The single most traumatic event to occur in recorded human history was the First World War. Every European nation had its own coffin nail: The Somme, Frontiers, Vimy Ridge, Ypres, the Isonzo, the Kaiserschlacht. The result was that what once made Europe The West died in the Flanders Fields and Italian Mountains. It has not yet, and likely never will recover. Not in the same way at the very least.
While America may not have experienced the total losses that Europe did, it experienced one of the highest rates of attrition of any nation involved during its short time at the front. America was much less densely populated at the time, though its numbers were enough to absorb the shock and its losses not as shocking as France losing 25% of its male population. The First War was only exacerbated by the Second, which concluded the suicide of Europe, and is the single event which has placed us into the game we play now.
Among the most detrimental effects the First World War generated was the concept of generational splits. Prior to the First World War, the barrier between the relative age of human beings was rather perforated (though it did exist.) The primary example I give to illustrate this is President John Tyler having two children in his seventies, then those children having children in their sixties, resulting in one of John Tyler’s grandsons still living at the time of writing. While three generations stretched across two-hundred years has never exactly been the norm, pre-WWI it wasn’t unheard of. But feeding an entire generation of young men into the meat-grinding factory of death that was the first Industrial war tends to have ripple effects that touch lake shores one-hundred years removed from the last shots being fired.
World War One did nothing short of cutting the West in half. Not by gender, race, politics, religion, or sports team loyalty, but by age. It’s only now, with the coming of age of the aptly titled Generation Z, that we realize this cycle existed. The Zoomers are the last notable generation that exists due to World War One, and the generational trauma of such will die with them.
To understand the end, we must go back to the beginning. The first “Generation” was the “Lost Generation.” The aforementioned survivors of the First Industrial War. They are the reason that “I don’t want to talk about it” is the stereotype for Veterans answering questions about their wartime experience. We first recorded PTSD en masse with this generation, and noticed the effects an industrial war has on health and sociability. The effects are: not good.
There’s a reason there was a massive uptick in anti-social behavior in the 20th century (political extremism, collectivism, totalitarianism, pathologizing, nihilism, and atheism,) as the Lost Generation kind of led the charge in that regard. Most every extremist movement of the 20th century was led by WWI vets, or counted among its membership a significant number of them. Put more succinctly: war makes you nuts.
This has a hilariously predictable effect on things like birth rates. The next generation after the lost generation is the “Greatest” generation. These were those born in the decade before, during, and just after the First World War. They suffered nowhere near the attrition the Lost Generation did during the First World War (despite the Second World War having more total casualties than the First, these were mostly Slavs and Orientals while the first was much more geographically limited to Western Europe, though Germany got the short end of the stick both times.) This generation came home and had the baby boom, which further had the Millenials (the largest living generation as of 2022.)
In contrast, the Lost Generation had the Silent Generation. They’re called the Silent Generation because their parents beat the everloving shit out of them if they spoke (war makes you nuts, being nuts makes you an alcoholic.) The Silents are also “Silent” as they were born just before, during, and just after the Second World War. Only the very oldest of them fought, but for the most part they slipped through the cracks of history. Their big fight was Korea which, like North Carolina between its northern and southern neighbor, sits as a war of humility caught between two wars of conceit and popular consciousness in the Second World War and Vietnam.
The Silents had Generation X, a generation so maligned that their existence has become a sort of punchline. To be fair, Gen X didn’t have it easy. Monkey-see monkey-do being one of the ironclad rules of human social interactions, the Silents adopted their parents’ alcoholism and kid-hitting habits (if they were home at all, Gen X is called the latchkey generation for a reason,) but didn’t have the widespread war trauma to lend them any respect. So as soon as Gen X got old enough to leave the house, they kinda went nuts.
Punk Rock, Skinheads, a massive uptick in Meth use, Church attendance rates plummeting, divorces picking up, Are we noticing a pattern here yet?
