19 How Will You Shape the World, Given What You have Inherited?

My parents’ generation has been called “the greatest generation.” They experienced the Great Depression of the 1930s and when called into action in World War Two, they responded with great vigor and incredible sacrifice to emerge victorious. Their accomplishment shaped our world, setting in motion the post-War economic boom and a U.S.-led world order based on a coalition of liberal democracies around the globe.

My generation may be, in contrast, “the luckiest generation.” We were recipients of the world our parent’s generation created. This included the “New Deal,” an expansion of the economy, the creation of well-paying jobs, a working middle class, and social safety nets. Following the Depression and the Second World War, this expansion seemed limitless. I have been lucky to live in this era, but it also has brought problems. The model of expansion that produced the largesse my generation enjoyed has played itself out. The question I pose for you here is what will your generation be known for? You are “lucky” in many ways, to be sure, but will that be enough?

The world changed immensely during my lifetime. Opportunities for higher education expanded exponentially following the Second World War and mine was the first generation in my family to attend university. Whereas my parents had distinguished themselves somewhat by graduating high school, my contemporaries and I had access to college. The expansion of public education, most notably the university system, made this possible and affordable.

It is difficult to express how transformative my university experience was for me. It started as a slow exploratory journey and expanded into a career of lifelong investigations into fields I hardly knew existed. I was exposed to a world of ideas in my Introduction to Political Science class. I read Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and through the thoughtful guidance of my professor, would never see the world in the same way again. Before I knew it, I had switched away from my Business major and Computer Science minor. I told everyone I was going to be a lawyer because that was what I thought people wanted to hear. For a while, I even convinced myself that it was true.

All seemed well and good. I was cruising along, enjoying life as an undergraduate, drinking beer in the pubs with my compadres, when the next unexpected thing occurred. Required to take a course in a “non-Western culture,” I enrolled in East Asian Civilizations. I knew nothing about the topic but was aware that we fought wars there (World War Two, Korea) and we were currently embroiled in one (Vietnam), and it was largely curiosity about the Vietnam conflict that drew me. If my first transformation was an earthquake, this one was a supernova. What I learned was a revelation — about cultures and civilizations I hardly knew existed and about the colossal cost of our ignorance of them.

Next thing I knew, I was in a post-baccalaureate program studying Chinese language and East Asian intellectual traditions. I determined that as long as they let me do it, I would continue on this path. I was fortunate to receive scholarships and financial support along the way to make it possible. I eventually received a PhD and have spent years studying in China and Japan, places that I continue to frequent with great regularity. My wildest dreams had become a reality. I traveled the world driven largely by my own curiosity. As I look back, I can’t help but think the “luckiest generation” label applies to me, being the first generation to receive a university education and the only one in my family to receive a PhD, especially given that I came from a rural legacy where mine was also the first generation to enjoy electricity! It goes without saying that my “luck” also came with a lot of hard work and that opportunity comes to only those prepared.

Yet, as lucky as I have been, my tale is also a cautionary one. The model of expansion that produced the largesse my generation enjoyed no longer works for many. The hydroelectric dams that produced the electricity that transformed my world had unintended consequences: the salmon that once thrived on the rivers survive only with significant interventions. The impact of the dwindling salmon counts on Indigenous communities reminds us not only of an abrogation of treaty responsibilities, but the legacy of settler-colonialism that left these communities reliant on them in the first place. The flooding the dams controlled has devolved into issues of water rights access. The public university system that graciously supported my explorations as a “public good” has been left strained as state legislatures abandon this mission in favor of a “privatization model” that depends on student-driven tuition revenues to deliver its mission. The rural areas like mine that so benefitted from post-World War Two expansions have been left largely abandoned. With fewer opportunities for employment in well-paying jobs, there seems little hope for the kind of future and opportunity that my generation was afforded.

If my parents’ generation was “the greatest generation” and mine “the luckiest generation,” what might you call your generation? There is a need for a new model for human progress, or at least a significant revision to our current one. We are facing too many political, social, economic, and moral issues, both domestically and internationally, for us to continue on in a “business as usual” fashion. My parents’ generation shaped a world that brought bounty and opportunity to many. We shape our world with our choices, and how we shape it is of vital importance to our own and our collective human experience. We need a world that brings out the best of our human spirit, all that we are capable of, both individually and collectively. My question for you is: how will you shape the world, given what you have inherited? Will yours be a great generation or simply a lucky one?

About the author

name: Albert Welter

Albert Welter has been deeply involved with East Asia for many years. His encounters with Chinese and Japanese histories, literatures, and ways of thinking, and especially its peoples have shaped and informed who he is and how he looks at the world. Studying culture is not an object for him, but is transformative and essential to who he is and who he is becoming.