The lack of wealth transfer from older to younger generations is well documented. However, as a speaker at a recent conference for the upcoming semiquincentennial observed, there has also been a failure to transfer hope. Older generations grew up with a sense of progress. As recently as the 1950s and 1960s, children envisioned a future like The Jetsons or Star Trek, where technology was harnessed to improve life.
By contrast, those who came of age since the 1970s, as I did, have been bombarded with images of decline and collapse. Environmental issues were framed in everything from the campy 1970s series Ark II to films like Interstellar. Post-nuclear worlds were depicted in The Day After and Mad Max. Evangelical audiences saw apocalyptic themes in The Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series. For decades, pop culture has been obsessed with zombies, alien invasions, and dystopian societies like The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s no wonder younger generations have come to expect apocalypse rather than utopia.
Those raised on dystopia will find any vision of a hopeful, spacefaring future unconvincing. Cultivating a sense of optimism beyond mere survival may require a new approach to literature—one that acknowledges the challenges we face but moves beyond treating apocalypse as imminent. After all, working toward a future requires believing there is one.