a
great deal of political bias” in
campaign news coverage. Sarah
Palin popularized the label “lamestream
media,” to energize her
conservative base.
But the wider campaign strategy
does not represent the views of
the public at large. That Tea Party
poll figure is double the percentage
within the general population,
and more than double the
concern among independent voters.
With few exceptions, GOP
candidates have been treated fairly
by reporters and moderators
from the major cable networks.
Media vet candidates
Moreover, the news media
have a job to help vet presidential
candidates for American viewers.
Was CNN’s John King right to ask
Newt Gingrich in a debate about
that day’s headline-dominating
comments from the candidate’s
former wife about their failed
marriage? Of course.
Was it fair game for Rose to ask
Santorum about his
adviser’s comment on
contraception? Naturally.
And did Mitt Romney
gain anything by
dodging a question in
the last CNN debate by
saying: “You get to ask
the questions you
want; I get to give the
answers I want”? Cer-
tainly not.
Voters can decide
for themselves
whether the issue is
one that influences
their vote. It’s one thing for a
candidate to appear to field a
question while really sidestepping
it. But it’s another to pointedly
declare that you don’t respect
the process enough even to pretend
to answer.
Gingrich has gone a step further
by making the outlandish pledge
that, if nominated as the GOP
presidential nominee, he would
refuse to participate in any debates
against President Obama if
the moderators were reporters.
Perhaps in lashing out at journalists,
some politicians seek to show
toughness and fighting spirit. But
sniping at reporters plays into the
networks’ hands because such
outbursts only help ratings.
As for winning votes, another
Pew study last fall underscored
the problem with blasting journalists.
While 59% of Americans
trust the information they get
from the news media, only 29%
trust what they hear from the
source that complains about the
media the most — candidates running
for office.
The Washington Post
Santorum: Ex-senator
of Pennsylvania.
Peter Funt is a writer and speaker.
He can be reached at Candid-
Camera.com.
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