By DONALD DeMARCO
According to a large study from the Pew Research Center, the young people of today — the Millennials — are the most cynical and distrusting generation ever recorded. They are less attached to religion, marriage, and political institutions than their previous members of Generation X. Furthermore, only 19 percent believe that people can be trusted. They do like their friends, and their digital social networks, and, states the Pew Report, “that’s about it.”
Distinguished Catholic philosopher Tom Langan, in his book, The Catholic Tradition, refers to them as occupying neither a culture nor a civilization, but belong to what he and his co-researchers call “HTX,” a worldwide web of “high-techies.”
A study from the University of Georgia compared 140,000 millennials’ responses to previous generations’ attitudes. Between 2000 and 2012, millennial approval of Congress plummeted from 49 percent to 22 percent. In that same time span millennial approval or corporations dropped from 54 percent to 33 percent. Distrust is a hallmark of cynicism.
Cynicism is undesirable, but in a world in which leaders fail to keep their promises and, in fact, turn against the populace, it becomes inevitable. The human unborn are disposal, euthanasia is merely a person’s “final exit,” supporters of life are branded as “terrorists,” and the attempt to dismantle the family is well underway.
Leaders in high places have betrayed their constituencies: Justin Trudeau and Canada, Joe Biden in the United States, and Pope Francis in the Vatican, just to name a few. Authority has degenerated into authoritarianism. People are confused as to where to look for guidance. They do not choose to be cynics; cynicism chooses them.
Cynicism is not innate; it is acquired. A child comes into the world with what sociologist Gordon Allport calls “eager audience,” a desire to be positively involved with things. In this sense, cynicism is unnatural. Therefore, it is unhealthy. A study published in Neurology journal in 2014 found an association between late-life “cynical distrust” and dementia. It also reported that people with high levels if cynical distrust were three times more likely to develop dementia than those with low levels of cynicism.
Josh Alexander was suspended from high school because he persisted in wearing a T-Shirt stating that there are but two sexes. Political correctness trumps the Word of God. In Wisconsin, a young man was arrested and placed in handcuffs for reading aloud from the Bible outside an “obscene” “drag queen” show that was targeting children. The Constitution’s First Amendment was of no assistance to him.
LGBTQ+ activists vehemently opposed a school’s requirement to notify parents about a child’s gender “transition.” That same group assaulted students who were peacefully protesting “woke” indoctrination of children. In many of these cases, the police and other authorities did little to redress the situation. Even the once highly respected FBI has, in certain instance, done an about-face. William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Reagan, warned that America could “crumble from within; that we would become cynical and withdrawn.” Some observers have opined that what was “healthy skepticism may have given way to corrosive cynicism.” Cynicism is not productive. It is debilitating both personally and socially.
The daily news carries one item after another of instances of lawlessness and the unwillingness on the part of authorities to redress the situation. The news does more than inform the reader of what is transpiring, but it is a continual source of discouragement. It is a breeder of cynicism. And the temptation to avoid being a cynic can be quite strong. As F. Murray Abraham, who played the envious Salieri in Amadeus, confesses, “I am despondent, I’m disappointed in the absence of a sense of humanity and struggle not to become a cynic.”
The light and inspiration for renewal will not come from the secular world. That is the source of the problem. Most assuredly it will not come from that vacillating enterprise called politics. Nor will help derive from the passing ideologies of the day. It must come from a stable, comprehensive, and coherent Christianity. Professor Langan states at the close of his 535 book the following: “I would not have undertaken this book if I did not agree that Christians must show the way forward societally….Every strategy, whether global, local, or personal, must be centered in Him. Only those who devote themselves to knowing and loving the Word can radiate it to society.”
Cynicism is the opposite of hope. It saps the energy to do something remedial. And in doing nothing to ameliorate things, things get worse until they can characterize an entire generation. The situation is dire and calls for extraordinary efforts, especially from Christians. At the same time, the Christian world itself must undergo a radical reform.
If there is a sliver lining to cynicism, it is that it is always darkest before the break of dawn. In other words, when things become unbearable, they reach what has been termed “the grace of the zero point.” People are then roused to action. And that action is directed toward reform. Complacency can no longer be tolerated. People find within themselves a courage and vitality that they did not know they possessed.
The words of John Paul II, uttered in 1985, are worth restating: “We need heralds of the Gospel, experts in humanity . . . and who, at the same time, are contemplatives in love with God. That is why we need new saints. The great evangelizers of Europe were saints. We need to beg the Lord to send us new saints to evangelize the world of today.”
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