“Do Millennials worry at all about government overreach and abuse of power, or do you believe governments are essentially benign?”

Before we answer this question we would like to provide a bit of context. The question has been submitted by Balder Hageraats in response to the lack of an apparent concern by many young people to government overreach and ongoing lockdowns in various countries. Therefore, the authors of this text, Sarah and Dario (Co-Authors and digital dwarfs to the Westphalian), will attempt to answer the question from their perspectives and conversations with our generation (Mostly IE students: well-educated and financially stable). 

Alright let us settle something first, we are not millennials, we are Gen Z or iGen. We are not pointing this out because we are smartasses (well we are) but because these classifications come with certain attributes which will help us in our analysis. These terms originate from marketing studies to predict consumer behaviour of different generations. So to start us off, what is Gen Z or iGen and what makes it special?

First of all, nothing makes us special. What is that human obsession about being special? But we are the product of the circumstances during the times we grew up in. And for Gen Z that time frame is clearly established. If you were born between 1995 and 2012 you are Gen Z, deal with it. The reason why the starting year is so specific is, as with everything in our (Gen Z) lives, 9/11. If you cannot remember a life before the terrorist attacks on the twin towers, you are part of a new generation. As a result, the first major event you remember is the financial crisis of 2008. There’s no way you would understand what happened (not as clear as an airplane crashing into a tower) but you can remember that it was a time of uncertainty for your parents. 

Speaking of your parents, they are either very late baby boomers or Gen X. How they raised us was described by Neil Howe as follows: 

“Those former latchkey kids, who grew up on Nirvana records and slasher movies, have tried to give their children the safe, secure childhood that they never had.”

Neil Howe

This is where phenomenons such as helicopter or snowplow parents come from. Protecting their children at all costs, making sure nothing ever hurts them; no mean professor with “unfair grading” or gravy on your food (click on the link, it’s a real thing). Growing up in such a protected environment made us worry more about our appearance on social media rather than the war in Syria just because it appears very distant. And if there was something wrong that even our parents could not fix? Something within the government’s responsibility? Well, that you cannot change anyways, might as well deal with it and find a solution for yourself. That attitude has been described as pragmatic idealism by David Burstein; and it started with the actual Millennials. This attitude represents largely how we see government failure, with pragmatism.

And if the government did not fail, it solved our problems, at least it seemed like it. The crisis of 2008, our first major crisis, was not caused by anyone specifically. But it was solved by the governments (right?). Obama saved the American car industry, states bailed out banks and the unemployed were caught by social security services. We are not saying that these were the correct things to do or whether they were actually more harmful in the long term. But, just like our parents, the government solved the problem at hand. Because, to us, it’s the government’s task to do so; a concept described as the ‘Europe Syndrom’ by Charles Murray:

The purpose of life is to while away the time between birth and death as pleasantly as possible, and the purpose of government is to make it as easy as possible to while away the time as pleasantly as possible — the Europe Syndrome.

Charles Murray

This may be one reason why so many of our generational peers followed Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn. They painted a picture which many have seen through travelling in real life or on social media: The European Welfare State, a life in which you are secured from damages caused to you by events you cannot control. A system in which you want to stay and be protected from unpredictable events (cough Sarah cough). This lack of a welfare state is the reason why we can witness 16 million U.S. Americans unemployed in the last three weeks alone. In Europe, the numbers are significantly smaller (without even mentioning health care benefits). 

Our trust into this system has been described by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his writings: “beyond structuralism and hermeneutics,” as pastoral power. Under pastoral power, individuals are encouraged to join the process of subjectivation (becoming a subject to the system). Originating from Christian institutions and transferred into the modern world, the state has to provide salvation for its subjects (salvation being: health care, security and protection) with positive intentions only. The term derives from the latin word for shepherd (pastor)–a man who has his sheep’s best interests in mind. 

We are not at all saying that we are living in such a system and that nobody is a critical thinking individual anymore. But there are many tendencies within our generation that hint towards that behaviour. We ourselves can see these tendencies in us. The government is assuring that we can live our best lives and make the best out of our potential. It is in their best interest that we strive, so why do something that harms us? 

Our system raises us with that mindset. From early on in school where we should listen to what the teacher says, later what the professor says and after that, what trained professionals in the real world are telling us. At some point, we also fall into the last category, becoming a professional to make not only ourselves, but also our society prosper. Our upbringing and experiences have fostered an enormous amount of trust into our system. Because we benefit from this system so much, we live in safe and peaceful times with nothing really to worry about. And if there is something to worry about, experts will tell us. For example, climate change.

‘Friday’s for Future’ is a great example that showcases how a large part of this generation thinks. If something is wrong and we cannot change it ourselves, then the government needs to change it. But the measures young people are demanding differ from what our parents protested for. While they chained themselves to trees and blocked nuclear sites, insisting on less government action, young people are demanding for governments to do more: more regulations, more rules and more governmental programs. The government is not perceived as something evil, rather as something good, just a bit slow to move and inefficient. 

Which leads us to our conclusion: in our young lives, governments have been far from perfect. But they have not been that evil either. We lack experience to tell whether they are going too far battling Covid-19 or not. We are trusting the experts who are working for the pastoral governments. And if they say we have to stay home, then we are going to use our pragmatic mind and take that message to social media. If a lockdown is the only way to protect our daily lives, at least make a viral challenge out of it and spread #solidarity. The government will not do anything against our shared interest, and, if so, experts and journalists will tell us and then we riot online #saveourplanet. The arising problems? We will fix them. Go grocery shopping for our neighbours, teach grandpa how to skype , donate money to people in need, (and our favourite DJ) and so on. The system we grew up in has us in its main interest so we should protect it, right?

To answer your question more directly. Do we worry about abuse of power? No, it has not happened in our lives yet and our parents and grandparents who have experienced it are not reacting either. Somebody who knows better than us will warn us because why would the system hurt itself ? Are governments benign? No, but they aren’t malignant either.

Joshua Dario Hasenstab

General Coordinator