Such introspection primarily surfaces today in the speech of New Agers, Rogerian therapists, and over-55 Boomers. When asked what’s next in her life, Kim Basinger (born in 1953) replies, “Watching what the rest of my journey is going to be about.” In answer to the same question, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (born in 1959), says, “My coming to stay in America for a few months is like my blossoming into my true Sarah, into my true self. And I’m just coming to learn about her myself.” Not all Boomers talk this way, but enough do that it’s an immediately recognizable generational tic. It’s also a guaranteed way to get a young person to roll her eyes.
In Boomer Nation, Steve Gillon argues that abstraction and spirituality are the primary hallmarks of the Boomer generation. Gillon describes Boomers as having a “moralistic style” and devotes a chapter to Boomers’ “new fundamentalism.” Whether joining traditional churches or exploring meditation or yoga, Boomers have been fascinated with the spiritual for four decades.
Even Boomers who don’t adopt New Age language seek higher meaning in the new religion of consumer products—thus the yuppie revolution. In Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks demonstrates that upper-class Boomers have poured their wealth into such things as cooking equipment, which somehow feels more moral and meaningful than previous money sinks such as jewelry or furs. Even food becomes “a barometer of virtue,” Brooks says, as 1960s values are “selectively updated . . . Gone are the sixties-era things that were fun and of interest to teenagers, like Free Love, and retained are all the things that might be of interest to middle-aged hypochondriacs, like whole grains.”
The Boomers’ interest in the abstract shows up in the American Freshman nationally representative survey of 9 million entering college students. In 1967, a whopping 86% of incoming college students said that “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” was an essential life goal. Only 46% of GenMe freshmen in 2012 agreed, cutting the Boomer number nearly in half. GenX started this move away from the abstract, and I’m definitely a member of my generation in this way. Despite being an academic, I’m not sure I know what a “meaningful philosophy of life” even is. Jerry Rubin does—if you can understand him. “Instead of seeking with the expectation of finding, I experience my seeking as an end in itself,” he writes. “I become one with my seeking, and merge with the moment.” Okay, Jerry. Let us know when you’ve reentered the earth’s atmosphere.
While up there, maybe Jerry met Aleta St. James, a 57-year-old woman who gave birth to twins in 2004. She explained her unusual actions by saying, “My whole world is about manifesting, so I decided to manifest children.” It’s not surprising that an enterprising GenMe’er put together a list of books on amazon.com titled “Tired of Baby Boomer Self-Righteousness?”
Boomers display another unique and somewhat ironic trait: a strong emphasis on group meetings. Boomers followed in the footsteps of their community-minded elders—they just joined the Weathermen instead of the Elks Lodge. This is one of the many reasons why Boomers are not the true Generation Me—almost everything they did happened in groups: Vietnam protests, marches for feminism, consciousness raising, assertiveness training, discos, and even seminars such as est. Maybe it felt safer to explore the self within a group—perhaps it felt less radical. No one seemed to catch the irony that it might be difficult to find your unique direction in a group of other people. Even Boomers’ trends and sayings belied their reliance on groups: “Don’t trust anyone over 30” groups people by age, as did the long hair many Boomer men adopted in the late 1960s and early 1970s to distinguish themselves from older folks. In a 1970 song, David Crosby says he decided not to cut his hair so he could “let my freak flag fly.” If you’ve got a flag, you’re probably a group. Boomers may believe they invented individualism, but like any inventor, they were followed by those who perfected the invention.
Boomers took only the first tentative steps in the direction of self-focus, rather than swallowing it whole at birth. Most Boomers never absorbed it at all and settled down early to marry and raise families. Those who adopted the ways of the self as young adults speak the language with an accent: the accent of abstraction and “journeys.” They had to reinvent their way of thinking when already grown and thus see self-focus as a “process.” In his book, Rubin quotes a friend who says, “We are the first generation to reincarnate ourselves in our own lifetime.”
THE MATTER-OF-FACT SELF-FOCUS OF GENERATION ME
Generation Me had no need to reincarnate themselves; they were born into a world that already celebrated the individual. The self-focus that blossomed in the 1970s became mundane and commonplace over the next two decades, and GenMe accepts it like a fish accepts water. If Boomers were making their way in the uncharted world of the self, GenMe has its own GPS device—and most of the time they don’t even need it, since the culture of the self is their hometown. They don’t have to join groups or talk of journeys because they’re already there. They don’t need to “polish” the self, as Wolfe said, because they take for granted that it’s already shiny. They don’t need to look inward; they already know what they will find. Since they were small children, GenMe’ers were taught to put themselves first. That’s just the way the world works—why dwell on it? Let’s go to the mall.
