I’m Gen X, and many of the discussions I have with Gen Yers fall right into your belief vs. opinion statement. I had a discussion recently with two intelligent Gen Y professionals. The discussion centered around the environment and the impact of large corporate big box stores (e.g. Wal-Mart). I was proposing that there were potential environmental benefits from these types of stores, as well as economic ones. The conversation quickly declined, and rather than have a discussion about the issues, I was dismissed as being a mouth-breathing meat eater.

This is surely not indicative of a whole generation, but there does seem to be a large number of people who embrace concepts like the Iraq war “sucks’, and global warming is a problem, without ever even trying to dig deeper and investigating the political, economic and social motivations behind the government and corporate actions.

But what Gen Y is missing, at least in the Western world, is the ability to communicate with people, face to face – to express those opinions in the streets not just the blog; to ask someone out by actually talking to their face, not texting their phone; to express dissatisfaction with a top-down boss in their office, not tweeting it secretly back at your desk.

We’re raising future generations that are great at sending messages, but inept at communicating.

Some members of this generation, such as myself, are more independent and are comfortable making opinions (as long as they are backed up). For the integrity of the analysis, it is important not to generalize when characterizing any generation. The purpose of this forumn could be to point out the systemic realities present within this generation so that with this information, our generation….improve. That is what we do. We are habitual improvers. We believe that the future will be better than the past, we believe that we will have more education, more opportunities, and more potential to help the world than previous generations. Sure, our optimism is born out of a state of abundance and relative peace, but that was the whole point of globalism. A world that is increasingly interconnected has the potential to work out problems together, to create consensus, to clearly define initiatives, and to relate to eachothers diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds with a pluralistic tolerance. I think our generation, more than any other in history, has the capacity to forge strong international relationships and leaving a powerful mark on history.