Gen X v Boomers

[Amor de Cosmos]

I thought this article was interesting:

[Moonlight Shadow]

Shame on us...

[Amor de Cosmos]

I'm not big on generalisations, but people of my generation are frequently held responsible for the present social and economic decline. Interestingly the article argues, or implies, otherwise. It is, of course, a US perspective so how much of it can be imposed on the UK is arguable. It broadly "feels" right. At least to the extent that I know no one of my generation here who feels anything but despair, anger and/or revulsion regarding "Trumpism." But of course I live in Canada which, politically if not culturally, is significantly different from the US. And, it must be said we have several friends in the UK who happily voted for the current Conservative government. So perhaps there are still fundamental differences at work.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Gen X in the UK pretty much equates to the generation at school or college during the Thatcher and Reagan years, like me, who are all 43-57 now. We weren't the ones who bought our council houses, as our "boomer" parents did that as we lived in them, but we saw the benefits. We were the first generation who got jobs straight after school or Uni that often meant we immediately earnt more than our parents ever did, with the consequence that we broke the "you've not worked your way up to that" resentment that must have been natural from a previous generation used to much more heirarchical systems of respect and authority, both in the workplace and in society. We were the ones taught and sold into the "get rich quick" mantra of the time, alongside "fear the unions and the commies" and "taxes are bad". It's no surprise we are now a demographic group including large numbers apparently voting Tory to cut off their own noses to spite their faces for a laugh in these "Red Wall" constituencies.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm not sure it says much good about Boomers, who (as a generation, not individuals) remain just as flawed as ever. It just points out that my generation is rubbish too. As usual, my hope lies with the widely derided but generally much more decent millennials and Gen-Z.

I totally get the point made in the article that there's just so much of my generation who are apolitical or who claim to be apolitical but really just think they're better and above the fray and superciliously ironic. A generation for whom "caring" is seen as investing way too much emotion, and why should we do that when we can snidely mock the people who care. It's the kind of thing that can buy in to Trumpism, going from "Ha! Ha! Look at all the liberals with all their effort to make things better, why would they do something so gauche and embarrassing?" quickly to wanting to bully the same people who're actually committed to a cause. I feel there's probably a similar thing with Brexit, where you've grown up in a world where nothing has ever really gone wrong for you - maybe you're not earning as much as you'd like and buying a house is not as easy as you'd like, but you've never mostly been hungry or oppressed or in a war, if you're part of the large majority of straight white people, why not just have a laugh and shake things up a bit...

[Lang Spoon]

It's why South Park is unwatchable for me now, everything shitty about a generation in one bite size snide libertarian asshole segment.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The term Generation X has no meaning in Ireland. The first two thirds of the cohort had to emigrate, and returned to the phenomenon of the 35 year mortgage.

[Hot Pepsi]

It's why South Park is unwatchable for me now, everything shitty about a generation in one bite size snide libertarian asshole segment.

That.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm not sure it says much good about Boomers, who (as a generation, not individuals) remain just as flawed as ever. It just points out that my generation is rubbish too. As usual, my hope lies with the widely derided but generally much more decent millennials and Gen-Z.

I totally get the point made in the article that there's just so much of my generation who are apolitical or who claim to be apolitical but really just think they're better and above the fray and superciliously ironic. A generation for whom "caring" is seen as investing way too much emotion, and why should we do that when we can snidely mock the people who care. It's the kind of thing that can buy in to Trumpism, going from "Ha! Ha! Look at all the liberals with all their effort to make things better, why would they do something so gauche and embarrassing?" quickly to wanting to bully the same people who're actually committed to a cause. I feel there's probably a similar thing with Brexit, where you've grown up in a world where nothing has ever really gone wrong for you - maybe you're not earning as much as you'd like and buying a house is not as easy as you'd like, but you've never mostly been hungry or oppressed or in a war, if you're part of the large majority of straight white people, why not just have a laugh and shake things up a bit...

And this.

It’s one thing to be skeptical or about the values or ideas of the older generations, but a lot of people just get stuck in that space of skepticism and detachment rather than being willing to try to make something better.

[Walter Knight]

I fall into the Gen X bracket, being born in the 70s, and two things have always stood out for me in terms of marking my generation out as different to my parents':

1.) The leading popular cultural figure of our generation killed himself when he was 27, and wasn't really comfortable with the 'voice of a generation' tag in any case, and this created a sort of vacuum that no-one else was willing/able to fill (whereas Dylan, Lennon - until circumstances beyond his control intervened - Jagger/Richards and Young provided a deal of continuity in earlier times despite the fact the transition from peace-loving, optimistic 60s to paranoid Nixonian 70s was grim as fuck).
2.) Drugs were much easier to get hold of in the 90s in provincial towns than they would have been 25-30 years previously.

So basically, and I'm generalising massively, our collective attitude was to drop a pill, go to the Winchester and wait for it to blow over. Which is crap, obviously, and I agree with San Bernardhinault that millennials offer more hope.

