Generation-X culture vs Boomer culture

[Tom Acre]

Well, that's the generational joke. Nomads teach their children not
to have morals or ethics, as the excerpt from Bourne implies, but the
children turn into Heroes and develop ethics and morals anyway during
the crisis. They're then despised by the next Nomad generation.
Ha, ha.

With a minute to post here, I was tempted to get into the weeds and set a few legal facts straight. But with so much HEAT and so little LIGHT in the last dozen or so posts in this thread, I decided to go a different direction...

That may be a joke that Boomers tell each other to assuage their guilt for how poorly they treated their children, but it doesn't even slightly resemble reality. The fact is that Xers are quite doting parents who put an enormous amount of energy and care into their children.

Just for instance, I was out at the little league football games a few weeks ago watching my nephews. The parking lots were full. They played in a stadium in nice uniforms. The bleachers were full. Each team had many clean cut coaches, one coach per every 3 or 4 boys (the coaches were all fathers). And the day's games were TELEVISED on local govt access a couple of days later.

Compare that to when I played. Have you ever seen the movie the "Bad News Bears"? We played on marginal fields, uniforms handed down at least 10 years. One coach per team, that's one per 20 boys vs. one per 3 or 4 now. Hardly any parents at the games; in fact there were probably as many Xer father/coaches at my nephews' games as there were Boomer father spectators at my games. The Boomers were out "doing their own thing" or whatever they called it. "Their own thing" usually boiled down to Boomers out neglecting their kids while trying to get cheap thrills, many times trying to "make" each others husbands and wives or smoke pot or some such thing.

[John]

Just for instance, I was out at the little league football games a few weeks ago watching my nephews. The parking lots were full. They played in a stadium in nice uniforms. The bleachers were full. Each team had many clean cut coaches, one coach per every 3 or 4 boys (the coaches were all fathers). And the day's games were TELEVISED on local govt access a couple of days later.

This is completely irrelevant, and nowhere addresses the point of
whether these parents are teaching these children the importance
of ethics and morals. The Bourne passage indicates that they
don't, and that they consider ethics and morals to be a useless
duty imposed on them by a worthless older generation.

John

[Tom Acre]

This is completely irrelevant, and nowhere addresses the point of
whether these parents are teaching these children the importance
of ethics and morals. The Bourne passage indicates that they
don't, and that they consider ethics and morals to be a useless
duty imposed on them by a worthless older generation.

John

A. The parents very much are teaching them ethics and morals.
B. More importantly parents are SHOWING children morality and values through their behavior.
C. Just b/c Boomers rudely threw their parents' gifts back into their faces and cursed them doesn't mean that all generations do or will.
D. In fact, history would suggest that the generation we're raising will cherish these values we're instilling and will use them to help our nation through the upcoming troubles and to rebuild it stronger than before.

[John]

> A. The parents very much are teaching them ethics and
> morals.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. You certainly haven't provided
any evidence.

> B. More importantly parents are SHOWING children morality and
> values through their behavior.

I assume that the behavior you're referring to is creating tens of
trillions of dollars of fraudulent securities, and then selling them
to investors, and painting themselves as helpless victims.

Or, maybe the behavior you're referring to is continually expressing
your loathing and contempt for the people in your parents' generation,
many of whom actually know a lot more than you do.

> C. Just b/c Boomers rudely threw their parents' gifts back into
> their faces and cursed them doesn't mean that all generations do
> or will.

That's what your generation is doing - actually, the loathing and
contempt that you're expressing for your parents' generation is worse.

> D. In fact, history would suggest that the generation we're
> raising will cherish these values we're instilling and will use
> them to help our nation through the upcoming troubles and to
> rebuild it stronger than before.

History doesn't suggest anything of the sort. What you're teaching
your children is loathing and contempt for their parents' generation.
Maybe that's why S&H found that Nomads to be the most bitter and angry
elders of any archetype. As I keep saying, your generation has
planted the seeds of your own destruction -- financially,
geopolitically, and personally.

[Tom Acre]

... More importantly parents are SHOWING children morality and
> values through their behavior.

I assume that the behavior you're referring to is creating tens of
trillions of dollars of fraudulent securities, and then selling them
to investors, and painting themselves as helpless victims.

Or, maybe the behavior you're referring to is continually expressing
your loathing and contempt for the people in your parents' generation,
many of whom actually know a lot more than you do.

