One of the most interesting turnarounds in media attitudes in the last couple of decades is their take on the role of the elderly. In the sixties and seventies, newspapers and magazines churned out endless thumbsuckers about “The Generation Gap”, which was a major divide and challenge for our nation, existing as it did between the Baby Boomers’ enlightened views on a new, freer society and the stodgy, grey and stifling world of their parents. The Gap was the reason that kids had taken to the streets to protest, and unless those old people got out of the fucking way, man, America was in danger of being torn apart by generational conflict.
As the Boomers aged and became parents, the Gap magically disappeared. Instead of being The Man always keeping the Boomers down, their parents became the venerated Greatest Generation. Without their wholesome values of hard work and sacrifice, we’d have never been able to crush Hitler or nuke Tojo, and the post-war boom that they singlehandedly created is a halcyon time the likes of which this country will never see again.
These are probably just the bitter words of someone who grew up immediately after the Boomers and is sick of their constant and excessive self-regard, but I think this Greatest Generation horseshit is just another Boomer tactic for remaining the center of attention. It’s no coincidence that the older generation has gone from an impediment to a subject of irrational worship just as the Boomers have gotten old.
Now that speaking ill of the old and clueless is taboo, we’re going to be watching Sam Donaldson’s ridiculous toupee and listening to Cokie Roberts’ incoherent rambling well after those two should have been sent to the Alzheimer’s wing. Every doddering Senator or Congressman who can barely string together a few words is hailed as a sage elder full of hard-earned wisdom.
If you think this is just a harmless Boomer foible, take a look at almost-President John McCain. If he was asked a hard question about his age during the entirety of his campaign, I can’t remember it.
David in NY
Ok, I don’t get it. This seems incoherent to me. Just be happy that you grew up in a period without the tumult of the ’60’s, mistermix (though the late civil rights movement was a shining moment, it was a pretty singular one). Later years have been dull, no doubt, but until GWB got us back into some cool wars and a near depression, they were also pretty well under control. So what’s your problem. Cool it, OK?
Hysteron Proteron
Worse yet, the demographic bulge distorted everything in their path, like an horrific gravitational anomaly.
Everything they did was newsworthy and a trend.
Sick of them, I am.
Xenos
Generation Wars!
Instead of the usual boomer-jones-x squabbles, what do the millenials make of it all? They must be fed up and disgusted with everybody over the age of 35. God knows I am…
Michael
This is bound to go as well as always.
Prepare for a 400 post extravaganza.
Barry
First, the ‘Greatest Generation’ is applied to the
WWII generation, the parents of the Boomers. Second,
for every magazine article/newspaper story lauding
the wisdom of youth in the 60’s, I’ll bet you that there
were a dozen criticizing These Degenerate Youth.
Note that we are still subjected to endless hippie-bashing; the peole who run things are still scared that the Boomers have not been hammered into submission.
As for elderly news front people who should have
retired years ago, that’s nothing new.
David in NY
And really, the boomers are responsible for the “great generation” crap? Oh come on. They members of that generation were our parents, and we damn well know better. This is just pablum put out by the right-center media that always needs a “hero” to tout.
bookcat
I thought the Greatest Generation was the parents of the Boomers? Do we call vets of WWII Boomers?
Michael
Oh, and to throw my favorite bomb on this fire, I’m only a couple of years off from 50, have been sick of Boomer shit since I was in my teens, and resent the fuck out of the sense of entitlement of the Greediest Generation and their hellspawn Boomers.
My lazy-assed grandmother spent a lifetime of doing utterly nothing, has spent decades “on the dole” (pulling much, much more out of SS and Medicare than my grandfather ever put in, even considering return on investment), yet would grasp her benefits with a withering claw while denying them to others. I consider her as emblematic of the entire fucking problem.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Stupid post
mistermix
@David in NY: Tom Brokaw, baby boomer, coined the term “Greatest Generation”.
@bookcat:
bobbyk
Interesting, I’m 48 and do NOT consider myself a boomer. I don’t remember Woodstock and was obviously to young to be drafted for Vietnam. Kind of curious as to your age.
Another thing the boomers are getting OLD. Sam and Cokie are both older than their parents were when all those “generation gap” stories were coming out.
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
Neither could McCain.
.
Michael
Conan O’Brien is just a young whippersnapper. How could a young man like that possibly think he’s ready to handle “The Tonight Show”?
And then there’s that fresh-faced youngster Chris Matthews, full of exuberance. A little age and experience will season him, so I guess he can sort of be tolerated….
JGabriel
Yeah, but they’re not boomers either. Cokie’s close, she was born only two or three years before the boom. Hard to believe, huh? She looks so much older. And Donaldson was born about 11-12 years before the boom.
The oldest boomers are just hitting retirement age next year.
.
stuckinred
@Michael: I’m glad you resent it you low life motherfucker.
SadOldVet
The United States Census Bureau considers a baby boomer to be someone born during the demographic birth boom between 1946 and 1964.
Cokie Roberts was born in 1943.
Sam Donaldson was born in 1934.
John McCrap was born in 1936.
None of your boomer generation examples are baby boomers!!!
As a baby boomer who was born in 1948, I do take exception to much of what you have written because you seem to display only ignorance.
Of those of my generation, very few were the flower children and protestors. Most, unfortunately, have been corporately owned sheeple for their entire adult lives.
I am not sure who coined the phrase ‘The Greatest Generation’, but I will NOT wholeheartedly disagree with it. My father and two uncles fought in WWII. One of the uncles died on D-Day plus 2.
While it may be fun to disparage groups of people, at least get your facts straight or acknowledge that you just like to emulate the rethugnican value of talking without saying anything!
Michael
@stuckinred:
Still pretending to be courageous, eh “hero”?
soonergrunt
wow. You know, I’ll hate on the boomers as much as anybody. There never was a more entitled, selfish bunch of people ever to walk the face of the earth (with the possible exceptions of today’s college republicans and McMegan,) tis true, but give it a fucking rest already.
Jesus H. Christ, were you constantly beat up by them in junior high or something? Did they take your crayons away and shoot your dog?
Poopyman
“Greatest Generation” was coined by an out-of-work news anchor flacking a book. Nobody in my own circle would characterize all of our elders that way.