[Fussbudget]

1.) The leading popular cultural figure of our generation killed himself when he was 27, and wasn't really comfortable with the 'voice of a generation' tag in any case, and this created a sort of vacuum that no-one else was willing/able to fill (whereas Dylan, Lennon - until circumstances beyond his control intervened - Jagger/Richards and Young provided a deal of continuity in earlier times despite the fact the transition from peace-loving, optimistic 60s to paranoid Nixonian 70s was grim as fuck).

Been staring at this for 5 minutes wracking my brain as to who 'Young' is meant to be (not Paul Young presumably.) A counter-example for that 'musicians known by their last name' thread we had.

The leading cultural figure is Kurt Cobain I guess? Which seems a bit of a stretch to me, at least in the UK.

[ursus arctos]

Neil Young

[Walter Knight]

Yeah, sorry, Neil Young and Kurt Cobain. Could maybe have cited Richey Edwards as well/instead but Nirvana were a lot bigger, even in the UK, than the Manics were in '91-'94.

[Fussbudget]

Durrr, but of course, ta. Obviously I need to read Mojo more often. Though I did pretty well to work out that 'Dylan' wasn't referring to the seminal drum & bass producer

[Lang Spoon]

Been staring at this for 5 minutes wracking my brain as to who 'Young' is meant to be (not Paul Young presumably.) A counter-example for that 'musicians known by their last name' thread we had.

The leading cultural figure is Kurt Cobain I guess? Which seems a bit of a stretch to me, at least in the UK.

Agreed, not sure Cobain spoke much to my 5th year class bar 5 or 6 of maybe 30 folk. Happy hardcore meant more to Young Fife of the time.

[Fussbudget]

Yeah, sorry, Neil Young and Kurt Cobain. Could maybe have cited Richey Edwards as well/instead but Nirvana were a lot bigger, even in the UK, than the Manics were in '91-'94.

I get what you're saying but so were Take That. I just think there's a risk of extrapolating what was important to you or the circles you moved in to an entire generation.

[Walter Knight]

I should have mentioned Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder as well, in terms of people who were around in the 60s then stayed around making important music while trying to make sense of the 70s. Although obviously Marvin had more than his share of issues.

[ursus arctos]

I think this illustrates one of the (many).issues with this kind of generalisations about "generations", which is that in terms of music and other forms of culture "generations" tend not last as long and be less universal within any age cohort than the generalisations imply.

[Lang Spoon]

I'd wager the majority of boomers couldn't give a fuck about the Beatles or Dylan's pronouncements at the time.

[Walter Knight]

I get what you're saying but so were Take That. I just think there's a risk of extrapolating what was important to you or the circles you moved in to an entire generation.

That's a fair point, and @Lang Spoon's is as well. Perhaps I over-egged it a bit and should have said 'one of', rather than 'the', although I don't know who else from the same era could honestly be said to have had the same kind of impact. Perhaps that's a separate discussion about saturation/having too much choice/things being too disposable/forgettable. I'm off to bed now...

[ursus arctos]

I'd wager the majority of boomers couldn't give a fuck about the Beatles or Dylan's pronouncements at the time.

If we are going to stick with this, we need a grid with birth dates for each of these ersatz "generations".1

[Hot Pepsi]

To some extent, this isn’t about generations but just age, isn’t it? People in middle age are probably always likely to be the most likely marks for these kinds of grifts because we’re the most likely to think what he “have” is under threat.

Older people have either outgrown that kind of self-centeredness or they’re doing well enough that they’d just prefer a nice center right candidate who will protect that but not cause such a fuss. And they aren’t on twitter all day.

Or, they just sort of gave up hope. That documentary on George Carlin is interesting in that respect.

[San Bernardhinault]

I’m not sure that’s fully true. The data from the article suggests that our generation has been politically dodgy from the outset of growing up in a Reagan and Thatcner dominated environment.

Ursus is largely right - of course - that the whole thing of defined generations is a bit nonsensical. We don’t act as a cohort. But in a statistical sense we do appear to vote a bit more Trumpy than others.

[RobM]

To be honest I'd whack them milennial wankers rght in the genitals with my walking stick if they start their moaning faced etc.

[jason voorhees]

Absolutely absurd and ridiculous article. One friggin' lady in Iowa makes Gen X the Trump Generation? Brainless.

Generation Y and Z are the ones with the 4Chan and 8Chan and bringing back the Nazis in a ho-ho ironic way and the Trump memes and the Madison Cawthorns and shit. Richard Spencer and Mike Cernovich are on the cusp of X and Y both born in late 70s,

Gen X is John F'n Fetterman and Beto O'Rourke. Julian Castro and Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. I mean there's BARELY any Repukes here. Of course there are Trumper Dumpers I went to high school with. The metalheads and burnouts who were nihilists their entire shit-stained lives.

Republicans added more Millennials and Gen Xers (28) to the House in this election cycle than Democrats did (10), according to a Pew Research Center analysis. By comparison, in the 116th Congress, 46 of 64 new Millennial and Gen X House members were Democrats.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...s-up-slightly/

From immigration and race to foreign policy and the scope of government, two younger generations, Millennials and Gen Xers, stand apart from the two older cohorts, Baby Boomers and Silents. And on many issues, Millennials continue to have a distinct – and increasingly liberal – outlook.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics...ican-politics/