Althouse: "Unlike the millennial generation — which largely absorbed technology as destiny, first in its techno-utopian promises, later in its gigified disappointments..."

July 17, 2025

"Unlike the millennial generation — which largely absorbed technology as destiny, first in its techno-utopian promises, later in its gigified disappointments..."

"... these Gen Z refuseniks are not trying to reform the system. They’re walking away from it. That’s why the 'No Kings' rallies often look like the world’s largest retiree convention. This new group’s politics, to the extent that it has any, are not oriented toward revolution or regulation, but toward restraint, retreat and restoration. They want silence. They want limits. And if there is any hope of clawing back a shared reality from the hall of mirrors that is the modern internet, it might lie with them. We can only hope."

Writes Ryan Zickgraf, in "Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ at 40: Truer than ever/The cultural critic saw it all coming. And yet, in Gen Z, there are signs of hope" (WaPo).

26 comments:

mccullough said...: Gen X & Gen Z unite to throttle Boomers & Millennials; 7/17/25, 9:44 AM
n.n said...: There is a Diverse menagerie of groups in that piece. I hope that they will one day selfie... self-identify with less ambiguous judgments and labels.; 7/17/25, 9:46 AM
Peachy said...: The entitled modern left are addicted to hate, lies and street theater. yeah - it gets old.
walk away.; 7/17/25, 9:47 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: "rallies often look like the world’s largest retiree convention."

Gaze into the eyes of the boomer basilisk ye young mortals, and despair.; 7/17/25, 9:48 AM
n.n said...: Gen whey is asking Y. Another bloc in the DEIst wall.; 7/17/25, 9:49 AM
Aggie said...: Speaking of protest rallies, isn't today supposed to be another nationwide big protest day? I was reading yesterday that a big rent-a-mob provider was turning down millions.; 7/17/25, 9:57 AM
Peachy said...: Civic lessons from the left = baseball bat and Molotov cocktail.; 7/17/25, 9:59 AM
Rusty said...: When I first saw the protests I thought it was about Bingo.; 7/17/25, 10:09 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I have a very distinct memory of reading this exact kind of article in about 2008 only it was GenX in place of Millennials and Millenials in place of GenZ.; 7/17/25, 10:13 AM
gilbar said...: "They want silence. They want limits."

they want Jobs. and a Place to live.
they DON'T want to be raped and murdered by invaders; 7/17/25, 10:14 AM
FormerLawClerk said...: GenZ has figured out these rallies (No Kings is just the latest stupid fucking thing) are just one billionaire (Soros) buying a protest against another billionaire (Trump) and they're the suckers out there standing in the heat holding the signs for the TV cameras so they can get some free content.

That worked prior to social media. Now, we can see the NY Times print a headline, and the very next day, print the exact opposite headline in an A/B test to see which position gets the most clicks. They are literally doing this and the tech insiders these days are a LOT of GenZ folks.

GenZ knows how the internet works because most of them got employed by the big tech companies. They know it's all bullshit all the way down.; 7/17/25, 10:17 AM
CJinPA said...: This writer didn't need technology to deploy the old reporting tactic of attributing one development (anti-Trump protests) to an unrelated development (distrust of technology) in order to make an ideological point.; 7/17/25, 10:30 AM
Two-eyed Jack said...: Perhaps one day we can all once again live behind a veil of ignorance.; 7/17/25, 10:50 AM
hombre said...: In our California retirement community, newspapers abound and the old folks epitomize Reagan’s “… they know so much that isn’t so.” Many turned out for the local “No Kings” rally. I am embarrassed for my generation many of whom have lost the ability to think critically. Hatred has displaced reason.; 7/17/25, 10:52 AM
Howard said...: Most of my coworkers are GenZ and most of my managers are Millennials. I don't see all these group characteristics. They are just people who now that I am a senior citizen, seem vaguely familiar with someone from my distant past.; 7/17/25, 11:06 AM
Ted said...: The word "refusenik" was coined in the mid-20th century as a term for Jews (and members of other persecuted minority religions and ethnic groups) who weren't allowed to leave the Soviet Union. It seems kind of crass and trivial to see it applied here to modern young people who've decided to turn off their phones for a while.; 7/17/25, 11:23 AM
Tina Trent said...: The No Kings movement is virulently anti-semitic, anti-white, anti-American, aggro, anti-borders, anti-police, and they call anyone who disagrees with them Nazis. They're also old and incoherent, and they're yesterday's news. It's just the Left being the Left. Amusingly, around here, it's all illegals -- and the wealthy lake-house dwellers who got rich off poultry and hire their dads to mow their lawns while they proudly protest in their giant shorts and high knee socks with the Dad's brats.; 7/17/25, 11:28 AM
n.n said...: I'm Gen-BiC.; 7/17/25, 11:36 AM
Mr. T. said...: Speaking of all these gullible Z'rs and washed up hippy neomarxist boomers, they are all paid protestora-as we all suspected:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2025/07/16/crowds-on-demand-ceo-explains-why-he-turned-down-20-million-offer-to-generate-anti-trump-protests-n2660423