That leaves Gen Z. The children of Gen X, and the smallest living generation by total births. Every generation since the Lost Generation has been smaller in terms of total births than the one before it, and every generation along this line (not the Greatest → Boomers → Millennials line) since the Lost Generation has been more and more “Anti-Social.” There’s a reason a majority of the DR are Zoomers, and the Alt Right was a Millennial movement.
If current trends continue (fewer Gen Z are having sex, getting married, and bearing children than any previous generation,) then this anti-social line will more or less disappear as anything separate from the “Normal” line. A not insignificant amount of Gen Z women are having kids with Millenials, because believe it or not you need social skills to pass on your genes. This is not a condemnation of Gen Z, those in the DR (and therefore the audience of this article) are better than most, and have a better chance than most TikTok Tranny looksmaxxed queers that make up a not insignificant part of Gen Z.
This is a very good thing. The concept of separate generations is, in many ways, the result of a Tavistock institute PSYOP meant to self-sort a population in convenient marketing groups to sell… I don’t know, birth control? TV dinners? Whatever needs to be sold. But as is often said, you can never PSYOP someone with no pre-existing issues, and all Tavistock did was drive a peg into an already gaping crack.
There’s one fly in this WWI-trauma healing ointment (the result of the reintegration of the Zoomer line into the rest of humanity,) which is when something is not long for this world, it tends to set into death throes. You see dear reader, the oft repeated phrase of, “We live in an aberration/exception of history,” isn’t necessarily true but isn’t necessarily untrue. We live in the world still reeling from the consequences of the 20th century, where institutional lying by the Government (AKA the Nat’l Security State) became a matter of necessity due to the existence of WMDs and resulting fun-time neuroses that come with such. The fall of the Soviet Union meant that institutionalized lying is no longer necessary for survival, but (as I’ve said before) inertia is a hell of a drug.
The death throes of the Nat’l Security State (a long-hated aberration that mass-produces Psychopaths to continue its existence) will coincide with the death of its greatest creation: the most neurotic, disagreeable, combative, extremist, anti-social, depraved, and Psychopathic generation to touch the Earth’s soil in human history, Generation Z. Who will lead the destruction of Generation Z? Easy: Generation Z!
The United States is currently undergoing the most pronounced labor shortage in its history. The labor market has ballooned more than it should to begin with, sure. When baby-boomers entered the workforce, there were so damn many that they drove labor capital costs through the basement floor. Gen X, for all of their downsides, got screwed by this when they came of age in the late 80s and early 90s.
Now, the Boomers are retiring, and Gen X is finally stepping forth to take their place at the top of the experience ladder in the American labor market. Surely a large generation of Millenials (the Boomer’s kids mind you) would cover down all of those empty cubicles and assembly line stations? No, not really.
Millennials as a generation are split in half. There’s the half that fought the GWOT, and the half that didn’t. The half that didn’t is, well, the half we all hate who spawned and pushed the culture rot we all despise, the do nothing pot smokers that promoted our adoption of the boomer hatred meme (funny how young Boomers and young Millennials resemble each other, like father like son.) What’s important for our purposes is that this half of Millennials are generally unemployed or underemployed.
But the half that did… well let’s just say they’ve endured a lot. When I say the half that fought the GWOT, I’m not just talking about servicemen. I’m talking about the Millenials who did everything asked of them. They supported the troops. They got good grades. They went to college. They worked summer jobs. They worked on their Eagle Scout. They tried their best to live up to the expectations set upon them by an “Empire” at the peak of its Golden Age. Then, the world they were trained for ended. Twice.
9/11 killed the happy fun-loving and free times in the decade before, but the Economic prosperity chugged along until 2008. The exact moment most Millenials reached the crucial three years in the workforce stage, when one’s transition from entry-level to mid-level determines how one’s late career shapes, Lehman Brothers collapsed along with any hope of promotions, raises, or in many cases, employment. These Millennials haven’t had it easy, and now that the workforce shortage is guaranteeing employment, they’re still dealing with playing three or so years worth of catch-up with their Gen-X competitors for the mid and high level jobs.
