Generation X


As a philosophy in popular culture, the kind of postmodernism adopted by Generation X is so consistent that many of its main points overlap with each other

The big rush. Gen-X are looking for the big rush; a direct descendant of the existential hedonsim of babyboomers. Entertainment ranges from bungey jumping and dance parties to drugs, "extreme sports"). Meaning is fundamentally personal. They hate anything pretentious or hypocritical but will accept people very different from themselves. Personal ethics, besides being totally individualized, is defined in terms of "boring" vs. "rush" rather than right vs. wrong.

One of the important implications is that knowledge is experience-driven rather than information-driven. Science hasn't been the ultimate answer and there is so much information available that the natural response is to switch off information altogether.

Belong to a group. Most sitcoms are about people who live or work in very tight relationships, and life has imitated art. They expect intense, enjoyable interpersonal relationships. However, with many coming from broken families, they are often insecure and want to be able to bale out when relationships fail.

The group is a way to avoid the excess of choice. Confronted with a bewildering array of choices of anything, the group is a simple way of pre-packaging choices in attractive sets.

The birth rate has declined with the decline of the family structure. Consequently, people who have children will control the future, and this has implications for the church.

Choose a lifestyle. Everyone can be different: that's your story or journey. Gen-Xers tend to tribalize around affinities. There are urban tribes of nerds, dinks, skaters, bikers, surfers, etc. You can grow your hair long or go bald, wear whatever you want or whatever your tribe says is cool.

But then anyone can say, "Christianity is your lifestyle. That's cool. But don’t crowd me with it." They can also potentially see it as a viable alternative that is there to choose.

Create your own reality. With the rise in personal meaning, creative arts are more important. People can create or choose their own alternative realities (cf. The Matrix, about alternative realities). Everybody can have his or her own reality, and each is just as good and just as true. "It’s your choice."

They want to generate more options, not narrow down the range of options. Gen-Xers are also willing to create new institutions and to change radically old ones. In fact, they don't like being categorized and put in a Gen-X box, but prefer to be treated as unique individuals, even when they deliberately seek uniformity with fellow tribe members..

Quite consistently, they want open-ended answers and answers with personal meaning that works for them. Linear logic is irrelevant. They don't want closed right/wrong answers or the predictable. The trend in advertising and movie plots is to use a clever twist to avoid being predictable (i.e. boring).

Get Visual. They prefer very visual communication. Look at MTV, Rage, Video Hits, etc on TV, that have a deliberate philosophy to make people feel rather than think. The visuals can be more important than the music, and often create a mosaic of simultaneous activities or flash between pictures. People want a story but these can be open-ended (e.g. many video stories don't relate to the song). Big-budget, high tech effects are normal rather than special.

But everybody is now time-poor, so radio listening is increasing and TV watching is declining. Besides, people are controlling their viewing by watching videos. Music is still central but it has to be very good. Likewise, the church can't use shabby communications technology.

The future is unknown. Everything will change very quickly and in unpredictable ways, so people feel that they can't plan. Gen-Xers live for today and let tomorrow look after itself. Rapid technological change is normal, so they expect stuff to be outdated soon. Unless items are fashionably retro, old things are often seen to be needing to be replaced. They will throw out old things that are still in good conditions. They aren't impressed by rapid change.

With a growing underclass and a shrinking middle class, many kids are unemployed and some will never be employed, ever. Baby-boomers (and before) like to be asked their job. For gen-x it is an embarrassing question. Welfare payments are shrinking.

But kids are increasingly more right-wing/capitalist. It's okay to start your own business and get rich, and people tend to accept "user pays" services that were once free.

New age movement. Many people are more open to spirituality, but don't expect the church to have it. Personal experience is fashionable, but doctrine and logic is not very important. The new age movement is not as much part of the teenage set in Australia as overseas; Australian postmodernism is more secular.

 

Christianity and the Postmodern Era

Churches have difficulty competing with high tech visual communication styles, but music is central, and churches are working on doing that very well.

Personal experience is more important, and structured teaching appears less relevant. That is, the church is no longer information-driven.

People want to be accepted despite their family messes, but don't want to be tied down to church. The church is personalising, and de-institutionalising, resulting in the decline of denominational loyalties and the rise of postdenominational networks.

Most young people are pagans; they have non-Christian, non-church backgrounds and have no knowledge of Christianity.

Charismatic/third wave is now mainstream. Older liberal churches are dying of irrelevance. Conservative evangelical churches are only just holding their own, but being conservative and information-driven means they are under pressure to accept post modern Christianity.