And what’s with slamming an entire generation with gross generalizations? Stop your damned whining.
cintibud
Actually, if social attitudes could be adjusted over time the way dollars are adjusted for inflation, I bet the “Greatest Generation” would be considered the most liberal generation since the founding fathers. They grew up under and many voted for FDR. They were confident that the government could solve problems. They didn’t think the rich were taxed too much or that unions were a great evil. Government regulations over financial institutions were just common sense. The Boomers (of which I am one) seem to get a lot of credit for fighting for civil rights, woman’s rights and raising concerns about the environment and consumer protections, but the actual political powers that did the heavy lifting and brought about the changes were of this older generation.
I can understand the anger at the boomers – I am angry myself at the betrayal of the values many of my classmates once espoused, but over time I see the Greatest generation to be just that.
stuckinred
@SadOldVet: Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.The notion that a “generation” can have a “tactic for remaining the center of attention” is so stupid am almost at a loss for words.
bobbyk
Sigh, Ok the vanguard of the boomers are now 64, those generation gap stories coming out in the sixties and seventies would have put the boomers parents in their mid 40’s to early 50’s. Christ is math really that hard?
cintibud
Arrgh – awaiting moderation! Let me try again to see what tripped the nanny
Actually, if soc-ial attitudes could be adjusted over time the way dollars are adjusted for inflation, I bet the “Greatest Generation” would be considered the most liberal generation since the founding fathers. They grew up under and many voted for FDR. They were confident that the government could solve problems. They didn’t think the rich were taxed too much or that unions were a great evil. Government regulations over financial institutions were just common sense. The Boomers (of which I am one) seem to get a lot of credit for fighting for civ-il rights, woman’s rights and raising concerns about the environment and consumer protections, but the actual political powers that did the heavy lifting and brought about the changes were of this older generation.
I can understand the anger at the boomers – I am angry myself at the betrayal of the values many of my classmates once espoused, but over time I see the Greatest generation to be just that.
stuckinred
@Michael: Got anymore breaking news that you uncovered there jackass?
cintibud
Arrgh – awaiting moderation! Let me try again to see what tripped the nanny
third try – this is bu ll s h i t! FYWP!
Actually, if s oc-ia l attitu des could be adju sted over time the way dollars are adjusted for inf lation, I bet the “Greatest Generation” would be considered the most liberal generation since the founding fathers. They grew up under and many voted for FDR. They were confident that the government could solve problems. They didn’t think the rich were ta xed too much or that un ions were a great evil. Government regulations over fina ncia l in stit utions were just common sense. The Boomers (of which I am one) seem to get a lot of credit for fighting for civ-il rights, woman’s rights and raising concerns about the environment and consumer protections, but the actual political powers that did the heavy lifting and brought about the changes were of this older generation.
I can understand the anger at the boomers – I am angry myself at the betrayal of the values many of my classmates once espou sed, but over time I see the Greatest generation to be just that.
Ken Lovell
‘One of the most interesting turnarounds in media attitudes in the last couple of decades …’
Really? Interesting to whom? And where do I find these ‘media attitudes’? In the ‘Wall Street Journal’? The ‘New York Times’?
Love the blog. Don’t admire the desperate urge to churn out new content every few hours that seems to afflict the writers from time to time.
stuckinred
You idiots really didn’t know this?
cintibud
I refuse to give UP try #4
Arrgh – awaiting moderation! Let me try again to see what trip ped the nanny
third try – this is bu ll s h i t! FYWP!
Act ual ly, if s oc-ia l attitu des co uld be adju sted over ti me the way dol lars are adj usted for inf lation, I bet the “Gr eatest Ge neration” would be cons idered the most lib eral gener ation since the fou nding fathers. They grew up under and many voted for FDR. They were co nfident that the govern ment could solve pr oblems. They didn’t think the rich were ta xed too much or that un ions were a great ev il. Gover nment regul ations over fina ncia l in stit utions were just co mm on sense. The Boomers (of which I am one) seem to get a lot of credit for fighting for civ-i l rights, wom an’s ri ghts and rais ing conc erns about the en vironment and cons umer protections, but the actual political p owers that did the he avy lif ting and brou ght about the changes were of this older gene ration.
I can under stand the anger at the bo omers – I am angry myself at the betra yal of the valu es many of my classmates once espou sed, but over time I see the Gr eatest gen eration to be just that.
cintibud
Fuck you balloon juice!
soonergrunt
@stuckinred: which events in their lives probably contributed to their working very hard to give their children everything they didn’t have.
cat48
Mistermix really haten’ on old people again; which is funny because his ass is headed right for OLD if he’s lucky!
Harry Kawasaki
Because Sam Donaldson is so representative of men who survived Ohama beach and came home to build nice homes and comfortable cars.
What the fuck is wrong with you?!?!
mistermix
For those of you checking my math, I’m aware that McCain, Cokie, Donaldson, Charlie Rangel, et al are not Boomers.
My point is that the Boomer attitude has gone from “I Hope I Die Before I Get Old” to “Greatest Generation” in a few decades, and the veneration of the Greatest Generation means that the Boomer journalists who dominate our media coverage reflexively genuflect before the old simply because of their age.
roshan
Am I wrong to believe that the boomers who skipped the Civil Rights movement and voted for Reagan twice, are going to hell if it exists? Am I wrong to believe that the Swiss a-hole and his friends who started the anti-abortion movement in the US are going to be joining them? Also, can someone go back in time and prevent Nixon from implementing the southern strategy?
My FSM, what have these folks wrought!
Woodrowfan
@SadOldVet:
thank you!
FYI, those 70 and 80 year olds going on about socialism, NOT boomers. And the 50-60 somethings who agree with them were probably mostly short-haired straights who loved Nixon and Wallace and who supported the war in Vietnam even as they made sure they didn’t have to go…
p.a.
@Michael:
Assuming this isn’t snark, this attitude is part of the problem. The attitude today seems to be ‘group X has something I don’t, therefore they don’t deserve it. Take it away.’ For a few previous generations, the attitude was ‘group X has something I would like too. I’m going to fight to get it also.’
