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October 21, 2022

Before the devastating psychological effects of the COVID lockdowns, the U.S. faced a frightening rise in drug addiction, with youth suicide becoming the second-leading cause of death among people aged 15–20 in the U.S., and suicide in children quadrupling from 2007 to 2020.

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What’s behind this alarming trend?  Let’s consider what the young need to thrive.

Infants and young children constantly challenge themselves to learn the next hardest thing — how to walk on uneven surfaces, how to run down a hill, how to say “rain boot.”  As they grow, the challenges become psychologically complex.

Significant purposes are critical to their motivation, including a vision of work as important to achieve independence.  Vital are a hopeful view of the future, a vision that life can be an adventure worth the striving, and heroes that embody the highest reaches of human nature.  Without these elements, the young are lost, adrift — only too susceptible to depression and even suicide.

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Throughout life, humans need inspiration to get through the difficult and dreary parts.  Where do the young find it today?  Our culture is schizophrenic: on the one hand, Intel’s commercial “We believe there’s an innovator in everybody” captures the classic American excitement toward challenge with financial reward.  On the other hand, running rampant are cynicism, resentment of achievement, intolerance toward differing ideas and values, and a bleak picture of the future based on the premise that human technology is destructive, expressed in the drumbeat of climate change disaster, artificial intelligence boogeymen, and the soul-crushing nature of capitalism.

How do you nurture resilience and grit, when the news, TV, friends, teachers, videos, tweets, and posts tell the young that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, humans are to blame, and there’s no hope?

Many young adults feel they mustn’t bring children into this world.  Forty-four percent of U.S. non-parents between the ages of 18 and 49 years said they’re unlikely to have children, according to a Pew Research Center study, up from 37% in 2018.

Then there’s the dark, depressing anti-heroic outlook celebrated in the past 40 years.

For example, the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas, about an alcoholic and a prostitute slowly killing themselves, received multiple Academy Award nominations.  Contrary to real life, businessmen are relentlessly cast as murderous, greedy villains.  Billions turned the self-made hedge fund CEO into a violent criminal.  Silicon Valley portrayed tech entrepreneurs as lying, vain narcissists, not productive geniuses.

Worse is the elevation of evil to heroism.  The Joker was the highest grossing film of 2019 and received 11 Academy Award nominations.  It masterfully seduces the viewer into sympathizing with the murderous, nihilistic Joker and reviling heartless capitalist Bruce Wayne (Batman).