The Wisdom of Youth and a Shared Responsibility for Change
In front of an audience spanning all ages, Tippett began the evening by recognizing how young people contribute uniquely to building a better world.
“There's a wisdom of young adulthood, which is about seeing the world whole and rejecting the idea that things must be as they have been handed to you. [...] Intergenerational friendship is about getting our wisdoms into conversation.”
Janvier echoed this sentiment, highlighting the vitality and urgency felt by young people today. Drawing upon her experience as a youth advocate promoting reparations, climate justice, police accountability, and racial justice, she shared her thoughts on the intersection of activism, responsibility, and the challenges facing younger generations today.
“Maybe I'm naive in believing that the world does not have to be the way it is, but I'm not just going to swallow it,” Janvier said.
Thanks to technological advancements, today’s young people are armed with more information than ever before. With this increased awareness, Janvier said, comes a heightened feeling of responsibility to act.
The critical role youth play in reshaping our future highlights the importance of intergenerational collaboration to address pressing challenges. The cultivation of friendships across generations, Tippett said, is therefore an essential step in including youth perspectives alongside the different wisdom of multiple generations when making consequential decisions about the future. Drawing on her decades of work exploring the questions of humanity through On Being, she spoke about the concept of “kairos time,” urging the audience to see the opportunity for transformation in times of present chaos.
“We live in this in-between time where the forms that came out of the twentieth century that we inherited, including things like schools, and prisons, and medicine, and law, and politics, those are not fit for purpose.”
“It is a terrifying and magnificent time to be alive all at once,” Tippett continued. “I really do believe that in all of this remaking that we have to do, whether we rise to this question in each of these reckonings, racial, ecological, economic, political, how we rise to what it means to be human and the highest sense of that, and also who we will be to each other, that is going to spell the difference between whether we experience flourishing as a species or whether we merely perhaps survive.”
Navigating Young Adulthood Amid the Pandemic’s Legacy
As the theme of resiliency anchored the conversation, participants considered the emotional toll of being young in today’s tumultuous world. Through his work with young people as a best-selling children’s and young adult writer, Reynolds observed that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated feelings of isolation and uncertainty, particularly during the formative years of adolescence, exacerbating the effects of many existing societal problems.
“If you are a young person with a certain level of depressive disorder or anxieties, I think the pandemic made it really acute in a way that I don't think we still quite understand,” Reynolds said.
Janvier echoed this sentiment.
“[My heart]’s constantly in a state of ‘I hope for better, I wish for better, and I don’t see it.’ And to be in a state of constantly being let down is frustrating, but hope’s an exercise.”
The conversation partners also touched on the collective reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the growing awareness of climate and racial justice issues. For Janvier, the ongoing fight for change was personal, as she experienced the weight of simultaneously being both a student and an advocate. “Everybody wants to be involved until it’s inconvenient,” she said.
A Path Toward Building Bridges Across Generations
Tippett acknowledged that in American society today, we seem to have lost the inherited experience of cross-generational dialogue.
“I think it's something that even if we've never known it, we miss it. And when we experience it, when we see it, we know that we need it.”
In a world where generational divides sometimes feel insurmountable, Reynolds offered a framework for bridging these gaps—one rooted in humility, curiosity, and gratitude.
"Humility now has a weird bad rap," he noted, explaining that humility is not about degrading oneself, but rather about entering every situation with an open heart and mind by leading “with less answers and more questions.”
For Janvier, her developing relationship with an older mentor illustrated this dynamic.
"What started out very much as mentorship [...] just changed into, I like being around this person,” Janvier said of her cherished intergenerational friendship. “This person thinks I have inherent value and she's not my mom, so she doesn’t have to think I’m cool."
Gratitude is the final essential piece in Reynolds' equation for meaningful intergenerational engagement. The future, according to Reynolds, is shaped by young people—by their ideas, anger, frustrations, and creativity.
“Whatever that future looks like, it doesn't exist if there's not a Kessley,” Reynolds said.
Instead of criticizing or judging younger generations, he urged older generations to lead with gratitude, recognizing the invaluable contributions of youth. "Instead of judging, we should probably first say thank you," he said.
The Need for Imagination
As children age, Reynolds said, societal expectations begin to stifle their curiosity and creativity. "If you were to ask your average six-year-old, 'If you could have any possible meal, what would it be?' they would create the strangest concoction of foods," he said. "And then if you ask your 13-year-old, they’d say pizza."
“What has happened in a five-year span is the killing of imagination,” Reynolds continued. “And it's a shame. I actually think [human imagination is] the first thing that goes. [...] I got love for the academy, but it is an imagination killer, starting young."
Reynolds cautioned that even when the world weighs on the shoulders of young people, they must preserve their childlike wonder as a meaningful skill for working toward the change they want to see.
“If you can stay childlike, then your imagination will continue to swirl, and we might actually have a shot at doing the things that you and your friends and your generation want to see done."
Listen to a full recording of the event as an On Being podcast episode.