Fill in what you want for X. paid medical, defined benefit pensions, grievance representation at work, paid vacations…
Today’s corporate mucks (and politicians) live a life a Roman emperor would envy, and the Michaels of the world are hating on grandma.
WaterGirl
@soonergrunt: If you are hating on the boomers then I suspect that means that you are hating on a ton of really good people who participate on BJ. Not to pick on you personally, but I think all this generalizing is bullshit.
cat48
@mistermix:
Well cheer up dude, they will die someday! Then some asshole can complain about YOUR OLD ASS!
jenniebee
My fave is when a boomer tells me very seriously that they used to think their parents were idiots but now they realize, etc. And the lesson is always supposed to be that at my tender age of 38, I should bask in the wisdom, blah blah blah. I’m always tempted to respond “really? I always knew your parents were on the ball and you were full of shit. Glad you finally caught up.”
stuckinred
@soonergrunt: @soonergrunt: They were like everybody else. Some good and bad in all of them individually and as a group. Whining about this generation or that generation is just silly.
Linda Featheringill
Okay guys. Let’s talk about age. I was born in 1944.
The Boomers [to use a generalization that is probably unfair] are aging and it scares them. I can understand that.
Aging is not just skin and hair. And it is not just muscles and joints. Aging is on the inside and there are no remedies for that, except for the alternative and nobody wants that. Having your brain deteriorate and being smart enough to know what the hell is happening is a bitch, no two ways about it. Having that goddam little imp on your shoulder whispering that one day you will lose your entire personality is a bitch, too.
Getting older is not for wimps, as many have said.
But the talking heads in general are wimps. They expect to be coddled and panic in the face of the smallest threats. And yes, they are reacting in rather weird ways.
There are tons of ordinary people who are making this transition with much more grace. I am trying to hold on to the grace. I find that it takes a lot of guts to take an honest look at yourself every morning and decide what you have to work with today and go forth with that and nothing more.
The folks you are complaining about are probably not evil. The are floundering around in an awkward way. Perhaps it would be kinder to just ignore them.
stuckinred
@mistermix: Oh, that’s a lot better. Jesus, give it a rest.
stuckinred
@Linda Featheringill: That’s just what I was thinking last Friday when I had emergency thrombosis surgery! It was a bigger pain in the ass than this post!
soonergrunt
@WaterGirl: One could say the same thing and substitute “Southerners” or “Soldiers” or “White People” for “Boomers.” What’s the point?
tworivers
I find that I’m a lot more pissed off about what’s happened to the economy in the last 30 years (deregulation, the embrace of Friedman’s economic philosophy leading to the erosion of the middle class, the richest 1-5% gobbling up ever greater pecentages of wealth, etc.) than I am about any intergenerational conflict.
My view of this country would be a hell of alot brighter if the economy (and the distribution of wealth) wasn’t so incredibly fucked up. When is this Great Recession going to end?
Paul in NC
If you really want to get your rant on, look at the tweeners between the “Greatest Generation” and the “Baby Boomer” generation. I’m talking about those born between roughly 1930 and 1945. This cohort reaped all the benefits of a post-war liberal welfare state, sucked dry the resources of an ascendant economy, never really gave anything back, hasn’t produced a president or any other great statesmen that I can think of, and yet gripes the most about taxes and immigration and any host of issues that might impact what they have. Let’s call them the “Tea Party Generation.” (I bet this includes Michael’s grandmother.)
jwb
As one who has also followed in the wake of the Baby Boomers’ selfish plow through history, I sort of agree with the sentiment of this post (I think); but the post is at least very confusing and seems to misidentify who belongs to which generation.
John S.
Ben Quayle is a Gen-Xer, like myself. By the time we’re both in our 60s, which one of us will “represent” our generation? And if a conservative douche like that is the victor, do I no longer belong to my generation?
flukebucket
@Linda Featheringill:
Amen sister. And knowing that you are going to go forth tomorrow with a little less is kind of exciting too.
And to paraphrase something I once read long ago, “The greatest generation? Half of Europe was given to Stalin. Over 50 million people died and the atomic bomb was unleashed on the world. Let us hope the greatest generation is yet to come”
OhSuzanna
How do you get to the first page writing tripe like this?
Have you thought about a refresher course in American History? Among other factual mistakes in your post, the “Greatest Generation” does not refer to the Boomers, but to the folks who lived through and fought in World War II. Yikes.
Michael D.
@mistermix:
…to refer to his parents and those who served in WWII.
John S.
@Paul in NC:
Well, 1930-1945 covers my parents, my in-laws and most of my aunts/uncles. The majority of them are NOT teabaggers, and if anything ties them together, it’s that they are all struggling.
So I think your thesis is flawed.
stuckinred
What a shock, we fought with our parents like cats and dogs for years. Like you we were young and knew everything there was to know about everything. Time went on and we started to watch them slip. Many of us tried to reconcile with our parents after years of conflict. Part of the reconciliation was to recognize that they had done some positive things. Then they died. Maybe some day you will know what it feels like to hear the phone ring and know it’s not them.
matoko_chan
its just more conservative fuckwittedness.
in the EEA old people were sages, because they were repositories of learned experience.
now with the internet flattening information, anyone can be a sage.
its just part of the ongoing conservative effort in this country to return us to the stone age.
mistermix
@OhSuzanna:
Read carefully.
Dinah
First of all–due respect for the veterans. But it was the GIs, not the whole generation, who went to war. Most of “The Greatest Generation” is racist, sexist and homophobic and always was. Now the “Greatest Generation”–and the Boomers–are greedy. They don’t care about the deficit or climate change because they won’t be around long enough to take the hit (or so they hope). Leave my Medicare alone and get out of the way of my SUV.
I know your Aunt Wanda and Uncle Harvey are exceptions, but I have lived all over the country and seen it everywhere. (Note: I am straight, white and 68 years old.)
roshan
Any “great” generation should be able to afford this, right?
Sadly, I can’t. Fuck us and our generation.
FU too, Brokaw.
soonergrunt
@Dinah:
My dad’s a really great guy… ;)
stuckinred
@Dinah: You really have no idea what you are talking about do you? Racist, sexist and homophobic? That wasn’t a generational condition it was cultural. Has progress been made? Maybe but those conditions still exist. As for who went to war, Sit your butt down and watch “The War” by Ken Burns and maybe you’ll have a better sense of what it was like. For people today to allow a tiny minority of people bear the burden of Iraq and Afghanistan and then bitch about other self centered generations is laughable.
