Sorry if this isn't the most important or interesting diary you'll ever read, but this issue comes up again and again. It was sometimes a point of contention between Obama vs. Hillary or Edwards supporters, and rears its ugly head in a less flameworthy way than the I/P debates, but not infrequently or without acrimony, either.
A diary about Meghan McCain's latest blithering on Rachel Maddow unleashed the latest incarnation.
"She talked about generational differences, and her words suggest that moderation is something about which "the older generation just doesn' get"... You know, I am really getting tired of being dismissed as being an ideologue because I believe in certain things. I also am completely fed up with being dismissed because "I am over 50"."
Here, I could have had sympathy, but the diary went on to tell younger people who may be weary of confrontational politics to "grow up". You could dismiss that diary as inconsequential emotion except generational warfare is something of a potentially recommended pastime on here. So I lost any sympathy for the diarist and wrote:
Interesting That The Generation Which (2+ / 0-)
coined "don't trust anyone over thirty" now has a problem with being the status quo. -- Nulwee
Only she could say if she personally ever believed that motto, so I could have been more judicious. But it was pretty common "back in the day". While the two-way street of ageism still disfigures out communities, obviously people do feel real frustrations at key points in history with the group in power, or those who want it.
At the least, experiences shared by generational groups distinguish us, as unconscious as not having to worry about polio (thanks, Dr. Salk!) or as conscious as having throw-back meals of liver and onions and rice with lentils. If I've offended anyone reading this with anything I've ever written about age, my goal wasn't to do that and I hope it isn't with most of us, most of the time. During a significant part of my adolescence, I often got along better with the people 30 years older than me than my own peers. Some of my favorite mentors and friends are quintessential boomers, or children of the Depression. Here's an example of how some thoughtful commenters on the Free Republic feel about us Silver-Spoon youngsters:
Hey Stewart-why not invite Kudlow on? Oh that's right, he would destroy you and drag you into the light like a vampire.
Sadly, a lot of college kids get thir news from this show.
Sadly, dressed-up versions of the "stupid kid" stereotype abound, and it's a complaint I've heard from a few Republicans since TDS-Cramer interview. Frankly, I don't know anyone who depends on the Daily Show for their "news", although I do have a few friends who watch it infrequently. Seeing as it is entertainment. But I do know plenty of Gen Ys who watch local news and CNN type outlets.
The other generalizations which pop up all the time: undependable, spoiled rotten, never had to work for anything, parented too "softly". That's interesting. Between all the married mothers I know in their early 20s (two of whom I worked with over 40 hr/per week) and my own life, that seems like quite a cookie cutter stereotype. Though my parents didn't use an actual "rod", the spanking wasn't as bad as the obvious physical abuse, which wasn't even as bad as their emotional abuse, imo. I've annoyed every single one of my bosses for asking for more hours, even when I was working over 40 or a combined 50 plus. And also interesting that the same thing was said by GIs and Silent Generations (though not all) towards Baby Boomers, who assure me they largely grew up in a stifling, oppressive environment.
Conversely, there was the issue of age in the campaign, morally ambiguous and never really made into a national discussion. Granny Doc wrote McCain was too old [to be president] according to the science on the brain's decreasing ability to absorb new information (betrayed by McCain's Cold War-era framing of foreign policy, as if Iran were a Communist domino). Clearly, the man is in bad health, which is not the same thing since many people in their early 70s live for decades more. One of my favorite friends is a professional in non-profit, 75 years old, who commutes to a full time job in a California inner-city. Energetic enough that she was bothered by being treated like "an old lady" by grocery clerks or family, since she's not incapable or frail. While the tiny Senate and Supreme Court is full of people in their 60s and 70s, (and a few in their 80s) I know my friend shares a gray area with many. On the one hand, we complain about a lack of respect for elders in our country, since it's there. But how, then, do we treat our elderly? What happens when the status quo in politics, the financial community, our families, refuses to change, and needs new blood or a new game-plan?
Many of us seem to know that there are plenty or at least a few of 20-somethings and septagenarians who can kick our proverbial asses in the workplace or at just having a balanced, rewarding life, but only despite their lazy or feeble generation. (Jimmy Carter seems to be kicking ass and taking names.) Inbetween those extremes there's all sorts of attitudes and prejudices, but they don't seem to rule out the possibility that I'll learn something new from someone who came of age or is coming of age in very divergent circumstances from my own. Hippies and former Reagan Yuppies, ex-swingers, and respectable Silent Generationers, WII veterans and the women who worked back home, friends who watched Hannah Montana (I seem to despise Miley Cyrus for some nebulous reason) and listen to the Jonas Brothers. What people get out of some of that new-fangled music is beyond me, but you can find a lot more about those people by looking beneath the surface.
We do have generational differences because the only thing constant is change, and yet they define no more than patches on a quilt of personality greater than one attribute. In the case of a blogger, even when following their own words you only have a partial idea of their life experiences and knowledge.