Generation-X culture vs Boomer culture

[Trevor]

Hmmm, minimal risk of getting caught and a big chance of making big money... yeah, I can see plenty of people taking that opportunity. I do expect more trials and criminal charges, but not until we have a full-scale collapse. Then we'll have a bunch of finger-pointing, saying that this is what we've been trying to stop all along, my opponent worked with these people, and so on and so on. It's going to be sickening.

[Marc]

Great insights, all. In the "Boomer culture versus Generation-X culture" thread, I mentioned that I felt that within Boomers, and even within Silents and Millennials (or within whatever generation you care to look at), there could be inherently bad-apple personalities who, when given the opportunity to do so within organizations, could act in ways that were far from chivalrous. However, I also stated that I do agree with John in that many X'ers can especially be prone to be nihilistic and nasty within organizations.

As such, I see the phenomenon of "active" X'ers mind-controlling "passive" Boomers as being most likely the biggest variable in today's massive global financial crisis (which is likely in alignment with John here). However, as a secondary but still-significant variable, I feel that "natural-bad-apple" or "compromised-prone" people of any generation, who happen to get into significant production or managerial positions in organizations, have good opportunities to "act out" in late Third Turnings, or in the post-Unraveling portion of Fourth Turnings if a particular post-Unraveling is "socially and financially stable enough" (such as via massive central-bank bailouts and backstops, or the King ordering more bread and circuses, etc.). This organizational-culture change is primarily due, I feel, to organizations in a late Third Turning era being heavily reshaped (in alignment, again, with John's observations) via the exit of most Artist types (e.g., Silents) and the simultaneous ascendancy of numerous Nomad types (e.g., X'ers). But, this generational personnel change — while allowing many Nomads/X'ers to either engage in bad organizational behavior or to simply ignore it, and to thus create fraud-filled organizational cultures — gets an "extra boost" by helping to allow bad apples or malleable semi-bad apples of any generation, during late Third Turnings and maybe early Fourth Turnings, to "do their thing" as well, I feel. But, I do feel that this latter observation does align well with the basic concepts of generational theory as John has outlined them.

Just my personal observations here Thanks again, all, for the valuable insights. —Best regards, Marc

[CrosstimbersOkie]

Katie Couric is a turd. I met her when she interviewed Tim McVeigh in 1995. She's a manipulator, pure and simple.

The reason that the Gen-X culture is so toxic is not because people
commit crimes -- that always happens -- but because Gen-X regulators
refuse to investigate the crimes and send people to jail.

I know a little about why Gen-X regulators don't enforce the laws/rules and it's not for the reasons you state. The reasons that laws and rules are not enforced is because the people whose duty it is to enforce them have been punished by Boomers and Silents the past 20 years for doing their jobs--all in the name of fairness, diversity, compassion, and any other BS reason that the "Enlightened Ones" who wield power have insisted on protecting. And the "Enlightened Ones" are not Gen-Xers. They are Boomers and the later cohort of Silents. After 10 or 15 years of being punished for doing your job it's only Humanly natural to throw up your hands and take the path of least resistance and do what the culture demands--see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.

BTW John, the US DOJ and the Syrian government are not private sector organizations.

[CrosstimbersOkie]

I'll point once again to the really dramatic difference between the
Boomer culture and the Gen-X culture. There were thousands of
criminal referrals in the 1980s savings and loan crisis, when Boomers
were the regulators, but there have been ZERO criminal referrals in
the current crisis, which is much bigger. This is a huge difference
in culture, and you can see it in the MF Global situation where
Corzine is going to plead ignorance, and his Gen-X subordinates are
not going to be investigated. It's grossly disgusting, and it's how
the Gen-X culture works, and makes sure that NOBODY goes to jail,
Boomers OR Gen-Xers.

John

Man, you and I live in different worlds. I was born in 1963, so I'm one of the oldest Gen-Xers. In the '80s the Silents were still in charge as far as I could tell. Boomers were just putting down the bongs and entering maturity. During the '90s Boomers began to enter middle management. I, who turned 30 in 1993 was just entering the professional world after a decade of struggling to get out of the poverty that goes with being the offspring of a Boomer who was too busy booming to provide a home for the products of her booming. As one of the oldest of Gen-X it wasn't until the mid 2000s that I began to exercise any influence at all in my line of work. And the Boomers still occupy all of the upper management positions and most of the middle management positions. So, if it's all ate up with the dumbass, it's not my fault.

[bluebird]

CrosstimbersOkie said "it's not my fault."

This also seems to be an expression typical of Gen-Xers.

P.S. I was born in 1949, one of the older boomers.

[CrosstimbersOkie]

Once all of you incompetents are out of the way and we move into positions of authority and screw it up, then it will be our fault.