Jesus, you are 68 years old? You damn sure should know better.
scav
well, no doubt you can buy sage somewhere on the internet, but you can presumably also buy thyme, marjoram and black sesame seeds at the same fine vendor. merely surfing the series of tubes doesn’t say shit about moving between data, information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom, and, presumably, saginess.
mistermix
@Michael D.: Which is exactly my point, the boomers turned from hating the previous generation to venerating it.
@stuckinred:
Perhaps some Prep H would help your perpetual butthurt. But I don’t know what to do about your unwarranted assumption that I’ve never experienced loss. There’s no over-the-counter remedy for that kind of clueless trolling.
arguingwithsignposts
I watched my grandfather grow senile, and the saddest moment I remember vividly was a call he got from a friend on the anniversary of D-Day – the guy on the other end of the phone was calling about the event that changed their lives. This was 50 years later.
growing old sucks.
Not data, just an anecdote.
Paul in NC
John S.:
The fact that there are people in that cohort that do not fit the description doesn’t really mean the thesis is flawed. It’s just a generalized observation, after all. What I was really trying to do was deflect blame onto someone else’s generation :-)
soonergrunt
@stuckinred:
Leaving aside everything else you wrote in that post, some of which I agree with, some I don’t, I do agree with this part wholeheartedly:
Angela
Well the comments to this thread seem to prove one generalization – for the most part, Boomers are whiners.
stuckinred
@mistermix: And somehow you think that was directed at you as opposed to being a general statement? And back off that troll shit, you posted this stupid shit not me. Did you think everyone was just going to kiss your ass and say thank you?
Dinah
@stuckinred, I have a child who served in Iraq. Who is calling the shots in Afghanistan and Iraq, anyway? The Greatest Generation and the Boomers.
Angela
@arguingwithsignposts:
Did your grandfather ever talk about the war? My relatives who were in the war just buried it, until they got to the age where they were dying, then they were able to start talking about it.
gelfling545
Sir: I am a boomer and McCain is younger than my father would be and he was too young to be part of the “great generation”. Whatever your thesis is precisely would be better supported by accuracy. Words have meaning. Let’s not get all Palin-esque.
Did anyone ask McCain about age? I don’t know. Does it matter? Do you think he would have said “Oh, shoot, I guess I’m too old so I won’t run for president” if he had been asked? I don’t think that anyone who voted for him was deceived about how old he was. I’m not 100% sure of that however, as I only know one person who voted for McCain. He is 34.
roshan
This comment thread is definitely going to attract the racist, sexist, homophobic boomer BJ’er who now is going to take it upon himself to reply to each and everyone here bad mouthing his awesome generation. His fee-fees have been hurt and he won’t take it anymore. Grandpa, Hee-Haw reruns and the Dean Martin roasts are on schedule today, go take a break and relive your greatest generation.
Phoebe
@Paul in NC: Yes. Except they did give a lot back musically. James Brown, Elvis P, the Beatles, Otis Redding, Dick Dale, etc. and otherwise culturally. Julie Christie and Terrence Stamp. These people were better looking and wore better clothes.
Comrade Javamanphil
Nothing to add to this lively discussion but this is strangely apropos, tangentially speaking:
http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/friday-august-13-2010/
stuckinred
@Angela: There is a condition known as “late onset PTSD” and it often prompts folks to talk about things they had stuffed for years.
JohnR
@JGabriel:
bu-dump-dump-tish!
georgia pig
This treatment of generations as monolithic does risk devolving into Applebee’s salad bar territory. The “Greatest Generation” wasn’t inherently great, they just happened to witness fairly widespread poverty and death that left them, so the speak, a little more tethered to reality. My Dad said that, when he got back from the South Pacific, he was happy just to be alive, even though he weighed 120 pounds and had malaria. There were something on the order of 16 million Americans who went through something similar, and most everyone was touched by the Depression. Subsequent generations have probably not had as uniform an experience, so it’s dangerous to characterize them in any monolithic fashion.
Steaming Pile
Well, since 55 seems to be the grandfathering cutoff for most of the idiot Republicans’ schemes to destroy Social Security, let me restrict my resentment to those born before 1956. I caught another “discussion” on the evening news last night while at the gym, and got all pissed off.
What I want to know is, if I’m one of the people getting royally f*cked in the arse (at age 47), what is to become of the funds I’ve contributed to the Social Security Trust Fund? Now, don’t tell me that money has disappeared; Social Security feels obligated to keep track of it, so it apparently exists. If I’m going to get offered the “opportunity” to opt out, do I get any of that money back?
And then there’s the matter of my employers’ contributions going forward. If I wanted to not opt out, what then? Presumably my boss would still be obligated to kick in that 7.5% or whatever it is, right? If I opted out, would my boss still be obligated to pay his share? If not, wouldn’t that create a situation where I could be made an offer I couldn’t refuse – opt out, or clean out my desk and go home? So I would say opting out really isn’t an option for those young enough to be “eligible.” And for those who are on the other side of the cutoff, it would create for them an even greater likelihood that they will never work again.
Angela
@stuckinred: Yes, I’m aware of that. I just think the impact on the Boomers of parents who were emotionally numb due to unrecognized and untreated PTSD was very impactful. That’s all.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Thou doths protest too much
generation envy?
Hugin & Munin
This is fun! One little polemic and all the long knives come out.
Let me try: the only people who are really to blamefor anything are Nixon and Reagan voters: If you are 4 for 4 on that metric, your wall is calling!
Damn, not generational enough…
electricgrendel
The thing that drives me craziest regarding the self-regard of the Boomers is the freaking Millenial worship. It’s amazing how the Boomer’s parents became “The Greatest Generation” and their children became the earnest, selfless saviors of all things mom and apple pie while the intervening generation that largely called Boomers on their self-absorbed bullshit were typefied as cynical dead enders.
I hate generational politics, but I also really hate the narrative of the Baby Boom generation.
arguingwithsignposts
@Angela:
Nope, he never talked about it. That phone call was the only mention I ever heard of his experiences in the war. Before that, I never even knew he was on the beach at Normandy.