Yes, the 0.001% of the Xers who created the credit derivatives set an incredibly bad example for their children. However 94.999% wouldn't know a credit derivative if it bit them on the nose, and nearly all of the remaining 5% hate the ones who took part in creating them.

My parents were of the Silent Generation, and we just couldn't have been closer. I do have relatives who are Boomers, and I don't "loath" Boomers. They do tend to be at the extremes though. Some have mistreated their children and families due to their extreme selfishness (narcissism). OTOH, some are the nicest people you'd ever meet, and yes idealistic to the point of profound naivete.

I can understand the contempt that some Xers show their parents, as I grew up watching these Boomer parents mistreating and neglecting their children while they went out and "did their own thing". In addition, I feel no need to hide these Boomers' misdeeds and mistreatment of their children just because they are now beginning to reach elderhood.

John, I realize you know a lot, much more than me about many things. And I've learned a lot reading your perspective on this site.

> D. In fact, history would suggest that the generation we're
> raising will cherish these values we're instilling and will use
> them to help our nation through the upcoming troubles and to
> rebuild it stronger than before.

History doesn't suggest anything of the sort. What you're teaching
your children is loathing and contempt for their parents' generation.
..

Nonsense, now you're arguing against your own generational dynamics. These children, our children, are of the late Hero and early Artist archetypes, who will rebuild our nation. And we are teaching our children to respect those who deserve respect, whatever their generation. Its the Boomers who mistreated and neglected their children and families who are regarded with contempt by their families.

[CrosstimbersOkie]

The Boomers were out "doing their own thing" or whatever they called it. "Their own thing" usually boiled down to Boomers out neglecting their kids while trying to get cheap thrills, many times trying to "make" each others husbands and wives or smoke pot or some such thing.

As the child of a Boomer, born in 1943, that's exactly what I experienced in the late '60s and early '70s, while I cared for two younger brothers. It was children raising children while Boomer mom was out doing what Boomers did in the '60s and '70s.

Conversely, my Hero grandfather and his Hero siblings all honored their Lost Generation parents. I personally knew them all.

[CrosstimbersOkie]

Nonsense, now you're arguing against your own generational dynamics. These children, our children, are of the late Hero and early Artist archetypes, who will rebuild our nation. And we are teaching our children to respect those who deserve respect, whatever their generation. Its the Boomers who mistreated and neglected their children and families who are regarded with contempt by their families.
Tom Acre

It's a wonder why he insists on ignoring generational theory on the subject of Generation-X. What's the source of his hatred?

[John]

> Nonsense, now you're arguing against your own generational
> dynamics. These children, our children, are of the late Hero and
> early Artist archetypes, who will rebuild our nation. And we are
> teaching our children to respect those who deserve respect,
> whatever their generation. Its the Boomers who mistreated and
> neglected their children and families who are regarded with
> contempt by their families.

Earlier, you said that Gen-Xers teach their children through
their behavior.

Your behavior is to express vitriolic hatred of your parents'
generation.

Therefore, I conclude from your own statements that you're teaching
your children hatred through your behavior.

The fact that your children become Heroes is irrelevant to the point I
was making. It simply means that they pay no attention to you, and
grow up to be better than you are -- which is a good thing.

John

[John]

> What's the source of his hatred?

I continue to be astonished by the similarity of this discussion
with discussions I used to have in the 1990s with feminists
when I was writing about gender issues.

Feminists are always calling men "misogynists" -- haters of women. I
interviewed hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of men and women on gender
issues in the 1990s. I don't believe I've ever run into a man who
says he hates all women. There are many divorced men who hate their
ex-wives, but never one that hated all women.

But I heard many women talk about how they hated all men. They talk
about testosterone, how all men in the patriarchy are abusive and
violent, how men starve and impoverish women, how men conspire with
one another to discriminate against women. This vitriolic hatred of
men is characteristic of feminists, and of lesbians even more so. The
methodology in any situation is to blame men even for the most heinous
crimes of a woman, including torturing or killing her own children.

In my online conversations in the 1990s, I used to play the game
of quoting feminist works to illustrate the feminist hatred of
men.

