Generation Screwed

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  1. tirelesstraveler profile image61
    tirelesstravelerposted 11 years ago

    No time in history have older people had it so good and young people had it so bad.  Young people have liberal ideas that boomers have assured them are true and benefit their whole being.  While boomers are teaching same sex marriage is the way, the 1% is screwing the 99% young people between the ages of 18 and 35 are becoming encumbered by college debt, debt their parents and grandparents have accrued.
      http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 … ation.html

    1. Lisa HW profile image62
      Lisa HWposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There's one major problem with this "theory" (at least as it's presented here), and it is that it assumes people in groups (which are always made up of)  individuals are "all alike" according to whatever group someone has put them in.

      All Boomers don't have it all that good.
      All younger people don't have it all that bad.
      As a Boomer, I'm not the only one who didn't teach my kids liberal thinking.
      As a Boomer, I'm not the only one  who didn't particular teach my kids that "same sex marriage is the way".  (I didn't teach them much about it at all because it didn't happen to be anything anyone in my immediate family had to deal with, at least no when my kids were young enough to be teaching stuff.)
      It is not all young people who are in the 99%.

      The individual who wrote that article clearly has his own little theory (which, to me, is pretty much crap - but I'm entitled to my own Boomer theories as well as he is).   Aside from the fact that this writer is apparently willing to make statements that suggest/imply that "all Boomers" and "all young people" are "all alike"; my own theory is that what is going on with the overall picture for young people OR for Boomers today runs a whole lot deeper than the over-simplified/over-generalized and even, at least in a lot of cases, inaccurate statements about people of either age. 

      It must be nice to think one "has all the answers and behaviors/characteristics" about different groups of individuals all figured out and wrapped up in a poorly presented case against Boomers.

      This kind of over-generalization (and, essentially, demonizing of any one group of people as - again, as if groups aren't made up of individuals) irks me.  It isn't productive, and it passes around ideas that do nothing to promote true understanding of the real problems people (of any age or in all kinds of different situations) often face.

      I never went hook, line, and sinker with the idea that so many Boomers had when it came to lumping people of one age group or another, and then saying things like, "Don't trust anyone over 30."  It was only poorer thinking Boomers who were stupid enough to think that way.  Mature, reasonable, Boomers knew that such statements were extreme.

      In view of the fact that this guy appears now to be blaming all Boomers for everything that's rough for younger people, it looks like he may not have outgrown his younger, "age-lumping", thinking while even many Boomers who thought that way then actually did grow up and see that lumping together people of any age group is no more than reasonable than lumping together people of any other group.

      People who write, and people who read, need to be careful about paying attention to words that make it clear that a piece of writing is not doing something like generalizing about groups.  The minute anyone detects lack of appropriately careful and complete wording, he needs to realize that what he's writing or reading is, at best, bad writing; and at its worst may be just garbage-writing.

      1. Faith Reaper profile image83
        Faith Reaperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

        You are awesome Lisa!

  2. tirelesstraveler profile image61
    tirelesstravelerposted 11 years ago

    Must be progressives that this applies too.  But it is concerning that progressives are so willing to burden young people.

  3. Shadesbreath profile image79
    Shadesbreathposted 11 years ago

    While I totally agree that the Boomers (as a grossly defined generation) are in the process of completely decimating this country—and it's only going to get worse—that article is awful. It's empty, arbitrarily interpretive opinionated trash like that that begins to undermine an important argument before it even really gets underway.

    You'd have been better off just making the claim and not linking that.

  4. Faith Reaper profile image83
    Faith Reaperposted 11 years ago

    I agree with every single word Lisa HW has stated here. Period!  No need to say one more word.

  5. ocbill profile image53
    ocbillposted 11 years ago

    Lisa HW, that's a good reply back which I agree 100% with.

  6. Trish303 profile image71
    Trish303posted 11 years ago

    I agree with Lisa.  It is always one generation blaming the other for how messed up everything is.  The boomers said it about there parents, gen x blames boomer, and now gen Y is blaming boomers and gen X, and our kids will blame us. It is never ending. The one thing we have that the boomers did not is our technology. We have a way to spread our thoughts and beliefs in just seconds around the world. We can use this to make changes in things we don't like. But most of us chose not to. If you don't like the way something is instead of blaming on the generation before you, do something and try to change it.

  7. tirelesstraveler profile image61
    tirelesstravelerposted 11 years ago

    Lisa, I completely agree with you too.  The article is written from the perspective of young people.  I purposefully promoted  this link so people would know that young people are being fed information that isn't factual, 
    The Daily Beast  is not noted for being conservative.

  8. watergeek profile image94
    watergeekposted 11 years ago

    My nieces and nephews are MUCH better off than I ever was. (In my family we married and had kids later than normal - sort of skipping a generation.) My life is rich in almost everything except money.

 
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