GenMe’s focus on the needs of the individual is not necessarily self-absorbed or isolationist; instead, it’s a way of moving through the world beholden to few social rules and with the unshakable belief that you’re important. It’s also not the same as being spoiled, which implies that GenMe’ers always get what they want; though this does probably describe some kids, it’s not the essence of the trend. (As I argue in chapter 4, GenMe’s expectations are so great and reality so challenging that they will probably get less of what they want than any previous generation.) GenMe simply takes it for granted that we should all feel good about ourselves, we are all special, and we all deserve to follow our dreams. GenMe is straightforward and unapologetic about their self-focus. In Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis, Jason, 25, relates how he went through some tough times and decided he needed to change things in his life. His new motto was “Do what’s best for Jason. I had to make me happy; I had to do what was best for myself in every situation.”
The matter-of-fact attitude of GenMe’ers appears in everyday language as well—a language that still includes the abstract concept of self, but uses it in a simple way, perhaps because they learned the language as children. They speak the language of the self as their native tongue. So much of the “commonsense” advice that’s given these days includes some variation on “self”:
• Worried about how to act in a social situation? “Just be yourself.”
• What’s the good thing about your alcoholism/drug addiction/murder conviction? “I learned a lot about myself.”
• Concerned about your performance? “Believe in yourself.” (Often followed by “and anything is possible.”)
• Should you buy the new pair of shoes or get the nose ring? “Yes, express yourself.”
• Why should you leave the unfulfilling relationship/quit the boring job/tell off your mother-in-law? “You have to respect yourself.”
• Trying to get rid of a bad habit? “Be honest with yourself.”
• Confused about the best time to date or get married? “You have to love yourself first before you can love someone else.”
• Should you express your opinion? “Yes, stand up for yourself.”
Or, as Lena Dunham’s character on Girls puts it, managing to focus on herself without using the word self, “And then I am busy, trying to become who I am.”
Even a brief frolic through the Google Books database shows the incredible growth in such phrases. In American books between 1960 and 2008, just be yourself became 8 times more frequent, learned about myself 4.6 times, believe in yourself 6.5 times, express yourself 2 times, respect yourself 2.7 times, be honest with yourself 3 times, love yourself 5.7 times, I love me 6.7 times, and stand up for yourself 6 times. A recen
t study found that presidential State of the Union addresses have become more individualistic over time, with more mentions of the self (such as I and me) and fewer mentions of others and friends.
As you’ll see later in chapter 7 on equality, individualism is a cultural system with many advantages. Yet recent culture seems to have crossed the line from individualism to hyperindividualism. For example, the self-focused phrases are not just individualistic—they’re also, well, wrong. “Just be yourself” sounds like good advice at first, but what if you’re a jerk? What if you’re a serial killer? Maybe you should be someone else. “Believe in yourself” is fine, but “anything is possible”? No, it’s not. Expressing yourself, respecting yourself, and being honest with yourself are somewhat tautological but not usually directly harmful. But “you have to love yourself first” has a crucial flaw: people who really love themselves are called narcissists, and they make horrible relationship partners.
Americans use these phrases so often that we don’t even notice them anymore. Dr. Phil, the ultimate in plainspoken, no-nonsense advice, uttered both “respect yourself” and “stop lying to yourself” within seconds of each other on a Today show segment on New Year’s resolutions. One of his bestselling books is entitled Self Matters. GenMe takes these phrases and ideas so much for granted that it’s as if they learned them in their sleep as children, like the perfectly conditioned citizens in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
These aphorisms don’t seem absurd even when, sometimes, they are. We talk about self-improvement as if the self could be given better drywall or a new coat of paint. We read self-help books as if the self could receive tax-deductible donations. The Self even has its own magazine. Psychologist Martin Seligman says that the traditional self—responsible, hardworking, stern—has been replaced with the “California self,” “a self that chooses, feels pleasure and pain, dictates action and even has things like esteem, efficacy, and confidence.” Media outlets promote the self relentlessly; I was amazed at how often I heard the word self used in the popular media once I started looking for it.
* * *
THE SELF ACROSS THE GENERATIONS
Baby Boomers
Generation Me
Self-fulfillment
Fun
Journey, potentials, searching
Already there
Change the world
Follow your dreams
Protests and group sessions
Watching TV, surfing the Web, and texting
Interest in government
Interest in yourself and your friends
Spirituality
Things
Philosophy of life
Feeling good about yourself
* * *
Young people have learned these self-lessons well. Twenty-year-old Maria says her mother often reminds her to consider what other people will think. “It doesn’t matter what other people think,” Maria insists. “What really matters is how I perceive myself. The real person I need to please is myself.”
Smart marketers have figured this out too. Ford tells us “Everything We Do Is Driven by You.” Honda touts “The Power of Dreams.” The Toyota Scion, marketed to young drivers, says it’s “United by Individuality,” promising it will help you “create a following by never following. Stand with us by standing out. Be the original, not the copy.” The US Army, perhaps the last organization one might expect to focus on the individual instead of the group, followed suit. From 2001 to 2006, its standard recruiting slogan was “An Army of One.”
In 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year was selfie, coined to describe the now-common practice of taking a picture of yourself and sharing it online with the world. By January 2014, people were competing to take the best picture of themselves in the Selfie Olympics.
