generational conflict between y and boomers...your thoughts,

[Felix34]

It's been awhile since I've posted here, but I feel compelled to defend my point of view. The poster specifically asked for the generational conflict between Boomers and Generation Y and I simply stated my own relationship with my parents generation and the subsequent reactions I have from them as a whole. Not as individuals, I absolutely love my mother and am rabidly attached to her. If something happened I would feel utterly lost, I see her as a guide of sorts. She provides a sense of wisdom from pure life experience, for example she often tells me I should start a retirement fund now. Her parents never told her anything of the sort and I believe that is exactly why the Baby Boomers collectively "failed" as a generation (or fell into their archetypal role rather) with the assistance of self destructive Xers. Their WW2/Silent parents did not pass on their pragmatic values and only passed on their morals. So this generation grew up to be an idealist generation because they were only taught ideals rather than pragmatism and common sense. What common sense did the hippie movement contain during the Woodstock event? What was organized about it? It was mass chaos really, but the interesting thing is that this group can handle chaos extremely well, what they can't handle is order and I think that's why the pattern of events occurring seems so alarming and overwhelming to them. The Xers deceived them and their childhood in a high tricked them into believing we were in a high during the 90s. (a bit of a sketchy analysis, but I'm trying to work on this point) Anyway, now to address some of your posts, oh and I am a female not a male. I just wanted to clear that up.

RobfromRaleigh-thank you for your kind words and I certainly hope "starting out" will be a reasonably happy process for me. I have big dreams as young adults do and I hope to accomplish them which is probably why I find the current situation so frustrating. I'd like to point out that I was simply posting the thought processes that came to me upon my frustration over the previous generation. (The thread is entitled Generational conflict between Generation Y and Boomers and I thought it relevant to give a more personalized account on the generation as a whole.) Since Generation Theory and Dynamics is partially based on the idea of trying to give to the world that which you think your parents lacked, I felt compelled to list the above complaints. I believe a great deal of my generation feels this way about our parents, but seeing as how I actually know about Generation Theory and they don't...well, I thought I'd post my conflict. It's interesting that people seem to think there's no generation gap between the Boomers and Generation Y aka Millennials, because there most certainly is a gap. It's not an external generation gap like it was for the G.I. Generation v the Boomers, it's an internal gap. Society is confused because it hasn't seen this gap in a long time, it's also a silent gap because it's an internal one and remains unseen. We simply observe our parents and come to the conclusion that we do not wish to be like them, the world needs someone more pragmatic and...heroic?-and thus we're back at the initial cycle that brought us here.

[Felix34]

To Thomasglee-

Contempt? Please give me specific examples of "contempt" because I am utterly confused. The title of this post was "generational conflict between Y and Boomers....your thoughts" and seeing this I decided that, since I am a member of Generation Y, that I should give a more personalized account. I recall Howe (and I believe John may have written something on these boards relevant to this idea) saying that a part of Generational cycles has to do with trying to be what you perceive your parents lacking. The qualities I listed above, lack of realism, and imbalance of excess wealth, and a chaotic political environment-I was talking about the culture wars I grew up with while listening to my parents talk about politics and how awkward and discomforting this experience was for me-these are all traits I dislike.

I have no contempt however for Boomers, I feel quite frustrated at their inability to get anything done and the Xers' inability to step up. I've noticed a slight hostility for my generation however with books like "The Dumbest Generation" and specifically coming from Generation X. They seem to think that we're stupid, when in reality we're just different. There is a communication gap between all three of our generations. Boomers rebelled against their G.I. parents because of their cultural values, it was a culture war. Generation X also rebelled against their Boomer parents' values in a similar manner. These were two external culture wars because they are external and more extroverted generations (rather than people.) The communication gap is between Generation Y and Generation X/Boomers. The people who taught us in school did not understand how to help us absorb information properly and because of that we have a lot of Boomers complaining about the fact that "we didn't learn anything" and Generation Xers just passing us off as stupid. This has resulted in a large amount of confusion from my generation who grew up being called special and being celebrated. Now we're being degraded and maligned for something that we didn't do (what reliable statistical information backs up our lack of education and interest in arts/culture?-considering that Boomers depict the world from an idealistic and therefore extremely biased perspective) and something that wasn't even our fault (we did not develop our school curriculum.)

