This reminded me how I found myself eager to adapt to technology:
I graduated high school in 1966, the only “quick” arithmetic tool we had was a slide rule. I am a math geek type person. When in college I took numerous mathematics courses to bring up my grade point average. A single Probability and Statistics course I took my senior year in high school was the last course I took that involved statistics.
If I gave you a set of numbers (even whole numbers) and asked you to calculate the standard deviation of that set of numbers, with the only speed assistance tool being a slide rule, you would understand why I avoided statistics.
In the early 2000’s I was involved in the implementation of Six Sigma in our company. The computer program, Minitab, made all statistical calculations a breeze, whether they were whole numbers or not, and regardless the size of the set. I now love statistics.
Gen Z are conformists who believed the adults when they were growing up. Gen X was more skeptical and questioned what we were told. Example: tell a kid these days he’s a girl, mentally ill, emotionally traumatized, special ed or any other victim label, and he’ll accept it and wear it with pride. Gen Xers would tell you to f off if you tried to label us.
I read a theory once that gen-x got skipped over politically by geriatric boomers who stayed in office, so theres extra nihilism even after what they grew up with.
Thoughts?
Also we should be friends. I’m no longer on the fence about you.
I don’t see this at all. I keep reading about this trans phenomenon online with a handful of spectacular, syndicated stories floating around about “a” school system somewhere in the US with trans book readings or something. I do not see it playing out in day to day life. “Gay” was even a common insult until around 2015 or so when the world colloquially began treating them as a protected class and the word was categorized in a way it may as well be in the hard “r” thread.
I would suggest the challenges you’re seeing are along the lines of bucking standard workplace trends, general traditions et cetera. It’s just that Gen X is on the other side of the table now so they just see it as “wrong”, like the generation before them did.
I’m not so sure about the extra nihilism, but the boomers have been holding on to power for as long as they can. Just looking at the President, we have…
Bill Clinton - Boomer
George W. Bush - Boomer
Barack Obama - Boomer
Donald Trump - Boomer
That’s 3 decades of Boomer leadership before 81 million Americans voted for someone from a different generation in what experts call “the cleanest election of all time”.
We grew up believing that nuclear war was going to happen at some point so having that hanging over your head it puts things in a certain perspective. We also still read the “difficult” books in school. We weren’t given Harry Potter or Twilight. We also had all of the things that young people think they are the first to create and witness. We had Boy George. We had Bronski Beat. The Smiths. We had Madonna and Wendy O. Williams. Duran Duran was played alongside Motley Crue. We had Prince and Metallica. Dudes in dresses, dudes in makeup, gay dudes, women acting like whores, we had all of it and didn’t think it was shocking or made us cool. If you liked the music no one cared about the other stuff. We were the least judgmental generation. It was our music that prompted the use of warning labels on music. If it wasn’t for the internet, no one would buy a lot of the music made today. You can easily download a song you won’t be listening to in a week.
I don’t know how far your example went to proving your point, but it was most entertaining to me. I nearly ruined my workout today, when I read it at the gym.
You do know that The Boomers Generation span was from 1946 through 1964 (inclusive of both end years). That is a span of 29 years.
So then you display your “convincing” data:
Granted that group is not our best and brightest to be President, but if you add the service years as President:
Clinton - 8 years
W. Bush - 8 years
Obama - 8 years
Trump - 4 years
That totals 28 years. This number of years falls short by 1 year of equaling the span of years that represent the birth window of years for Boomers.
Currently, you could say the Boomers are under represented. But of course, 2024 could change the argument.
When displaying numbers, just know that a Boomer might be watching.
Call me an old-fashioned Gen X man, but the ability to self-reflect and admit our mistakes is another characteristic that is in increasingly short supply.
I don’t much care for this categorizing by named generations. I much prefer “You are what you were when you were 10 years old.” The thought was, by then you established your value system. This is not your permanent value system, but it is unless you experience a Significant Emotional Event that could modify your value system.
That said, I look for pivotal events that caused a significant societal change. IMO, the greatest one occurred during the growing years of the Baby Boomers: The Vietnam War. It caused a split in values between the anti war group and those more conservative. But the biggest problem was the loss of faith in our government leadership. We were actually fighting a war that we didn’t want to win. The Korean War was bad enough.
But it could be said that The Greatest Generation was the leadership of the Vietnam War that betrayed the public. It just happened in the growth years of the Baby Boomers. And many of them rebelled.
Consider all that changed in the entertainment media as a result of the Vietnam War: All In The Family, for the first with many to follow. This started a family decay, with the family patriarch being a worthless fool. TV had nothing like that before then.
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of Archie Bunker. Sure, you could look at him as an uneducated baffoon, as well as a bigot, but he was a WW2 vet who grew up very poor and was abused by his father. We learn about his past as the series unfolded which tells us that we shouldn’t be so harsh to judge someone; we all have a story. Archie also spoke out against the KKK. He eulogized his friend, who he didn’t know was Jewish until after he died, and even wore a yarmulke. In spite of his bigoted comments about black people, it was clear he liked and cared about Lionel Jefferson. In one episode he punched a “friend” who referred to his black housekeeper with a racial slur. During the series Archie went to night school to get his GED. In one episode Archie did CPR on what turned out to be a drag queen. When a reporter finds out the woman he saved was actually a man, the drag queen says Archie wasn’t the one who performed CPR in order to save him from potential ridicule. Archie responds in a way that shows he ended up respecting the drag queen as a person.
Archie was a man who grew up dirt poor, was abused by his father and went on to serve his nation in WW2. He came back and unlike some vets, didn’t use the GI Bill to get an education. Instead he worked manual labor jobs to provide for his family, who he loved. This doesn’t make him worthless. But you take a man like that who sees a world where everyone is a victim who can blame white people, like Archie, for their problems, while he looks at his childhood, his military service, his work and asks, “what did my skin color get me that I didn’t have to work for?” “Where is my payback for serving my country?” “Where is the gratitude and respect?” “Who’s listening to me complain?”
And as ignorant as he sometimes came off, he also got the better of his daughter and son in law at times. When Gloria brought up the number of people killed by guns, he responded if would it make her feel better if they were pushed out of windows. Michael could criticize Archie for his views, but he was a grown man, married, and he lived off of his supposedly bigoted father in law. Michael also abandoned his wife and child, something the heartless conservative Archie would never have done. And right there is the real issue. A man who was raised to not think about himself but to have accountability and be expected to fulfill obligations to family and country vs a newer generation that has the luxury to worry about their feelings.
You make a valid defense for fairness of All In The Family.
But that was not my point. IMO, entertainment media aired the show as a result of the chaos created by the Vietnam War, and marked a pivotal point that influenced a change in social norms.
Previous to that “Father Knows Best”, “Leave It To Beaver”, etc. were entertainment shows about the American family where the father was the head of the family and a very positive role model. These entertainment media shows were not created by Baby Boomers, but the Baby Boomers were influenced by them, and the change they were “pushing.”
“Murphy Brown” was the next pivotal show that was aired to influence a change in social norms.
(I should add that music was also greatly involved as a result of the Vietnam War, but that is pretty obvious to all.)
