My Generation

[J.A.K.]

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I think the rise of reality t.v., blogging, and the flood of entertainment programming, with its constant emphasis on celebrity culture, has given people a sort of weird way of looking at their lives as if they were stories, and interesting in and of themselves automatically. It's a strange combination of a meta-angle overlooking one's life with what should properly stand out in stark contrast to that kind of distance, an unapologetic utter triviality and a kind of spooky egocentrism.

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Very nice post and QFT.

And I think this manifests itself most in relationships. I remember Fluffpop stating that her becoming bored would end the relationship faster than if her BF cheated on her in a certain capacity. (Not a slam on Fluff...just anecdotal towards the mindset) Many a thread contains a poster discussing problems with his SO, and eventually you come to find that the OP doesn't see the relationship going anywhere...yet they're in it and lamenting the concomitant issues associated with a dynamic involving concerns beyond their own.

I think reality is diverging from "truth" more and more and each generation is more susceptible to the phenomenon. I wanted to make a post about it but realized it breaks down into subjectivism. That, and it's hard to expect any generation to transcend it's culture.

[zenfurni]

This is a great thread, and people have touched on a couple of excellent points. Being (a fairly old soul for) 23, I feel pretty qualified to talk about this, but there are a few points I see.

1) Detachment through technology. Several people already mentioned this, and it's absolutely true that prolonged computer/cell phone use has differentiated us quite a bit from older generations. Read Goleman's "Social Intelligence" for a great account of why this might be bad.

2) Flexibility. Most people entered this as a strength, but I'm actually profoundly disturbed by it. My parents are both engineers, and though they grew up in a dysfunctional society (70's Poland), they learned a specific set of skills in school that has made them useful to society anywhere in the world. In today's environment, education means very little, and people expect to acquire almost all of their skills once they go out into the world. I would consider myself successful, but like most poker players, I feel that I have an extremely narrowly defined usefulness.
The flexibility thing plays into concern about the larger economy. Nowadays, it seems like every four or five years herald in a new fad, coincident with where the money and capital is flowing in the economy. Not a big surprise that human capital flows as well. When I was in high school, every nerd wanted to study computer science to become a programmer and work in a dot com start-up. When I finished college, everyone wanted to go into real estate. In five years, it'll be something completely different, depending on what kind of bubbles are allowed to grow in the economy. I think a fair percentage of my generation will grow accustomed to often changing not just jobs, but careers, in chasing the next big thing.

3) Entitlement. It's hard to argue with that, and it makes me think of the Greatest Generation. I hate some conservatives' interpretation, though. The Cheneys of the world would have us believe that it was a great generation because people were just more moral back then and willing to make great sacrifices from personal bravery. Perhaps, but they were also moral enough to inter the Japanese, firebomb Dresden, and make blacks sit on the back of the bus. What the greatest generation had was the HABIT of sacrifice. They had grown up in the Great Depression, where they often had to go without food so their younger brothers and sisters might have some more, or to scrimp and save because there was no abundant credit. It seemed natural enough to go fight in Europe and endure extreme hardship for a brighter future. Meanwhile, after September 11th, the President was asking people to "sacrifice" by maxing out their credit cards and continuing to pump as much gas as possible.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I'm trying to throw a little light on how larger social and economic trends are making my generation what it is.

[Blarg]

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and it's hard to expect any generation to transcend it's culture.

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That's very true, and a problem it's hard to imagine the individuals of any culture ever outgrowing. Especially in a culture that doesn't really think long-term about much, or about context much. Each new generation is largely lost in time, with few referents to or curiosity about what came before and will go after. In that case, what else is there to think about or take as the measure of all things besides yourself?

[Conspire]

Zenfurni,

That was really well written, and very relevant to our generation.

[KotOD]

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The flexibility thing plays into concern about the larger economy. Nowadays, it seems like every four or five years herald in a new fad, coincident with where the money and capital is flowing in the economy. Not a big surprise that human capital flows as well. When I was in high school, every nerd wanted to study computer science to become a programmer and work in a dot com start-up. When I finished college, everyone wanted to go into real estate. In five years, it'll be something completely different, depending on what kind of bubbles are allowed to grow in the economy. I think a fair percentage of my generation will grow accustomed to often changing not just jobs, but careers, in chasing the next big thing.


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This has always been the case but lack of transportation, communication, and education meant that technological shifts took a generation, not a half-decade. This is actually a good thing for the economy and for your flexible friends. The ease with which labor and capital can move into a developmental field means that the fruits can be brought to market that much faster.

As to the real-estate thing - it's a bubble. People wanted to be day-traders 10 years ago, and gold and silver speculators 30 years ago. Bubbles are bubbles and have existed as long as there have been markets. People see the money being made on the way up and want to jump in as speculators. You shouldn't consider these when you are talking about the labor or capital shift during an industrial or technological change.

[KotOD]

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In the 60's and 70's, many parents wanted to kill or jail their kids or send them off to a war -- pretty much any war would have been good enough -- or at least do the same to someone else's. There was real intergenerational warfare and anger, and it was a terribly stupid and selfish way to live and think.