I had dozens of examples of this. Here, for example, is a quote from
Andrea Dworkin, who is considered by feminists to be a goddess:

> We want to destroy sexism, that is, polar role definitions of male
> and female, man and woman. We want to destroy patriarchal power
> at its source, the family; in its more hideous form, the
> nation-state. We want to destroy the structure of culture as we
> know it, its art, its churches, its laws: all of the images,
> institutions, and structural mental sets which define women as hot
> wet fuck tubes, hot slits.

Here you can see the explicit feminist nihilism, even though Dworkin
was a Boomer, not a Gen-Xer. And you can also see the vitriolic
hatred that feminists have of men (and, incidentally, of women).

The other interesting thing is that when I posted one of these quotes,
I'd always get the response, "She's a RADICAL feminist, which makes
her different." Then I would say, "Soooooo, that means that you think
that Andrea Dworkin is wrong?" "No, she's not wrong. She just
expresses things her own way." "Sooooo, that means that you agree
with her?"

That's usually the point where I would be explicitly accused of being
a "misogynist." Apparently, someone who quotes the vitriolic
hate-filled statements of feminists must hate women. It was
fascinating logic.

My conclusion from all this is that feminists were/are embarrassed and
ashamed of their own hatred of men, and were in a great deal of denial
about what was going on, especially their own hatred of women.

So now, incredibly, I'm in exactly the same situation, as a Boomer
dealing with Gen-Xers. Let's briefly list some of the points I've
been making:

• Over the years, I've seen many e-mail messages and forum postings
  from Gen-Xers, including both of you, expressing extreme vitriolic
  hatred of Boomers, and usually Silents as well.
• I've pointed out a huge difference between the 1980s and today:
  In the 1980s, when Boomers were prosecutors, if you committed a crime
  you went to jail. Today, when Gen-Xers are prosecutors, if you
  commit a crime, then you go free because you're a victim of the
  vague Boomer conspiracy.
• I've quoted Randolph Silliman Bourne from the Lost Generation,
  saying that morals and ethics are a worthless duty imposed by the
  previous generation (the Missionary Generation). "[The moral life]
  becomes not a claim upon us of painful obligation, but a stimulus to
  excellent spontaneity and summons to self-expression."
• I've quoted Bourne explaining why morals and ethic should not be
  taught to children, because it's "warped and blighted": "The best
  intentions of parents and teachers have turned their characters into
  unnatural channels from which they cannot break, and fixed unwittingly
  upon them senseless inhibitions and cautions which they find they
  cannot dissolve, even when reason and common sense convince them that
  they are living under an alien code."
• I wrote about the Breitling commercial, which glorifies Gen-X
  behavior that I find absolutely appalling, but which apparently sells
  lots of watches to Gen-Xers.
• I pointed out that by expressing your vitriolic hatred for your
  parents' generation, you're teaching your children hatred, even
  though, fortunately, your children apparently ignore you.

So now, even though I've expressed no hatred of Gen-Xers as a group,
and in fact do not in any way hate Gen-Xers, and in fact I can't
recall ever meeting a Boomer who says he hates all Gen-Xers, I'm being
accused of hating Gen-Xers by a Gen-Xer who has repeatedly expressed
the most vitriolic hatred of Boomers, and who is one of many Gen-Xers
who I've heard express vitriolic hatred of Boomers. It's fascinating
logic.

As Yogi Berra said, It's déjà vu all over again!

John

[JR_in_Mass]

I am a late Boomer (1955).

Some Boomers are incredibly cynical, and they're the ones who end up in charge of organizations whose legal purpose is to "maximize shareholder value." (They're also attracted to any place where loose money is shaking around.) When they're in charge, they set an example of self-indulgent authoritarianism and promote the careers of underlings who will facilitate that. Governance (boards of directors, etc.) is also in the hands of Boomers, and will continue to be so for the next 5-10 years (assuming average Boomer birth year 1950).

If the leaders set and reward a standard of poor behavior, that's what will be produced. Good people will leave or adopt a low profile, and sleazeballs will flourish. That's due entirely to the culture set and promoted by the people at the top - the ones who hire and promote, the ones who set policy and sign paychecks.

No need to exonerate the Boomers when the organizations they lead commit shameful acts, whether legal or illegal. (MF Global's ripoff may have been legal.)

Lots of other Boomers are highly principled, hard workers, who have done wonderful things. But they tend not to be power-hungry, and so don't end up running big corporations or banks.