My great-grandfather actually wrote down his experiences from World War I, though.
stuckinred
@Angela: agree, it got really bad for my old man near the end
Nimm
It’s too bad that it’s almost impossible to have a discussion about generational issues. There are differences across the generations, after all, but generalizations and a shortage of good empirical data make any discussion difficult.
I do believe that the Boomers are, on average, distinguishable in a lot of material ways from Gen X-ers, who are in turn distinguishable in a lot of material ways from Millennials. While many of these differences are inherent in the simple nature of the age gaps, many are not. Figuring out which are which, and why, would be an interesting discussion to have – if that could be done.
But since it can’t, it’s more fun just to shake fists at each other.
Fuel to the fire: I am smack in the middle of Gen X. Back in college during the early 90s, some researcher types somewhere concluded that our generation was likely going to be the first in US history to experience, on average, a lower standard of living than our parents had.
Now that we’re entering/in middle age….I think that prediction turned out to be right, although I don’t know for sure. Not hard to see where the generational rage comes from, even if the Boomers aren’t to blame for this happening. Or are they? :)
Crashman
@Xenos: The millennials are just wondering why everyone keeps screaming at each other.
R-Jud
@stuckinred:
This happened to my great uncle after he saw “Saving Private Ryan”, of all things. We were talking about something entirely different, and he changed tack literally mid-sentence to “And then, we were on the boats…”
...now I try to be amused
I think the boomers don’t think of themselves as old. I’d go so far as to say they’re in denial about aging. These are people who continue to engage in the sports of their youth, which I think is a good thing on the whole, but they created a booming business for orthopedists and physical therapists.
At 50 I’m a late boomer myself, and I confess I have a bit of that attitude. Old = older than me. :D
@Paul in NC:
The 1930-1945 generation between the Depression/WW2 generation and the boomers were called “the Silent Generation”, so it would be ironic if they are in fact the Tea Party generation.
arguingwithsignposts
@stuckinred:
Interestingly, just heard an hour-long discussion on WILL (AM 580) yesterday with a PTSD expert who said that PTSD doesn’t tend to show up very much later as a general rule. Usually shows up within a few months. But he was discussing more recent veterans. No idea about WWII vets.
You can listen to it here.
Hugin & Munin
Are we done criticizing inapt generalizations? I wanna get back to slaggin’ ‘liberals,’ whoever they are…
JohnR
>@p.a.:
/heavy sarcasm: Whaaaaaah? My goodness! You mean like the attitude that we’ve had probably since before we learned to walk upright and make simple tools? Well, I never!
actually, screw the “sarcasm” coding – most of what I wirite is either red-faced, spittle-flying ranting or offensive overdone sarcasm-for-the-simple-minded-youngsters, so bugger it. You kids today don’t know how good you’ve got it! Back in my day, your precious “Greatest Generation” were actually trying to kill us every day in the vain attempt to make us stronger, Nietszche-fashion. I learned to swim by having my Dad row me out to the middle of the lake and toss me in. Actually, getting out of the bag underwater taught me a lot about knot-tying and calmness under pressure too. You namby-pamby mommy’s boys and your constant whining about money – we ate rocks and sticks, on a good day, and loved it! (cue the Four Yorkshiremen sketch)
Angela
@arguingwithsignposts: Yeah, I think previous war vets (WWI and Civil War) had the ability to write, talk about it and process it a bit. The letters home, that have survived, from veterans are so different.
stuckinred
@R-Jud: Yep, my dad was a signalman on an LCVP on 32 landings in the Pacific. When he saw it he told me that they got seasick because on D-Day they left the ships from way further out because the bottom was so shallow. On this islands they got much closer.
bago
@matoko_chan: Charlie don’t surf, and olds don’t tweet.
Citizen_X
@Paul in NC:
Mom! Dad!
Oh, and as for one Boomer stereotype: Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland demonstrates that many boomers, perhaps the majority, were pretty conservative. Most 18-21s went for Nixon as soon as they got the vote.
Many of these people have been conservative ever since, and are today forming no small part of the Tea partiers.
Angela
@stuckinred: It saddens me that so many carried so much internally and felt they had no way to let it go. Until it came busting out at the end. I’m sorry it got so bad for your dad.
stuckinred
@Angela: My dad saved all my letters from Vietnam and when I read them I can really see where I was lying through my teeth!
Svensker
@mistermix:
It has? Just because Brokaw writes it doesn’t mean we Boomers live it.
I’ll agree a lot of Boomers are spoiled assholes who never grew up. But wait till you meet our kids!
Phoebe
@Angela: Everyone I know with a dad who fought in ww2 says the dad refuses* to talk about any of it, and that the dad is a repressed cauldron of intermittently exploding rage, pretty much. Especially the ones who went over when they were very young.
*or refused, as many of them have died in the last several years
Stuck in the Funhouse
Events and their procession in time in a group of people sharing experience and reaction and nationality is the social evolution of that group of people. Folks in a democracy, have a generally comparable path and like stuckenred said, it is cultural. We are creatures of that culture and it’s social evolution over time and the events that take place in it. Being born into one or another points in time during this movement, no one has a choice in the matter. You react to the situation you are born into. Some are tougher than others, and a lot of mistakes get made, and it is up to the next generation to learn from those mistakes and apply that knowledge to a more perfect union, and I think that is happening however imperfectly, which in our case revolves around a few simple principles in a document called the constitution. We are a melting pot society with a lot of variables from other cultures in other countries thrown into the mix from our immigrant heritage. And as a people, we all both perpetrators and sometimes victims of our time on earth in this place.. Personalizing that to individual motives and responses in a particular period of time is just stupid in my opinion.
Angela
@stuckinred: That’s amazing. That would be a great book, I think.
Svensker
@Angela:
A Boomer did not write this incredibly whiny post. Geez.
Older people who aren’t like me are annoying. No shit. Get a clue.
stuckinred
@Angela: It was, the video was better. “Dear America, Letters Home from Vietnam”
Like our pictures, out letters are remarkably the same.
Hugin & Munin
Get a clue: there is only one group of selfish and out of touch people in this country: Americans!
