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| What The Economic Crisis Means to Gen Y (Are you a grasshopper or an ant?) |
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| Written by Tiffany Ford | |
| Friday, 03 October 2008 10:58 | |
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“Are we too young to remember The Great Depression?” Catherine Rampell asked this very intriguing question in the title of her NewYorkTimes.com article yesterday. Although her article didn’t say much, her poignant question sparked some great comments from others. One commenter noted the VERY OLD Aesop’s Fable about “The Grasshopper And The Ants”, made into a Disney cartoon in 1934, and how it relates to the current economic crisis. I vaguely recalled watching this cartoon as a kid and found it on youtube to watch it again. The ants work hard all year to scrimp and save for the winter, while the grasshopper plays his fiddle all summer. Inevitably, come winter, the grasshopper is freezing and starving, and must knock on the ants’ door for help. Of course this story makes the very relevant and obvious point that we all must take personal responsibility. When we begin to act too much like the grasshopper, we end up in debt, going bankrupt, and loosing our confidence to take care of our families and ourselves. Many people, including certain Republicans trying to avoid blame, are trying to tell Americans that this crisis arose because we’ve all acted too much like grasshoppers. Perhaps this is true to a certain extent, because people have forgotten about The Great Depression, and begun to convince themselves of whatever they please (like the benefit of no regulation, and excessive spending). However the analogy doesn’t stand up to real circumstances. In real society when “winter” comes it doesn’t completely take away one’s ability to survive and make money. No, this current economic “winter” instead diminished the savings people had worked so hard to accrue. So in the real version of the cartoon, the ants are actually way more screwed than the grasshopper. The grasshopper can’t lose his enjoyment and memories of fiddling through the summer, and he still has his fiddle and can continue to reap that enjoyment. But after not enjoying the summer, the ants still lost so much of what they had worked so hard to save. Now they can’t get those savings back, and they can’t go back to the last summer when they could have had a good time and now enjoy the memories. I think the current economic crisis is reminding us that it doesn’t work to be a full-on ant just as it doesn’t work to be a total grasshopper. We can’t assume that just because we work hard we will be completely safe. You have to take personal responsibility for the well being of your family, like the ants, but there's no point in doing so if you (and your family) can't enjoy what you've worked for. You shouldn't even have to wait until retirement (another metaphor for “winter”) to enjoy your life. However, a person can't completely be a grasshopper either. The point is, there's definitely a balance that needs to be struck, and our culture is so extremist sometimes that the balance is difficult to grasp. The question the grasshopper/ant cartoon inspires is, “Does ‘the world owe us a living,’ or do we ‘owe the world a living’?” It depends on your definition of “living,” but I say if we’re giving back to our world and community (as so many Gen Y-ers are dedicated to do) then we should be able to depend on that world, or it’s government, to not screw us. Unfortunately, our government is just as vulnerable as the ants and the grasshopper. So if working super hard doesn’t work, and living only in the present doesn’t work, then what is our generation supposed to learn and RETAIN from this economic crisis? Sometimes I think the lesson is that we should all strive to be the Queen ant in the cartoon. She’s the entrepreneur. But what do you think? Bookmark with:
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1) Why equate work with unhappy drudgery? Many "ants" know they could be lazy fiddlers but prefer to work for a variety of reasons (interesting, fun, challenging, fulfilling, a good reason to treat yourself to Starbucks, a way to make new friends,....).
2) It is likely that the current "panic" is temporary. Humans have a remarkable ability to adapt. If what Daniel Gilbert pointed out in "Stumbling Toward Happiness" is correct, we will adapt to whatever the new economic reality becomes. Think for a second the S+P 500 level today (876) is slightly higher than it was in March of 2003 (84
3) We are all so completely submerged in the ocean of "consumerism" that we are just like the fish that don't realize they are in water. Satisfaction, happiness, even fun are not directly related to spending. Except for individuals in extreme poverty, happiness, in my experience, does not correlate with affluence.
4) Finally, I found your statement "we should be able to depend on that world, or it’s government, to not screw us" to be interesting. Somehow I have the exact opposite feeling about government. I think the only thing we can depend on about government is that it will try to screw us.
My apologies for the long RANT, "I could be wrong".