Thus far, Zoomers are relatively on track. While we’re about fourteen years into the Second Great Depression, and Zoomers are only just coming of age en masse, there haven’t been many major shocks to the status quo save for COVID (which merely shifted the nature of most work instead of the availability of said work.) The problems that Zoomers have are internal. In essence, they have not set themselves up for success.
Zoomers are the opposite of Millenials. Millennials are generally extraverted, social, cooperative, agreeable, even-keeled, and patient. Zoomers are, well, I told you a few paragraphs ago.
The problem is, Zoomers (generally) suck at most work requiring any social interaction, cooperative problem solving, or patience. They’re outstanding at computer skills, coding, cybersecurity, web design, or really anything you could make a “Day in the Life” genre TikTok video advertising. But Tech is a very fragile industry, and the other industries that keep the wheels turning (Energy, Logistics, the hard jobs in Finance,) or even the post-Industrial service jobs aren’t getting the bodies they need.
Which brings us back to our historic labor shortage. With Millennials three years behind the curve and Gen X simply not having enough bodies to fill the empty spaces, and Zoomers either too specialized or too antisocial to work en-masse, it seems this labor shortage will only exacerbate as time goes on. This is really, really bad for an Economy that has been as of yet dependent on a surplus of cheap labor, and we will see the consequences.
But this will be really, really good for the individual reader who should probably go ask for a raise or threaten to go somewhere that will (and there will be somewhere that will pay you what you ask within reason.) Especially Zoomers, for two reasons:
With a dearth of experienced employees (or in many cases, employees of any type) in almost every industry, the Zoomers who have set themselves up for success will be able to essentially write their own salary as the shortages get worse, until Generation Alpha (the Millenial’s kids who are hopefully more normal than Zoomers,) comes of age and starts alleviating these massive shortages. But that’s not until about 2040.
A massive labor shortage encourages two things be done to alleviate it: automate and/or immigrate. The former will occur largely due to the very real technical skills possessed by the Zoomer generation en masse (the parts fabrication will be the difficult bit.) The latter will occur largely due to inertia and a lack of political will to change it (especially amongst Zoomers.)
So basically, at the cost of a decades long period of struggle and uncertainty, Zoomers will secure their bag (as will the Millenials who stick it out, I have a massive amount of respect for the ones who have.) The Zoomers will just forget breed in the process.
As your ideological doctor I prescribe one silver lining with every black-pill (the silver linings will be the most important things in your personal lives.) So given that silver lining, I offer another pill of unknown effect. A sort of concluding prophecy if you will.
The Gen Z traits of disagreeability, ambition, neurosis, etc. are terrible to have in the 85-115 IQ bump of the bell-curve. It’s also terrible to have at the bottom (but it’s always at the bottom.) But at the top? This is how ages transition.
The best of Gen Z, the highest IQs, those most personable, those with talent of any kind, those with purpose, with conviction, with an understanding that they are the fruit of the poisoned tree, they will provide a crop of leaders, of titans, of champions, of (may God forgive me)...
Caesars.
Good article. It is somewhat hopeful to think that many of the youngens in the dissident right are looking back to men like John Taylor of Caroline, Maistre, and Carlye. And leaving behind the poisoned branches of the late enlightenment, modern and postmodern. God willing it will produce some Aeneas, Theodric or Aelfred.
A minor exception to this well crafted piece: the first industrial war was the Yankee Invasion. Which killed the last nonmaterialist civilation, and produced the reconstructed generation.
Good piece, Paul. The Lost-> Silent-> Gen X-> Zoomer chain is something I never picked up on but is a good lens through which to view the 20th century, at least the sort of "forgotten" generations that seem to slip through the cracks between the GGs, Boomers and Millennials.