Svensker
@Phoebe:
My uncle was in the Battle of the Bulge, but he NEVER talked about it. My aunt said that every night of their 60 years of marriage he would have nightmares and scream in his sleep.
Angela
@Svensker: I was born in 1964. Classed as a tail end boomer. I’ve spent my life riding the wake of this generation.
jrg
The thing that pisses me off about the Boomers is that I’m paying for their Social Security/Medicare (and have for years), while the “conservative” politicians that represent the Boomers (in my view), are constantly on the tube whining about how wasteful our spending is, blah, blah, blah.
That my retirement plan has gone nowhere for the past 10 years really pisses me off, considering the fact that the boomers got decades of growth for their investments, are now sucking up money from social programs like a goddamn vacuum, and many of them still concern troll over the deficit.
A note to the Boomers here – this does not mean I have a problem with you, it just means that collectively, your generation fucked Gens X,Y, and the Millennials.
I don’t think everyone in South Carolina is a moron, either, but as an aggregate voting bloc, they behave that way.
Angela
@stuckinred: Thanks, I hadn’t seen it, I will find it and watch it.
bago
On a more serious note, data channels between nodes in the network we call civilization have significantly widened. Learned behaviors for marshaling intelligence between domains are being made more and more obsolete by the year. The notion of collective intelligence is becoming more and more entrenched in the youth, what with their twitter trends and their wikipedia. For example, if I want to know the melting point of aluminium, I type a few buttons on my phone and discover that it is 1220.58 degrees Fahrenheit. Anything you say can and will be recorded forever, so you had better think about it, and not rely on the tropes of bad networking.
I believe this will be almost as trans-formative to human culture as the invention of language was. This scares people, especially old politicians who are used to lying. I approve of this message.
soonergrunt
One thing about the WWII vets: EVERYBODY was going through that stuff. My great uncle, 101 ABN DIV, always used to say “what’s the point in complaining? somebody else had it worse, and the crops still had to come in.” So many of them were like that. We all knew uncle Bud had been there, but nobody knew what that meant, exactly. Until my dad came home from Viet Nam, and he and Bud talked. And I never knew these things about either of them until I came home from Desert Storm.
You guys wouldn’t know these things about me if I went by my real name here.
Having said all of that, on the issue of the boomers my problem with them as a Gen-X’er is all the bullshit. Gen-X wasn’t anything other than an insulting way to pigeon hole us “they don’t believe in anything…they’re so cynical…”
The fact is that we committed the worse sin anybody could commit with respect to the boomers, and they’ve hated us and the following generations since: We were younger than them.
xephyr
Excellent post mistermix. I’m a boomer and you nailed it! My personal beef with the boomers has to do with the fact they were given so much, in particular the opportunities to develop a unique (in a collective sense) awareness of what was and wasn’t worth putting energy into. Mostly it seems to me they’ve squandered that power and awareness and bought into the same old self-serving mindset they once rebelled against. That isn’t maturing btw. It’s (as the lyric goes) exchanging a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage.
...now I try to be amused
Very good point. The boomer generation is not a monolith. No generation is. Recent scientific findings that one’s political views are influenced by basic personality traits, which are in turn influenced by brain chemistry, would indicate that every generation has its left and right wings.
stuckinred
@xephyr: They who?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@soonergrunt:
Not me, I like growing older, except for the aches and pains of course. I’m not nearly as dumb as in my youth and don’t give near the fuck what anyone thinks of me. It is liberating and with the end at least in sight, it is double don’t give a fuck.
...now I try to be amused
@jrg:
I hear ya. I bitch about boomers as much as anyone, and technically I’m one.
WereBear
If I had any money to spare, I would bet it on the fact that younger generations will get older and look over the wreckage their cohorts wreaked in their time and say, It wasn’t my fault! I wasn’t on board with that! while the twenty somethings blame them for everything.
But there is no such bet, because the odds are sooooooooo short.
Hugin & Munin
A healthy sense of applied misanthropy aids one in avoiding all of this angst: It neatly disposes of the need to particularize.
Lurked
There is so much confusion over who the Boomers are. Tom Brokaw (born 1940 according to Wikipedia) is not a Boomer either. SadOldVet above posted the interval: 1946-1964. I’d argue that people born after 1962 are culturally more like Generation X but that is a minor issue. There is also a cultural divide between the first half of the Boom (roughly 1946-1954) and the second half (sometimes dubbed “Generation Jones”) i.e. people now approximately aged 46-55. Generation Jones is huge since the baby boom peaked around 1956-1959. But NO baby boomers have reached age 65 yet — the oldest are turning 64 this year.
Generations differ not just because of different ages but because of the way the world was during their lives–and, of course, the world changes. I’d say the biggest difference between the early Boomers and “Jonesers” (I am a Joneser) is that we were a little too young for Vietnam. We were aware of it and the turmoil going on but it was less immediate for us. The first half of the Boomers were really defined by Vietnam and especially the draft, IMHO.
As a group, the “Silent Generation” (about 1930-1945) mentioned above is indeed quite conservative. As always, there are many exceptions. But they are currently the cranky 70-somethings that tend to define the stereotypes of old people at any given time. They are a very small generation numerically for what should be obvious reasons, but they do vote in large numbers.
WaterGirl
@soonergrunt: I guess my point is that all this stereotyping isn’t accurate and it isn’t helpful. No, it’s worse than that. It’s detrimental.
soonergrunt
@WereBear:
The odds are about…hmm, let’s see here…carry the three…take the square root…
The probability is 1.00.
WereBear
This. So much this.
But not only that… the recent revelation that Bill O’Reilly was beaten as a child, by his father, confirms that my own theory that authoritarian childrearing creates 90% of all wingers.
Delve into the backgrounds of every single leader of the Conservatives of late, and you’ll find an abused child. So far, I haven’t found an exception.
Billy K
I support this post.
The “Boomer” generation has generally been selfish, shallow, arrogant, greedy and incompetent. They’ll be remembered as history’s biggest hypocrites, and I can’t wait until the reins are out of their hands. Sadly, by that time, I’ll be eating cat food in the midst of the coming permanent depression their greed is creating.
stuckinred
Oh no my generation “will be remembered as” . . .who gives a fucking rats ass what their generation is remembered as?
stuckinred
@WaterGirl: It’s a stupid blog, who cares?