Even the pronouns we use have changed: Between 1960 and 2008, American books used first-person singular pronouns (I, me, mine, my, myself) 42% more often, and first-person plural pronouns (we, us, our, ours, ourselves) 10% less often. The biggest change: the use of second person (you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves) quadrupled—most likely due to two interlocking, individualistic trends: authors speaking directly to readers (so you experience the book in a personal way) and the self-help genre emphasizing “your best life,” “what you can do,” and so on. This shows how the cultural change reaches beyond just one generation: even the language in the books we read has fundamentally changed.
CHANGES IN SELF-ESTEEM: WHAT THE DATA SAY
The data on changes in positive self-views over time mirror the social trends almost exactly. In an initial study, W. Keith Campbell and I examined the responses of 65,965 college students to the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE), the most popular measure of general self-esteem. I held my breath when I analyzed these data for the first time, but I needn’t have worried: the change was enormous. By the mid-1990s, the average college man had higher self-esteem than 86% of college men in 1968. The average mid-1990s college woman had higher self-esteem than 71% of Boomer college women. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, college students were increasingly likely to agree that “I take a positive attitude toward myself” and “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.” That’s especially interesting as GenX got a reputation for being depressed cynics; however, they weren’t depressed or cynical about their own self-confidence.
So what happened to self-esteem in the transition to GenMe in the 2000s? For her master’s thesis with me, Brittany Gentile decided to find out. Among 28,918 college students, the average GenMe college student in 2008 had higher self-esteem than 63% of GenX students in 1988—and that’s after the already large increase between the 1960s and the 1980s. By 2008, the most frequent self-esteem score for college students was 40—the highest possible score and thus “perfect” self-esteem.
We then turned to other data sources. The nationally representative high school survey doesn’t show any change in the RSE items, probably because it mixed the self-esteem items together with those measuring hopelessness and risk-taking and changed the order of the questions several times over the years. However, it shows lots of other evidence of rising self-views. GenMe high school students anticipate being awesome employees in the future: 68% of high school students in 2012 said they would be “very good” as a worker (the highest rating), compared to only 57% of Boomer high school students in 1976. Fifty-eight percent of 2012 students believe they will be a “very good” spouse, up from 41% in 1976. Fifty-nine percent are sure they will be a “very good” parent, compared to only 38% who were that certain in 1976. And twice as many high school students in 2012 versus those in 1976 said they were “completely” satisfied with themselves (the highest possible response).
Both high school and college students are also more likely to believe they’re superior to their peers. When asked to compare themselves to others their age, 61% of 2012 GenMe college students said they were above average in their leadership ability, compared to 41% of Boomer college students in 1966. Seventy-six percent thought they were superior in their drive to achieve, versus 60% in 1966. Fifty-eight percent thought they were above average in intellectual self-confidence, compared to only 39% in 1966—even though students in the 1960s earned higher SAT scores. The change wasn’t due to college selectivity, either—more high school students enroll in college in the 2010s than in 1966, so the average GenMe college student is, objectively, less likely to be above average compared to others their age. GenMe high school students were also more likely to see themselves as above average: 65% of 2012 students believed they were above average in intelligence, compared to 57% in 1976. The number who described themselves as “far above average” in intelligence nearly doubled. Sixty-one percent believed they were above average in school ability, up from 56% in 1976. Yet on objective tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 12th-graders scored about the same in the 1970s and 2000s.
Children’s self-esteem scores tell a different but even more intriguing story. W
e examined the responses of 39,353 children, most ages 9 to 13, on the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, a scale written specifically for children. During the 1970s—when the nation’s children shifted from the late Baby Boom to the early years of GenX—kids’ self-esteem declined, probably because of societal instability. Rampant divorce, a wobbly economy, soaring crime rates, and swinging-singles culture made the 1970s a difficult time to be a kid. The average child in 1979 scored lower than 81% of kids in the mid-1960s. Over this time, children were less likely to agree with statements like “I’m pretty sure of myself” and “I’m pretty happy” and more likely to agree that “things are all mixed up in my life.” The individualism that was so enthralling for teenagers and adults in the 1970s didn’t help kids—and, if their parents suddenly discovered self-fulfillment, it might even have hurt them.
But after 1980, with the later wave of GenX’ers, children’s self-esteem took a sharp turn upward. More and more during the 1980s and 1990s, children were saying that they were happy with themselves. They agreed that “I’m easy to like” and “I always do the right thing.” By the mid-1990s, children’s self-esteem scores equaled, and often exceeded, children’s scores in the markedly more stable Boomer years before 1970. The average kid in the mid-1990s—the first wave of GenMe—had higher self-esteem than 73% of kids in 1979. The rise in self-esteem only continued from there. In a later analysis of the self-esteem scores of 10,119 middle school students, 80% of GenMe in 2007 scored higher in self-esteem than their GenX counterparts in 1988.
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