In his book, The Great Degeneration, Niall Ferguson writes about how membership to civil organizations has declined significantly in the last hundred years, both in North America and Europe. By civil organizations, he means everything from charities, to museums, to Girl Scouts, to anti-dogmatic philosophy groups (sure, why not).
From our end here at Salem Blog, it’s not hard to see why this decline has happened. Looking at our friends and acquaintances with jobs in the corporate world, these people spend so much time at work now (including the commute), so they increasingly have to get their sense of civil participation at the office, not outside of it. To be honest, we think that kind of sucks.
In turn, however, this means the community focus of the workplace, i.e. your company’s place in the community and/or your place within that, is an increasingly large part of your self-identity, particularly for Millennials.
So, when people bitch about how Millennials are suddenly needing to find so much “meaning” at work, a lot of that is about community context, and is a direct result of the world's ever encroaching capitalist goals, and eventual decline of social capital as we know it. Millennials need to feel like what they do is relevant to the world they aspire to live in.
If you work at a large institution with deep roots in the community, this is all pretty obvious. It's less obvious if the company you work for is just driven by making money and taking your soul.
Just ask any Millennial...
xo
"We ♥ money & not working."
Salem 4 LyFe