Nimm
Reading this thread again….it’s amazing, funny, and depressing, that the same feud between Xers and Boomers has been going on for 20 years.
You could probably find a thread just like this on a usenet archive somewhere, from around 1994.
Chris
@Lurked: I am technically a boomer (born in 1963) but do not feel like one. Then again, many days I wonder if I am even of the same species. :-)
tkogrumpy
Well this post does nothing for me. My father,who had just turned 16 when my older brother was born, left his job as a machinist at Pratt and whitney, a job which saved him from the draft to volunteer for service in the army infantry. At the age of 22 he left a wife and three pre-school aged children to smack “Japs” in the south pacific. Like most WWII vets he kept his experiences to himself and got on with his life post war. This meant working 12 hours a day managing a restaurant, returning home at 3:00 AM. Did he crash in bed when he got home? No, he stayed up to make my breakfast at 6:30 in the morning. I don’t know about the greatest generation, but my father, who was just a shmuck who kept his mouth shut, and his nose clean, was truly a hero to me. So take your generational angst and shove it.
Alice Blue
Gee mixtermix, I really enjoy being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
How I am being selfish, shallow, arrogant, hypocritical, etc.? Because I’m still physically active? Because I’m still as politically liberal as I wa when I was 18? Because I still listen to rock and roll?
Speaking of rock and roll–it’s not that I’m old, but gen x/millenial/whatever music really does suck.
stuckinred
@tkogrumpy: Nicely stated!
Vico
@mistermix: Brokaw is not a Baby Boomer. He was born in 1940.
60th Street
I’ll never understand generation worship…to me it’s like faux patriotism…USA USA USA Weer number wun!
Generations, like nations, are both full of awesomeness and assholery. They pretty much negate each other in terms of reasons to flaunt your pride, or wallow in nostalgic melancholy, for that matter.
For every amazing landscape and friendly main street here there’s an unnecessary strip mall or a Touchdown Jebus.
Phoebe
@Lurked: Yeah, I was born in 64 and I agree with you. I think it stems from what your earliest memories were. My earliest awareness of a president was Nixon, and the outside world had a lot of hippies in it. My friend born two years earlier had his first memories pre-hippie. There was still a lot of square stuff saturating the world. But by the time I was awake, all that had been replaced by “Laugh In” and “Willie Wonka” and “All in the Family”. More crass, more jaded. Much more.
Nellcote
In praise of boomers/hippies
arguingwithsignposts
@Alice Blue:
Minutemen, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, R.E.M., U2, etc. would like to have a word with you.
SueinNM
Fuck you. I’m 51, my friends are also in their 50’s, and we’re as far left as you get. We all support gay marriage, freedom of choice. Obama isn’t left enough for us. Not one of us votes for Bush, and the only Republican I ever voted for was in high school.
You really do need to grow up. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Michael
@Steaming Pile:
I’m a year older than you.
The greedy geezers thank us for our contributions to their security and material happiness in their old age, and wish that we wouldn’t complain so much.
Phoebe
There’s a lot of overlap in this whole generation thing, when you break it down into cliques and movements. Obama’s mom was technically a “silent generation” member because she was born in ’42, but she was super idealistic about the world in a way that nobody who was a child during the Vietnam war really could be [i.e., her son, born in ’61 and technically a boomer]. And John Lennon, born in ’40, was a total hippie of course.
Not all boomers were hippies, and not all hippies were boomers. I think the hippie designation is a lot more generalizable, and those people really did tend to stay hippies.
Sheila
Though I fall within the boomer generation myself, I think you make some good points. I notice that my mind is not as quick or sharp as it once was (though I like to think my years of experience somewhat make up for that), and I am quite a bit younger than many members of Congress. I understand that in today’s economy it is not possible to force retirement on people, nor should we, but I do believe it is a good idea to have age limits for our elected officials, say maybe 70?, as they are responsible for the welfare of their constituency and even slightly more muddled thinking can be a detriment (I don’t know what this says about Eric Cantor). I am surprised at the strong response against this idea, even from my most liberal friends. It’s not like these people won’t have good retirement benefits and will be left to starve.
RS
@John S.: Yeah, my dad was born in 1931, is a Korean veteran (who proudly wears a Veterans For Peace hat) and UAW activist who would have been hauled out of Tea Parties in handcuffs.
Malron
I’m laughing at the responses in this thread, because its obvious quite a few commenters suffer from a serious lack of reading comprehension.
Socrates
“sick of their constant and excessive self-regard”
Oh, right! Because none of the other generations have this!
Tony Alva
Spoken like a typical know it all over educated young person. You know what happened to those sixties hippies? They fucking grew up. Take the tip. Worst post ever.
Marmot
@electricgrendel:
Yeah, this. The narrative. How many K-TEL Records commercials did I watch as a child, how many millions of times did I hear that one Iron Butterfly song, how many “we were going to change the world” reminiscences spelled out Teh Boomer Story?
I know not all of y’all were responsible for goofball Eastern mysticism and the cocaine hangover of the ’70s, but manoman am I sick of hearing the story of Alex P. Keaton’s idealistic parents!
Also, the period from 1977 – 1982 produced the only good music in the world. Ever. No take-backs infinity.
stuckinred
@Marmot: you are complete idiot
Marmot
@stuckinred: Then I have to love the generational politics and the narrative?
stuckinred
@Marmot: 77-82. . . sheeeeeeet
Marmot
@stuckinred: Invalidated. I have already called no take-backs.
Infinity?
Check.
stuckinred
@Marmot: you got it!
WaterGirl
@stuckinred: I guess because I don’t think this is a stupid blog and because I usually appreciate soonergrunt’s perspective and presence on this blog.
Maybe the heat is getting to me, too.
soonergrunt
@WaterGirl: Well, thanks! Really.
Problem here is that you can’t talk about generational differences without talking about generations.
soonergrunt
@soonergrunt: And FWIW, I appreciate WaterGirl, too.
stuckinred
@soonergrunt: and I appreciate all of you. My point to WG is that how detrimental can something be that is written here? Not many people care.
