I definitely think younger generations are growing more nihilistic, and I do think it’s caused by a growing lack of fulfillment. But I don’t think it has anything to do with the increasing lack of religiosity — you don’t need religion to find self-fulfillment, or even spirituality.

As younger generations are outgrowing the religious myths of previous generations, they’re also outgrowing another long-held belief. The American Dream. The belief that anyone can have a meteoric rise to success, that anyone can go from rags to riches, if they’re just willing to work for it.

Their parents and grandparents could buy a house and raise their kids on a single blue-collar income. That’s a reality that younger generations will never know.

Saddled with debt, unable to afford homes, unable in many cases to even afford to be able to have kids, younger generations are seeing the American Dream for what it really is — a myth.

And the lack of upward social mobility is making them despondent, depressed, and nihilistic.

They embrace work culture not because they still buy into the American Dream, but because they have little other choice, unless they want to end up on the street.