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Why was there more intergenerational warfare during these decades? Did it have to do with the drug culture and the hippy attitudes or something? I guess to some degree I thought all generations had some intergenerational anger going.

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I hardly know what to say to this, but it fills me with dread that you would ask. Unfortunately, our history has been so ignored and whitewashed that it doesn't seem as out of place as I would hope. I'm not sure what I can say that is constructive and doesn't sound mean, and I like you very much Katy, so I'm just going to sit on your comment and questions for a while and hope that someone can find something constructive to say before I am forced to come up with something that tries not to alienate you but fails, or takes 45 paragraphs, or both. I like you too much to be mean, and don't know how to prescribe an entire program of reading and cultural awareness in response to a simple question.

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What Blarg is trying to say, Katy, without blowing a gasket is that yes, intergenerational conflict during those decades was worse than ever before or since. Two entire generations of people were attempting to kill, arrest, imprison, infiltrate and many other not-as-bad things their own children and grandchildren. Or course, it wasn't THEIR children or grandchildren, it was that other guy's children and grandchildren. The actions and attitude towards the younger generation stretched from local government to the national guard. They stretched from your local sheriff to the FBI. They stretched from your neighbors on each side of the yard to two of the worst presidents ever. It was, as Blarg said, a war between generations. Prior to that time period, the prior generation was doing what it could to improve the lives and prospects of the next. Maybe not directly acting, but doing so in their day to day lives for their ethnicity, community, family, whatever - it all ended up improving everyone's lot.

I think what bothers me most about that today is that the kids that were under attack then have taken the worst of both sides as parents and leaders and applied it to their children. They've taken the memories of being whooped on and have turned into giant freaking enablers for spoiled kids. At the same time, they've taken a history of openness, freedom, alternatives and experimentation and decided that they could handle it as kids, but now their kids cannot.

[Blarg]

Thanks KotOD, you said it well and quickly. I agree with your second paragraph, too. One of the rougher things to come out of the 60's and 70's is that so many people learned so little.

Oh well, at least leaders aren't getting shot anymore. Then again, who's really trying to lead?

[zenfurni]

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This has always been the case but lack of transportation, communication, and education meant that technological shifts took a generation, not a half-decade. This is actually a good thing for the economy and for your flexible friends. The ease with which labor and capital can move into a developmental field means that the fruits can be brought to market that much faster.

As to the real-estate thing - it's a bubble. People wanted to be day-traders 10 years ago, and gold and silver speculators 30 years ago. Bubbles are bubbles and have existed as long as there have been markets. People see the money being made on the way up and want to jump in as speculators. You shouldn't consider these when you are talking about the labor or capital shift during an industrial or technological change.

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You're right about the bubble aspect, and I tend to think that these shifts in capital are overall efficient and beneficial. What concerns me, however, is the impact on personal psychology and culture. These capital shifts and bubbles used to come once a generation, but now because of technological advances, they seem to come every five years, which makes my generation perhaps less secure about our careers. Less secure might mean that we're less willing to become attached and committed to what we're currently doing.

[daveT]

Interesting article in the latest Rolling Stone about 1967, and how the divide between adults and the youth created our present world.

[dylan's alias]

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Why was there more intergenerational warfare during these decades? Did it have to do with the drug culture and the hippy attitudes or something? I guess to some degree I thought all generations had some intergenerational anger going.

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The world changed more in the 60s than it had in the past decades (I'd say since WWI). The buildup of wealth among the middle class and the lack of a war (from the mid 50's to the end of the 60's) resulted in kids with money to spend. America had already made the major change from agriculture to industry, which also freed the younger generation from farm work. Then, by the early 60's, the Pill became widely available. Now you've got kids with money, free time and the ability to have sex without getting pregnant. The stage for a cultural upheaval was set.

To get an idea of how huge the change was, consider the movie American Graffiti. It was made in 1972 and is a nostalgic look back at a long lost time - the summer of 1962. (I'm not putting this very eloquently, so I'll quote the source - Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN.com Page 2):
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It's haunting to think "American Graffiti," which surely depicts the perfect high-school-days summer night that Lucas never actually had -- was made in 1973 and portrays small-town California of 1962. Just 11 years had passed, yet "American Graffiti" was received as a nostalgic trip into a bygone era of music and social mores that could never return. Think if you made a movie today that was intended to be a wistful voyage 11 years into the past: to 1996. Hardly anything would seem different, except for the lack of cell phones, and there'd be no haunting sense of a simpler lost era. Is there even one single person who would pay $8 for cinematic nostalgia about 1996?

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The 60's generation had the freedom to rip apart society and try to remake it in their own, somewhat childish, image. The older generation, who had fought two world wars and made it through the great depression were naturally shocked by their childrens' behavior. And, much of what they were afraid of turned out to happen. They would be disgusted to see today's teenagers having sex at an earlier age, dressing provocatively, using drugs, etc. But they would be right in looking back to the transformation of the 60s and saying "I told you so".