Jager
My Mother confessed to me that I was conceived in my Grandpa’s Lincoln Continental about 5 minutes after my handsome AAC pilot Poppa got off the boat from WW2…Mom said, we missed each other so much, we just couldn’t help ourselves. I never thought of them as a passionate couple until she told me that story when she was in her late 70’s. Too bad I didn’t know that when I was a kid and my Old Man was giving me shit about my girlfriend’s footprints on the car windows!
Cut this generational bullshit, okay!
Jewish Steel
Isn’t the radicalism of the Me generation a myth?
If you want to find real radical thought, you mostly have to look outside the US. May 68? France?
We just had the cool clothes and drugs.
tworivers
@Marmot:
I love alot of 1977-82 music too (Clash, Buzzcocks, Television, the Raincoats, etc).
But if you truly believe that 1977- 1982 was the only good era in the entire recorded history of music, you’re missing out on a ton of amazing stuff. Garage rock in the 60’s, SST bands in the mid-80’s, country music like Johnny Cash, 60’s soul, Mingus, Dolphy, Miles, etc. – the list could go on.
cmorenc
@mistermix:
My parent’s generation (the ones who were young adults during World War 2) was the one, out of all of US history, in which there was by far the strongest, most uniform consensus about the duty of each individual to serve and sacrifice and put themselves in lethal danger’s way if necessary, for the good of their country, fellow citizens, community, and even all humanity across the globe. The vast majority of men and women considered it unacceptably shameful to do other than willingly step forward and pitch in: teenagers lied about their age, men faked their way through eye exams or past possibly disqualifying physical problems in order to get accepted into the military, and women took factory jobs e.g. in steel mills that were up to that point not considered women’s jobs, and others joined the military themselves to provide the necessary administrative and logistical support to the men in combat. They accepted this because all recognized that the future of the country, and indeed the world was at stake if the country’s undertaking to win WW2 didn’t succeed. Despite the lingering effects of the Great Depression, people didn’t step forward to serve because their socioeconomic situation offered few other opportunities to make a living, learn a trade, get benefits, or provide for an education. They did it because it was widely, deeply, considered an essentially necessary thing to do for the benefit of all, and few wanted to miss out on having served their part in a great, scary, dangerous, risky adventure with so much at stake for all. FEW WHINED ABOUT THE BURDEN OF HIGH TAXES NEEDED TO SUPPORT THE WAR EFFORT, at least not during World War 2.
What’s bullshit about that? I’m damn proud of my father, my three uncles, my mother and aunt, all of whom served in the military during WW2 (the three uncles in dangerous, nasty combat, the father as a pilot-trainer). I’m not so proud of how twenty to thirty years later, some of them seemed to begin to forget that community-sacrificial spirit and drifted toward selfish Republican economic leanings.
Kathy
@bobbyk: Well, whether you consider yourself a Boomer or not, you fit the profile. Born in 1962, this is your generation. I don’t think being old enough to be at Woodstock or even remember it, is enough of a reason to be a man without a generation.
Kathy
@xephyr: The Boomers were “given so much.” Like what, exactly? I worked my way through college like a lot of my peers. I didn’t own my own car until I was 23 and could pay for it myself. My parents gave us a roof over our heads and three meals a day but they certainly never handed us a thing. Compared to the way Boomers have raised their children (me included), a great many of us worked for what we have.
Kathy
@Hysteron Proteron: Well, blame the parents of Boomers, then, because they created this generation. As we said as teenagers, “We didn’t ask to be born!”
Tim I
I will gratefully accept the baton on behalf of all boomers. As the ‘Greatest Generation’ fades into history, it is only fitting that the “Greatest Generation’ title be passed on to those of us who so richly deserve it.
Screw all those whiny little rug rats.
Greg
Well, I’m sorry but at 51 years old I have to say that I really have never identified with the whole “boomer” thing. I look at guys my age with ponytails and 6 year old children named Clarkston and Regency who are forced to wear helmets to walk to the corner store and can only drink soy milk and eat tofu and I find the parents pathetic and feel sorry for the kids. But the main thing is that I grew up as the gay kid in a very conservative town and I promise younger people are much more accepting. I am much more comfortable around my kids (long story) and their friends and my nieces and nephews than I ever was around my supposedly tolerant generation . Here’s a hint: none of them have threatened to try and kill me for being gay.
I have no nostalgia for previous decades.
chaseyourtail
I agree…I grew up in the generation directly following the Boomers as well. As I said in a previous thread, it seems to me that many of the “Obama is a disappointment” crowd are in the Boomer age group. They called the young Obama voters “starry-eyed” but they’re the ones who believe in political utopias…and when it doesn’t come to be they are “disappointed”. Boomers are never completely satisfied with anything. I know this is an over generalization but it just seems to be the case. Sorry to the Boomers who are enlightened and don’t automatically subscribe to Boomer group think…love you guys!
PanurgeATL
@Greg:
Well, who do you think brought up those “much more accepting” younger people? Maybe they Taught Their Children Well, after all–at least in that one area.
@David in NY:
This. I always thought that the unspoken subtitle of The Greatest Generation was Now Get A Haircut, You Dirty Fucking Hippie! How mistermix could interpret it the way he does makes, well, not nonsense, but a sort of anti-sense. It decreases the World Sense Index…
PanurgeATL
A few other points (now that no one’s reading as usual):
I think part of the beef people really have with Boomers comes from disappointment, which gets sublimated into a sort of sour-grapes rebellion. TBH, I think lots of Boomers feel that way, too, and the self-congratulation one occasionally sees (not to the extent that I’d think anyone could feel oppressed by it, and if you do, you need to buck up) also strikes me as a sort of defense mechanism.
Besides, I thought “the Boomers’ kids” were supposed to be GenX! I mean, Family Ties can’t be wrong! :-P
PanurgeATL
@cmorenc:
I suspect the problem was that having fought in WWII taught that generation that there must be something noble about any war THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA might fight. Too many of them couldn’t understand why the hippies didn’t want to fight in Vietnam because they looked at ‘Nam and saw WWII. This just in: The vast majority of wars are more like ‘Nam.
...now I try to be amused
@PanurgeATL:
Yes. Just our luck that the biggest war the US ever fought was also the most anomalous.