A Fatherless Generation

A few months back my dad and I were having a heart to heart discussion and he said, ‘Son, I want to be a role-model for you, I want to be someone you can come to for life advice.’  Now, this is nothing unreasonable for a father to ask of his son, but for me this became a moment of grieving.  I desperately desire a father, someone I can look to, someone whose standards I have to live up to, someone who is wiser than me beyond my years.  The thought that crossed my mind was, ‘yes!  I want that for you too.’  But I am afraid this may be impossible.

We live in a world where the most valuable person isn’t the wise man but rather the child who can Google.  The world is no longer asking the grey hairs for wisdom or approval but rather we are on a journey inward.  Our heroes of this generation are the 30 year olds who just sold Instagram for a billion dollars.  And the truth is, the 27 year-old Mark Zuckerburg owns all of our souls.

This Lent I challenged a handful of my students to give up screens for Lent.  I asked them to limit their facebooking, their video gaming, their youtubing, to just one hour per night when they got home from school.  And in the end, we all failed.  Miserably.  To say that we are addicted to our technology is an understatement.  We are officially married to it.  Our smart phones, our televisions, our laptops, they are our appendages: our digital arms, legs, and second brains.  Our mastery of them is our ticket to prosperity and adoration. 

Those that have used this technology to decide what is cool, who have used our connectivity to monetize our relationships, who have created art to be exclusively appreciated by those who are ‘connected’ or ‘on-line,’ it is these people we aspire to be.  And so we serve the screen because it promises prosperity, popularity, and connection.  Instead of legends and tall-tales, we read about and tell stories of the Mark Zuckerburgs of this world.  We no longer look to the wise man to tell us how to live, we look inward at our peers, and we desire to be the most important among them (and thus reality TV was born: an economy of people being famous for being famous).

And I think about my dad and all the other fathers whose identity has been formed around being ‘men.’  And I grieve because their services are no longer needed here.  Lessons in character and integrity, stories of the long, winding journey through the wilderness can’t help someone whose only precious commodity is the preservation and commercialization of their cool.  And I wince as I watch their tired, grey faces begin to follow awkwardly behind us with slumped shoulders muttering stories about patriotism and what it means to be a man.

Perhaps, there is something more to life than moving to the front of this new class we’ve built for ourselves.  I know we’ve all deconstructed the so-called, ‘American Dream,’ but this new peer driven dream feels even shallower than the suburbs we ran away from.  Sure, we eat locally and we live in refurbished hip flats under the shadows of skyscrapers.  And certainly we are the most tolerant and conscious people who have ever lived.  But without the wise men, we have no narrative, no values, no ethos.  If the Kony 2012 controversy is any indication, we haven’t the slightest clue what, exactly, we are supposed to do with all this. 

We have to unplug.  Not because technology is bad but because in our marriage to it, we have created unbalance.  We have to stop celebrating cool aps and start being interested in the content of one’s character.  Stop selling your relationships to Mark Zuckerburg and start cherishing them, listening to the people on the other end of them; share in their suffering, and take interest in their formation.  TURN OFF YOUR DAMN PHONE.

I have to admit I’m deeply in this wilderness too and I have no idea where to begin the divorce of the machines.  Perhaps it will happen like any divorce happens: we stop listening (to the voices of culture telling us how to live), we meet someone new (contemplative prayer and friendship is a good place to start), or we wake up one morning and realize we aren’t happy and that dead beat who has never given anything back to the relationship needs to go.

In the end, at the very least, we must grieve for the giants whose shoulders we sit upon and whose mouths we keep duct taped.  Grieve, the fatherless generation.

Bibliography:

The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen
My good friend Jarrod who listened to me rant yesterday.