First of all, I do not hate Reagan and took history lessons from the Silent Generation and in high school early and late Generation X. (I went to a very small Catholic school and my history teacher all throughout middle school was from the silent generation. There were 3 teachers for each middle school grade and they all taught us up to 3 subjects each. My history and Math teacher was a Silent teacher, my English and religion were from a Boomer, and my Science was from an early Xer *note that the only classes I had with a Boomer was irrelevant to the development of my understanding of social studies.) In high school most of the teachers were from Generation X because, as I said, my parents were very late Boomers (born in 1957/58 ) and I was the youngest in my family. I also started school late, starting preschool at age 5 and so I spent a great deal of time with late boomers, early Xers, and Silents early and late. For some reason, I never spent much time interacting with mid Xers (the darker part of their generation) or mid Boomers (the completely idealistic) nor did I spend anytime with the G.I. Generation. In fact...I don't think I've ever met anyone from those above generations with the acceptation of an odd acquaintance here or there. It's odd that most of my teachers have been cuspers from almost every generation.

Anyway, I digress, I have no hate for Reagan and view him much more rationally than the Boomers do. I had no knowledge of Reagan at all, until I entered college and I never spoke to mid Boomers about Reagan. What I read surprised me, he did a lot of great things, or he had great intentions too. Take his meeting with Gorbachev where he had the intention of compromising all US nukes for Russia's. To me, this came off as "great" and I admire that about him...but I still see Ronald Reagan as someone who spoke to the Boomers idealist side. He never really "did" great things, he never fully accomplished them, he just made statements about doing great things. Also take Jimmy Carter, he stood for the original hippie values with his ecological stances, but what has really been done about this that wasn't addressed by the G.I. Generation? Then you have both Bush and Clinton, again representing ideals rather than actions. (The culture wars clearly began in the late 70s, early 80s and peaked with the election of Bush Jr) It's not that they haven't done good and bad things...mostly bad...but they were elected solely for the mass reaction to their ideals. The candidates elected by the G.I. Generation literally did things, whereas the candidates elected by the Boomer generation represented the idea of doing things.

You misunderstand my reaction, my sole frustration was from the OP trying to understand "our"-generation Y's-theoetical reaction to the Boomers. This is how we feel as a mass, I am not angry because I understand the objectivity of Generation Theory and that all Generational archetypes are necessary for human society. I feel no anger for any generation because of that.

[Felix34]

He's utterly incoherent yet convinced of his right-ness.

This is a direct result of the way he was educated, acculturated.. whatever the fancy word is. He has disdain for the ideas of the American revolution, yet takes everything that America built for itself on those values, for granted, and thinks that nothing could happen that would result in this country facing an economic cataclysm

Elaborate please. I'm not exactly certain of what you're implying...why on earth would I disdain the "ideas of the American revolution?" What the hell does that even mean anyway? When on earth did I even imply that I disdained the ideas of my parents generation? I think they were all right, free love, free speech, make love not war were great ideas and morals. What I don't like about the Boomers was their inability to do anything other than obsessively moralize...I mean christ how obsessed are Republicans in congress with abortion? Are they aware of the fact that 1. Older people don't care and pandering to the silent Generation over such moral things doesn't really mean anything, 2. Generation X does not care, 3. Generation Y was born in the 80s and they see this as an infringement of the Constitution to try and control what women do with their bodies!

Um...I don't even know how to address that last one...when on earth did I ever state that we weren't facing an economic cataclysm? According to Generation Theory, this isn't exactly something I have to worry about for too long, providing I survive the crisis period that will occur in the near future. My future will be set in the upcoming high and so I have nothing to worry about except surviving the crisis war. I am not eligible for the US Army due to medical issues and I never signed up for a draft anyway being a female. So there is a strong chance that I will not be actively participating in battles overseas, although attacks on the US are possible. Anyway, this isn't something I really have to worry about politically-with the exception of voting for competent people-this is the problem the Nomads and Prophets must solve together. I'm just here to take orders.

[dearprudence66]

When the shocks of September 2008 came a lot of us Conservatives and Hillary Democrats came to realization where 30 years of Leftist social policy has led us.

Considering Reaganomics progrom has never ended, but only exponentially amplified since it's inception in 1980, I'd say it's time you head back to school. Those enron accounting classes weren't all that. Mises institute is just another smarmy brand of existential economics, and lordy be the Church of Satan are huge fans of Ayn Rand. Wonder why that is?

Whatever joker up there bad mouthed Ross Perot- that was a genuine grass roots movement destroyed by Republicans. Pat Buchanan made himself a useful henchman to undermine them from within and delivered in 2000 primary. Cspan archives have full accounting despite your revisionist BS.
TP is 40yrs worth of propagada come to roost directing their bony fingers of denial for everything they voted for all along. Anyone grasping the concept of "CREATIVE DESTRUCTION" about yet?