Generation X: a Chameleon BroodUnited Press International - October 19, 2001 WASHINGTON, Oct 19, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Many successful members of "Generation X" -- young Americans in the prime of life -- cope with anxiety, fear of failure and a perceived lack of control over the forces that affect their lives by presenting a false face to the world, a socio-psychologist said. Bernard Carl Rosen, emeritus professor of Sociology at Cornell University, is author of the new book "Masks and Mirrors: Generation X and the Chameleon Personality." In it he describes how angry but passive-aggressive elite X-ers protect themselves by using the adaptive strategy of the lizard that changes color to blend in with its surroundings. Pretending to be what one is not is useful professionally, but it comes at great emotional cost, Rosen told United Press International in a phone interview from his home in Ithaca, N.Y. Rosen's book deals with the top 10 to 15 percent of Americans born between 1965 and 1984. Why are they so angry? "They feel that they have not been given a fair deal, that they have been handed a rather raw set of problems by their predecessors, the baby boomers," Rosen said. "They do have certain gripes against immigrants, who they feel are challenging them for the juicy jobs. They wonder about competition from women, who are getting perhaps a better deal than they deserve -- although, of course, X-ers are women too." X-ers believe the baby boomers are refusing to make way for them by holding on to the good jobs. Rosen characterized the younger generation as energetic and at the forefront of information technology who have a lot to offer the economy and society but who are not getting credit from boomers, who think they themselves are doing a fine job and can't see why this new group of "somewhat scruffy youngsters" can do better. Boomers, who often are in positions of authority over X-ers, have made it clear that they have little respect for their juniors, Rosen said. "They say the X-ers have no sense of a work ethic, which I think is probably true," Rosen said, adding that the successful ones are industrious. "X-ers do not make too much of a fuss over work as an end in itself," he said. "X-ers think the boomers are phony -- that they profess a set of values and hope to impose them on the society, but these are not values that the boomers in fact follow." Rosen said that one of the main sources of tension between the generations is the notion of social equality. "Boomers profess a faith in greater equality at all levels of society -- between the genders, the classes, between rich and poor, white and black. X-ers say this is pure verbiage. "The X-ers maintain, and indeed they are right, that social inequality has increased under the aegis of the boomers. There is far more inequality of income today, for example, than there was 30 years ago." X-ers say boomers are fake egalitarians. "It's a fiercely competitive world, and X-ers feel threatened by it," Rosen told UPI. "Competition comes from boomers, who control the system, from minority groups who never used to compete with white folks but now do so -- sometimes at an advantage. "Remember, the vast majority of the X-er elite is white," Rosen said, "and they feel that they are at some disadvantage in their competition with blacks and with (Asian) Indians, who are moving into the economy in very large numbers. They (the Indians) are often very bright, and they bring with them a high degree of entrepreneurial and technological skill. They write computer programs, they found companies, and they're giving the X-ers quite a run for their money." The socio-psychologist said that even though many members of the X-er elite are women, the consensus of that elite is that women on average are getting a somewhat better deal than they deserve. "Even the women themselves are not quite comfortable with this," Rosen said. The scholar observed that the boomers grew up when America was Number 1. The X-ers came on the scene when the economy began to falter. They grew up when the boomers were attacking religion, the schools and the government. The X-ers found that they had inherited those institutions in shambles. Rosen said the X-ers complain: "The boomers had a sexual revolution, and what did we get? AIDS." The environment was polluted, and they were told constantly that they were not going to be as well off as their parents. "The recession of 1990-91 upset the elite group of X-ers enormously," Rosen told UPI. "In short, they were made to feel that this is a very unsafe world in which to live. And that is what they feel." But doesn't every generation have to contend with the previous one? "I'm of the World War II generation, and I don't recall feeling that the previous generation had stacked the cards against us," Rosen said. "We wanted to emulate them." The most vociferous boomers, on the other hand, professed no use for their parents' World War II generation. Rosen recalled that the boomers were admired and doted upon. They were thought to be idealistic people who for the first time truly cared about the world. "I remember them well because I taught them. They thought of themselves as being born upon the globe to make the world right," Rosen said. "They thought they were bright enough, committed enough, and well-situated enough to end all the kinds of miseries America had suffered and had, in fact, inflicted upon the rest of the world." Rosen said that he personally was not taken in by such ideas but characterized many of his contemporaries as being "stupid" about the boomers, whose arrogance was possible only by ignoring history. "That's true of both boomers and X-ers," Rosen said. "They don't care much for history. History began with their birth, and they don't want to be told about it. "History, to them, is a record of previous failures. To fix upon all these previous failures seems to them not to be very useful," Rosen said. Boomers "are not a terribly likable group, but they're in charge," he observed. Rosen said the X-ers simply share a general American attitude toward history, which is that not much can be learned from dusty stories about the past -- that what matters is the here and now. "When they look about them, they wonder why people haven't learned from history if history has that much to teach them," he said. The X-ers suffer from the additional disadvantage of not having been taught much history in school. In his continuing field research, Rosen now hears X-ers say: "What did we tell you? The boomers are going to screw up. The stock market is in collapse, the economy on the verge of a recession, and we're going to have to pick up the debris and make it right." Rosen said that the chameleon adaptation begins as a defense mechanism for coping with anxiety. "And one thing about elite X-ers is that they are extremely anxious." Pretense is a way of protecting oneself against an unfriendly world, he said. "If you feel vulnerable in the face of hostility, you can lash out," Rosen told UPI. "That's in the old American tradition, but it has fallen out of favor. Or you can flee the scene. Or you can submit. "X-ers don't particularly feel comfortable doing any of those things. Fighting is taboo in most of the corporate world. If you're aggressive and unwilling to go with the flow of the organization, you're probably going to be punished for that. "If you leave the scene and don't compete, you lose, and elite X-ers are fiercely ambitious, although they deny it. "Submission is hard on X-ers. It's a very independent generation. They dislike authority, giving in, taking orders. They do not like being part of a group. They want to go their own way. "The only other option is to be a chameleon -- to assume a facade and pretend to fit in. This buys you time and fends off those who would attack you." Rosen said that elite X-ers learned quite early in life that chameleonism works for them. In time, such an adaptation becomes part of one's character. "But if you go through your life pretending to be what you are not, you are in deep trouble," Rosen said. "First of all, you may lose sight of what you really are. Second, you are forever under the threat of being unmasked, which is a terrible fate. "So chameleonism can be a very counterproductive mechanism of defense. It works some of the time, perhaps most of the time, but leaves one deeply anxious in the long run," Rosen said. "Anxiety produces hostility, but if you express that hostility, you become more anxious. It's a vicious circle." |