I’d never heard the word, ghost, until a few days ago. Well, no.  I heard “Holy Ghost” in the King James Version, and Casper the friendly ghost.  I’ve heard the term, ghost, used in varied other ways, and I wouldn’t have made this up.  I went to RealClearPolitics, and read “The Conflict Avoidance Generation” by Noah Rothman at Commentary.  The subtitle is “Comfort First.”  Here are the first three paragraphs:

My two young children adored their babysitter. For about eight months, she watched them when my wife and I couldn’t, and she was good at her job. A recently enrolled student in a local community college, her schedule didn’t always include time to work for us. But when it did, she was punctual and professional, and her services were well compensated. And then one day, she disappeared. 

It occurred to us only after several weeks of radio silence that falling off the face of the earth might have been her way of severing our professional relationship. In retrospect, this maneuver was, perhaps, in character. Her preferred method of declining the opportunity to sit for our children when her schedule did not permit it was just not to take our call. So, resolved to find a new sitter, my wife and I conducted a handful of interviews and settled on a replacement relatively quickly. We introduced the new sitter to our children and established a prospective starting date in about two weeks. That was the last we saw or heard from her. Once again, we were “ghosted.” 

Our experience appears increasingly typical for employers seeking talent among young professionals entering the workforce. “Ghosting,” in the popular vernacular, is the practice of closing off all communication without any forewarning or explanation. This discourteous practice was once exclusive to the dating world, but it is now being applied to all sorts of interpersonal relationships, including those that are entirely professional.

“Ghosting” is defined as “the practice of closing off all communication without any forewarning or explanation” (this article lays out what it is too very well).  As you continue to read, you’ll see that “ghosting” has become a regular practice by a surprising high percentage of “Generation Z” (22 and below) — 43% just vanish when they don’t want the job anymore.  In addition, 25% of millennials (23-38) bail on their employers.  What is going on here?

Some have studied this new trend, and Rothman calls it “an ideological obsession with avoiding all forms of trauma and distress—even the emotional sort.”  He further describes:

The path of least resistance is to avoid potentially conflictual interpersonal engagements. Compulsive conflict avoidance is, however, not only rude but unproductive and unhealthy. “Ghosting” isn’t just ignoring a problem in the hope that it will go away or changing the subject; it’s a complete cognitive and emotional shutdown.

Rothman references an article in The Atlantic that turned into a book of the same title:  “The Coddling of the American Mind,” which has this sentence in the subheading:  “In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like.”  The article is worth reading.  I give both articles a full disclaimer, but I have both seen and experienced “ghosting” numerous times.

“Ghosting” disobeys the frequent biblical command to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”  No one wants someone with whom he relates to just “drop off the face of the earth” with almost no warning and with no opportunity at reconciliation or mediation.  If you do this to someone, you are wrong.  Jesus says this is as much as murdering someone (cf. Matt 5:21-26).

Social media provides the practice or pattern of ghosting.  Someone makes an even moderately negative comment, perhaps just unaccepting, and it is deleted immediately, the person blocked permanently.   A non-affirming relationship is rejected.  This is. not. Christian.  I see this as the norm in social networking and then it becomes a pattern for behavior in the real world.

Someone ghosting is practicing an unscriptural form of separation, separation in the worst, most harsh, hateful way.  It doesn’t try to keep a relationship going.  It doesn’t care about the person it ghosts.  I hear the generation Z and millennials talk about unity, especially since there is so much division in the country, but they do not understand unity.  Unity isn’t the absence of conflict.  Jesus did not come to bring peace, but a sword, and no one brings unity more than Jesus.  They practice this nuclear form of separation that scorches the earth all around its object, like Rome with Carthage.

“Freedom” isn’t the ability to say or do what you want without rejection.  Real freedom gives confidence to face adversity.  The truly free person can stand up to scrutiny.  It’s even part of being an adult, which is one reason I see this being the behavior of young people.  It’s also because they have been coddled, like the article says.

When a conflict arises in a relationship, scripture teaches reconciliation, and mediation if necessary.  Tough conversations must be had.  This is love.  Pushing the eject button isn’t love.  It is selfishness.  Ghosting is “vindictive” a word used four times in the Atlantic article.  He calls it “vindictive protectiveness,” followed by this sentence:  “It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.”

Don’t get me wrong, generation Z and millennials don’t think they’ve been coddled (overly protected). They think they’ve been abused.  They’ve “had life very hard” — not.  This is the generation where dodge ball, the teeter totter, and the monkey bars went extinct.  Two words:  hand sanitizer.  Almost everyone in my generation of parents over served their children.  They gave them too much, protected them from too much. They had life too easy.  They don’t think so.  They think they had it hard, but no generation of people had it as easy as those 35 and younger.  More coddling isn’t the solution to their problem.  The future looks already very dim, but if this doesn’t stop, that trajectory downward will be even worse.