ARE MILLENNIALS & GEN Z’S DOOMED TO REPEAT HISTORY?

By Vincent Lyn

What happens to culture when an entire generation can’t be bothered with the past?

After research I was completely shocked to see how so many Millennials and Generation Z’s are clueless about certain key events in history. For instance I was shocked to find out that 41 per cent of American millennials surveyed in a recent poll could not identify what Auschwitz is, according to a study released on Holocaust Remembrance Day that found that knowledge of the genocide that killed 6 million Jews during World War II is not robust among American adults. Twenty-two percent of millennials in the poll said they haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they’ve heard of it — twice the percentage of U.S. adults as a whole who said the same. The ignorance of history in high schools, colleges and universities is dangerous to the future of a free society. It is not only the history of World War ll which Americans understand only vaguely. The knowledge of all American history has become a wasteland. The reason is that it’s no longer being taught.

The purpose of the camps was the extermination of Jews, Poles, homosexuals, and gypsies.

That education is ignoring history is to ignore that during the Holocaust millions were murdered by the Nazi regime. Including:

• Jews: up to 6 million
• Soviet civilians: around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews)
• Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers)
• Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites)
• Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina): 312,000
• People with disabilities living in institutions: up to 250,000
• Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–220,000
• Jehovah’s Witnesses: around 1,900
• Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials: at least 70,000
• German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory: undetermined
• Homosexuals: hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above).

Millennials — anyone born between 1981 and 1995. In the U.S., there are roughly 80 million millennials. A member of Gen Z is anyone born between 1996 and the early-mid 2000s. In the U.S., there are approximately 90 million members of Gen Z, according to the Pew Research Center, are the future. Yet, on the whole, their knowledge of the past seems somewhat threadbare. This is despite it being a “fact”, according to the Huffington Post, “that they are the most educated generation in U.S. history”. This historical ignorance might also explain why millennials have such a favorable view of socialism. As the Washington Post reported in 2016, Millennials are the only age group in America in which a majority views socialism favorably. A national Reason-Rupe survey found that 53 percent of Americans under 30 have a favorable view of socialism compared with less than a third of those over 30. Moreover, Gallup has found that an astounding 69 percent of millennials say they’d be willing to vote for a “socialist” candidate for president — among their parents’ generation, only a third would do so.

But this might be because they don’t know what socialism actually is. Yet millennials tend to reject the actual definition of socialism — government ownership of the means of production, or government running businesses. Only 32 percent of millennials favor “an economy managed by the government,” while, similar to older generations, 64 percent prefer a free-market economy. And as millennials age and begin to earn more, their socialistic ideals seem to slip away.

But we do have to be careful. The children are our future, as Whitney Houston sang. And unless they learn about the dismal record of socialism, and of the horrors of the Holocaust for that matter, millennials run the risk of repeating them. Socialism can flourish only amid historical ignorance. Learning is essential for a free society. It is often said that the best cure for ignorance — and contempt for what your parents think — has always been experience. Even the Greatest Generation had to learn. Many as teenagers were attracted to the isolationist “America First” movement of the 1930s. That was before Pearl Harbor and the horrors of World War II taught them a bitter lesson about the necessity of fighting totalitarianism. That life-changing lesson carried over after World War II into the Cold War.

Of course, millennials have had no experience of any of this history — not even the Vietnam War. They or their elder brothers and sisters may have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, but according to polls, they overwhelmingly disapprove of those wars. The polls also show that 58 percent of the younger generation — an estimated third of the U.S. electorate in 2020 — agree that it would be “a good thing” for the U.S. to support some forms of socialism. Apologists for America’s young people sometimes argue that ignorance of how socialism has worked out in practice is why so many think it’s a great idea.

Unfortunately, ignorance may not be the only or primary reason our younger generation has such poor historical judgment. To take only two shocking examples, ABC News interviewed Andy Vila and Ernesto Medina, whose parents had to flee for their lives from Castro’s Cuba to Miami. Both like socialism a lot, and Medina, 31, says, “I don’t care what old people think anymore.”

One might think that Europe’s younger generation knows better. Alas, a new survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations asked people in 14 E.U. member states for their views about whom their county should side with in the event of a military conflict between the U.S. and Russia. Despite the existence of NATO, in none of the 14 countries did a majority favor siding with the U.S. Neutrality was overwhelmingly favored; but in Austria, Greece, and Slovakia, small pluralities favored aligning with Russia over the U.S.

Famous for fleeing fascist Europe’s new world order for America, Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The distinguished American historian David McCullough, author of such award-winning books as “Truman,” “John Adams,” and “1776,” laments the decline in the teaching of our history:

“We are all part of a larger stream of events, past, present, and future. We are the beneficiaries of those who went before us, who built the cathedrals, who braved the unknown, who gave us their time and service, and who kept faith in the possibilities of the mind and the human spirit. I know how much these young people, even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning, don’t know. History is often taught in categories, women’s history, African-American history, environmental history, so that many of the students have no sense of chronology. They have no idea of what followed what. Many contemporary textbooks are so politically correct to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back are given very little space or none at all. History gives us a sense of proportion. It is an antidote to a lot of unfortunately human trends, like self-importance and self-pity. I think that in some ways I knew more American history when I finished grade school than many college students know today. And that’s not their fault, that’s our fault.”

I certainly can agree with Mr. David McCullough that by the time I also finished secondary school in England I knew more European history than most university students know today.

Today, the 20th year anniversary of 9/11 let’s quickly consider what the 9/11 Generation has experienced in just the last 20 years: the deadliest attack on the United States in American history, the longest war in American history, the highest unemployment rate and the two largest global economic collapses since the Great Depression, the lowest oil prices in world history, and the deadliest pandemic in 103 years since the onset of the Spanish Flu in 1917.

Yet, despite the fact that the 9/11 Generation has been mostly entry-level to mid-level employees or even college students during this time frame, it is now up to them to unravel this mess. Not only that, it will be up to the 9/11 Generation to lead the U.S. and the world into a better future, as they rapidly become the decision-makers and leaders within government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and local communities.

Once COVID-19 has passed and the global economy resumes its next wave of growth, it will be the 9/11 Generation that leads the United States. It is up to this generation to either continue to build upon past policies, which arguably created the volatility of the last 20 years, or to reset our core values as a nation and build a future that is more sustainable, resilient, and wholly realistic about the challenges of the world we face.

Vincent Lyn

CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children

Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization

Economic & Social Council at United Nations

Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency

Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts