Posted on by Abe Austin

Faulty Overcorrection

I believe that societies generally strive to align with truth and reality, but being mortal, we inevitably get some of it wrong. It takes time, but eventually we do catch on to these errors, but unfortunately it is then our tendency to overcorrect in the other direction, and another generation goes by before we realize it. Letting go of the last generation’s mistakes is so pleasant, that we do not recognize the new harm we’re causing until we’ve already passed it on to the next generation.

I see this very keenly with my own millennial generation, which recognized the folly of mandatory morality, but which overcorrected into licentiousness. Mandatory morality can also be described as “perfectionism.” It was the pattern that many millennials were raised with, where we were given this notion that we had to do all of the good things. We had to go to church. We had to get married and have children. We had to grow up and act responsible. And yes, all of these are objectively good things, the very things that every society should have as its top priorities. The problem, though, was that “had” that came with them.

Millennials hated that had. We balked at the notion that our agency was being stripped from us, and we were hellbent on proving that we didn’t have to do anything that we didn’t want to. And prove it we did, by abandoning all the best things of society. We became atheists, we deconstructed the nuclear family, we refused to leave our adolescence. All to prove a point to the prior generation, we ruined our own sense of purpose and happiness, and demanded that the next generation should also be raised with no duties or obligations.

It would have been a great sign of wisdom and nuance, if we could have instead corrected the error while still preserving everything else that was good. I do wish that millennials had said, “you’re wrong, we don’t have to do the good things, but we do choose to.”

Of course, it’s not as if my generation’s story is over. Perhaps we went astray, but we may still have time to get wiser and set things right.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Evolving Your Beliefs- Personal Example

On my mission I served in the country of Guyana, where I observed people with a far different culture than the one I had been raised with. I was able to clearly see how the principles that I was living compared to the ones that these people were. To say that either my culture or theirs was “better” than the other would be a gross oversimplification. They were different. There were some trends among the Guyanese that I thought were better, and some from America that I thought were better.

One area where I felt the Guyanese traditions were more in touch with Christ’s teachings was in treating everyone like a neighbor. When I came back to my own country, it stood out in stark contrast how few people met my eye and gave me a “good morning” as I walked down the street.

Another gap as wide as two cultures is that from one generation to another. Spend an evening surrounded by people 20 years older or younger than you, and it’ll feel like you’ve visited a new country! And while each generation usually claims that their way is better, once again this is an oversimplification.

Just from my own perspective, I believe that my generation has done better with seeing the inherent worth in everyone, and in maintaining love for the sinner. On the other hand, the prior generation is better at dividing good from evil, and they know that commandments are not just suggestions!

But what about two people from the same demographic? Same age, same culture, same race, etc? Well, I married a woman who was exactly that, and you know what? The differences between us were still just as stark as the ones between different cultures and different generations! Though both of us were already Christians, we had very different methods for following Him. And again, it would be an oversimplification to say that either of our ways were superior. Some areas she was further advanced in, and some areas I was.

We struggle to accept the idea that other people might be more advanced than us, though, even if only in part. We tend to think that our culture, our generation, and our family of origin were best. They can’t just have been good, they must be best. And we can spend a lot of time trying to convert people over to our unique perspective. In the end, though, it is not helpful for Guyanese to become Americans or Americans to become Guyanese. Millennials do not need to transform into the Gen-X mold, nor vice versa. My wife and I don’t need to remake one another in our own image.

Instead, all of us need to become more like Christ, and we can progress in that by learning from one another. We can view the differences between us and adopt all the good parts that each holds. There are things you can learn from different cultures, generations, and individuals. Several members, coming together in one body. There are even elements of Christianity that I’ve seen non-Christians get better than us! Your next lesson in discipleship is everywhere about you, you just need to look for the good.