I was talking to some Gen Z folks this week — sharp kids, genuinely — and somehow we landed on the topic of power and corruption. Now, I expected the usual back-and-forth. Maybe a little idealism, maybe a little cynicism, the usual push and pull you get when young people are still deciding what they believe about the world.
That is not what happened.
Instead, they just… nodded. Shrugged. Accepted it. Not the old principle that absolute power corrupts absolutely — no, no. These kids had updated the software. Their version was simpler and, frankly, more depressing: anyone with any amount of power will be corrupt at some level. A little bit of authority, a little bit of leverage, a little bit of access — and watch what people do with it.
They weren’t angry about it. They weren’t surprised. They just took it as a given. Like gravity. Like gas prices. Like the fact that your phone battery will die the moment you get lost and need your GPS the most.
And I sat there, and I’ll be honest with you — it made me sad. Not because they were wrong. They weren’t wrong. It made me sad because this is the world they grew up in. They figured out in their teens and 20s what previous generations didn’t fully absorb until later in ife, often when a hero or role model let them down personally.
Again, these are smart kids, but that’s not the reason they arrived at this conclusion early. The reason they figured it out faster isn’t because they’re smarter, though I’d put them up against any comment section any day. It’s because it’s gotten worse. Faster. Louder. And with absolutely zero shame.
The data backs them up, by the way. Studies consistently show that Gen Z and Gen Alpha report higher rates of depression, anxiety, and distrust of institutions than any generation measured before them. The American Psychological Association has flagged Gen Z as the most stressed generation on record. A Gallup survey found that trust in nearly every major institution — government, media, religion, business — has cratered among young people. They’re not paranoid. They’re paying attention.
And what, exactly, are they paying attention to?
Well. Let’s see.
They watched the Epstein files get unsealed and then watched powerful people shrug. They watched antisemitism crawl out from under its rock and start holding rallies in broad daylight. They watched racism get rebranded as reform. They watched grown adults — grown adults — throw tantrums in grocery stores over paper masks during a pandemic that killed millions of people, as if the greatest inconvenience in human history was being asked not to breath on other people.
They watched a sitting president of the United States refer to human beings — immigrants, opponents, journalists, anyone who looked at him sideways — with the kind of language that would get a middle schooler sent to the principal’s office.
They have watched countless people say they follow a man who said “love your neighbor, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and be nice to the foreigner,” do the exact opposite every time the opportunity came.
They have watched as time and time again those around them would say one thing — and then do the opposite. No consequences. No reckoning. No shame.
That last part is the part that’s eating us alive.
Shame used to do important work in this society.
I know that’s not a popular thing to say. We’ve spent the last decade being told that shame is toxic, that it’s damaging, that we need to release it and heal and move forward and be our authentic selves. I’m not here to argue that we should go back to shaming people for being divorced or left-handed or wearing white after Labor Day. That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about the functional shame. The kind that keeps people from being their absolute worst selves. The kind that makes you hesitate before you lie. The kind that makes you lower your voice when you’re about to say something ugly, because somewhere in the back of your skull, a small voice is saying, you know better than this. I’m talking about the shame that comes from having a conscience.
That shame is gone. And we are living in the wreckage.
A lot of people are walking around with all the shame of a dentist with an iron hook, and that needs to change. There should be some ideas that get shot down. There should be some views that people are embarrassed to hold. There sure as hell need to be some actions that come with a cost — not just a legal one, but a human one. If you lie, you should feel shame for that. If you hurt your neighbor, you should be ashamed. If you steal, you probably ought to think you did something wrong. If you degrade another human being, you should yourself feel that degradation.
Shame is not the enemy of a healthy society. The absence of shame is.
And before you think I’m up here on some high horse, let me tell you about fourth grade.
I had a habit — a bad habit — of “forgetting” to do my math homework. (I’d like to formally apologize to my fourth grade teacher, who is, in fact, a real person who reads this column. I’m sorry. You were right. I was wrong. I did eventually learn long division, forget it, and I use it almost never, but still.)
Now, a quick tip for any Gen Alpha children reading this: if your mother works at the school you attend, do not lie to your teacher about your homework. This is not a theoretical warning. This is a field report from someone who tried it.
My teacher sent a note home to my mother. A note that contained four words I have never forgotten: “Brian’s work is deteriorating.”
Deteriorating. Not slipping. Not struggling. Deteriorating. Like a condemned building. Like a piece of fruit left on the counter too long.
So not only had I lied to a teacher who was personal friends with my mama, but now my work was deteriorating. I had managed to both lie and decline simultaneously. It was, in retrospect, an impressive double failure.
The part that really got me — the part that still gets me — wasn’t that I’d been caught. It was the look on my mother’s face. She wasn’t just disappointed in me. I had embarrassed her in front of her colleagues. I had made her look bad at her own workplace. I can still see that look. I can still feel it.
That shame kept me honest. It taught me something that no lecture ever could have. It taught me a feeling I never, ever wanted to feel again. And I am a better man because my fourth grade teacher held the line and, God bless her, snitched on me.
In my house, we’re pretty tolerant of a lot of transgressions from our children. We have wild boys. We want to have a real relationship with them when they’re adults, not just a polite one. We pick our battles. But if they lie — if they do things they’re not supposed to do when no one is watching — that is a different story entirely. That is when the consequences are harshest, and they know it.
One of The Wild Things, when he was younger, snuck himself some extra screen time in the mornings. Just a little. Just enough. He thought he was slick. He was not slick. We caught him after about three days, and it was a full week before he saw another screen. A week. In kid-time, that is approximately four decades.
Guess who doesn’t lie now.
Shame works. Consequences work. The knowledge that your actions impact other people and reflect poorly on you, works. And right now, the kids are watching. They’re watching us. They’re watching the people in power. They’re watching what we tolerate, what we excuse, what we laugh off, and what we let slide. And they are drawing conclusions about what kind of world this is and what kind of people are in it.
We are failing them.
So here’s what I want to ask you — not as a society, not as a nation, but you, personally, dear, dear reader. What’s your line? What is the thing you don’t do? What is the action, the word, the choice that makes you stop and say, no, I won’t do that, because I would be ashamed of myself if I did?
Not “I’m ashamed of our country.” Not “I’m ashamed of that politician.” Not the comfortable, distant shame we feel about things that have nothing to do with us personally.
In your own life. In your own house. In your own mirror.
Do you have that? Is there something that makes you feel shame?
Because if the answer is no — if you’ve decided that shame is for suckers, losers, and pawns and the only thing that matters is whether you got caught — then I’d like to introduce you to a group of young people who already figured out exactly what you are.
And the sad thing is, they aren’t the least bit surprised.
Which, honestly, is the most shameful thing of all.
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