For further enlightenment to how this kind of leftist government grift operates, we should let Kak/Richsockpuppet further elucidate us on the matter. As the resident paid, ActBlue troll, he would have the best, most firsthand knowlege...; 7/17/25, 11:39 AM
Lazarus said...: That was the message of Ben Stiller's film "While We're Young," except that it was GenXer Stiller marveling at Millennials' willingness to dispense with flashy technology. Zickgraf assigns to GenZ the role that Strauss and Howe, who got many of us thinking about generations, assigned to Millennials: they would be the mature, adult, responsible, chastened generation who would save everything from the coming crisis and chaos.

Younger generations have a way of disappointing pundits. Prophecies made about a generation still in high school don't last into adulthood. The pundits see the "forward thinking" members of the younger generation and take them for the pacesetters and trendmakers that the rest of the generation will follow. What usually happens is that the generation follows the available technology, not the refusniks.

No Kings was grandma's brand (and no, they aren't anti-White or anti-Semitic or aggro in any real sense). What about Mamdani, though -- is that strictly a game for millennials, or is GenZ also playing? And AOC -- do the Zedniks see her as a phony or as a righteous sista?; 7/17/25, 11:41 AM
Aggie said...: It does make one wonder how much of any Progressive public gathering has been actually astro-turfed. Headcount seems to be perceived as the currency of 'legitimacy', or so they think. And of course, our incurious Press have not delved into this subject category, so there's only anecdotal information and guesswork, which in itself, has become a sort of 'tell'.; 7/17/25, 12:14 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Gen Z sounds far healthier than Boomers and Millennials. If you spend more than 1 percent of your life thinking about politics you’re objectively disordered.; 7/17/25, 1:10 PM
Art in LA said...: I had to Google "gigified" ... who knew? I have Gen Z kids; generally apolitical. I never understood the protests of my time back in college -- the U.S. invasion of Grenada protest on campus was the one I distinctly remember. I studied engineering in college, heads down in my books and wondered how other students had the time to protest.; 7/17/25, 1:30 PM
Paddy O said...: Yancey, same article in 1998 as your 2008 one but with Boomers instead of Gen X and Gen X instead of Millenials.

And that brings us back to the reality that Boomers have been very disappointed with the generations that followed them.; 7/17/25, 7:53 PM
Paddy O said...: Gen Zers are exposed to more human social realities than any other generation in history. They have access to the worst of human foibles and the ability to hear stories of those who are worthwhile. They can express themselves and put it all on the internet for anyone to see. So they're not growing up feeling silenced or suppressed. They are choosing paths that reflect what are genuine human needs: the need for genuine connection and authenticity as much as they can find it.

And my kids, apparently called Gen Alpha will have articles written about them in a decade, but I have a lot of hope for them honestly, since they're going to grow up where news is more accessible and less corporate echo chambers, and compassion and community tend to be higher values than beating down those who disagree.; 7/17/25, 8:01 PM
Paddy O said...: Oh wait, the Postman article is that Gen X article. I see.; 7/17/25, 8:05 PM