Won't happen though. We're too realistic. Too in touch with reality.

BOOMERS! GROW UP!

In 1968 you whined because your parents, the Heroes & Artists, didn't bend over backwards far enough to make the world safe for you to pursue your spiritual, drug induced quests. Now you whine because your parents, the Nomads, won't bend over backwards far enough to make the world safe for you to pursue your managerial dreams.

BOOMERS! GROW UP!

[John]

Here's something that I wrote to someone in 2007, in response
to an e-mail message very much in the same spirit
as your comment:

"I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, but what you and other Gen-Xers
don't understand is that, as bad as Boomers are, Gen-Xers are
worse. You think you'll be cleaning up after our mistakes, but you'll
actually be making one huge blunder after another. Motivated by fury
and anger at Boomers for doing nothing, you'll rush in to "do
something", and the things you do will be disastrous -- lead to world
war, lead to financial disaster. Your generation's utter contempt for
everything that came before you, and your recklessly eager willingness
to destroy it, will backfire on you and lead you to desperation and
self-destruction. We're already seeing that with the disastrous
results of the "financial engineering" that was implemented by Xers
under the nose of Boomers. If you even survive the next 10 years,
you'll come out of it bitter and angry. And it won't be the Boomers
who'll be blamed or remembered for these disasters. You'll be blamed."

John

[CrosstimbersOkie]

Here's something that I wrote to someone in 2007, in response
to an e-mail message very much in the same spirit
as your comment:

"I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, but what you and other Gen-Xers
don't understand is that, as bad as Boomers are, Gen-Xers are
worse. You think you'll be cleaning up after our mistakes, but you'll
actually be making one huge blunder after another. Motivated by fury
and anger at Boomers for doing nothing, you'll rush in to "do
something", and the things you do will be disastrous -- lead to world
war, lead to financial disaster. Your generation's utter contempt for
everything that came before you, and your recklessly eager willingness
to destroy it, will backfire on you and lead you to desperation and
self-destruction. We're already seeing that with the disastrous
results of the "financial engineering" that was implemented by Xers
under the nose of Boomers. If you even survive the next 10 years,
you'll come out of it bitter and angry. And it won't be the Boomers
who'll be blamed or remembered for these disasters. You'll be blamed."

John

Utter contempt for everything that came before us? No. Perhaps utter contempt for the generation that came immediately before us for screwing up a system that was built by better people.

Perhaps we should be more forgiving of the incompetents who had it all handed to them on a silver platter and yet saw fit to destroy it in the quest for the irrational. But, Boomers can't help being what they are. Just as they can't help blaming the younger generation for their own failures, which is precisely the issue that caused this thread to come to life in an otherwise mostly dead forum.

But, as we all know, this isn't the first go-around. We've done pretty well in the past, getting through crises with only a few Prophets around to preach to us. We'll probably be all right. History demonstrates that we'll do better than our next elders. True, we won't be praised for making the tough decisions that circumstances will force on us. But we're already used to being blamed for the screw-ups of others.

[John]

As a Greek, an understanding of tragedy is in my bones. Tragedy as an
art form was invented in ancient Greece, and three of four great
tragic artists of all time were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides of
ancient Greece, with the fourth being Shakespeare.

Many people misunderstand the deepest meanings of tragedy. If a
child is killed in a random traffic accident, then it's a terrible
event but it's not a tragedy in the classical sense, because of that
randomness.

The essence of classical tragedy is that the tragic event is not
random. The tragic event is inevitable: it MUST occur, and the
reason it must occur is because of the nature, the personality, the
very CHARACTER of the protagonists. A true tragedy cannot be
prevented, even by those who foresee it, because the forces bringing
about the tragedy are too powerful for anyone to stop.

Like the child killed in a random traffic accident, the protagonists
of a true tragedy have a great future before them, and in the Greek
view, perhaps even a heroic future. But the heroic future turns into
disaster because the players in the true tragedy move step by step
towards that disaster; only a person on the outside, can see it
coming, because these particular players are uniquely capable of
inflicting this disaster on one another.

Aeschylus's tragic character Prometheus refuses to submit to fate:

"There is no torture and no cunning trick,
There is no force that can compel my speech. ...
So let [Zeus] hurl his blazing thunderbolt,
And with the white wings of snow,
With lightning and with earthquake,
Confound the reeling world.
None of this will bend my will. ...
Seek to persuade the sea wave not to break.
You will persuade me no more easily."

And with that, the universe crashes around him.

Prometheus could have been a Generation-Xer.

John

[CrosstimbersOkie]

True. We are on a collision course with events shaped by our past, and are what we are because of the circumstances we experienced. So maybe we should be more forgiving of each other's perceived shortcomings.

John, do you think Carl Jung's theory of collective unconsciousness may be a component of generational cycles?

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