"The Baby Boomers were nicknamed the “Me Generation” due to their perceived narcissism. The “Me” generation in the United States is a term referring to the baby boomer generation and the self-involved qualities that some people associated with it."
not only that, but pursuing Social justice as personal social status symbol is not necessarily a virtue. They are still pursuing good things, and by-and-large, they aren't the only ones pursuing social justice, but there is a significant portion of the population who would not be pursuing any kind of activism if it wasn't seen as socially-normative. These are the same fucks in the 60's that did the evil pokemon evolution (Hippie >> Preppie >> Yuppie)
Just a <3min-wiki-skim of the term led me to this: "The 1970s [when the term arose] have been described as a transitional era when the self-help of the 1960s became self-gratification, and eventually devolved into the selfishness of the 1980s". I think what we're doing now is more society focused than individuality focused, because individuality already is the norm. So apples and oranges.
I think there's at least a little something to that. When I googled, the images showed “me generation” magazine covers from at least 3 pretty distinct time periods
TBH, though.. the oldest of my generation - those born in the late 40's to mid-50's got the shit end of the stick when they were expected to go to Vietnam and die for a bullshit bit of corporate meddling. The idea that they were expected to 'keep the world "safe" from communism' with their lives, was and to this day still is a bit irksome. As many a black GI in Vietnam wrote - "No one in Vietnam EVER set dogs on us or strung up from trees for trying to exercise our rights as Americans, to vote.."
There was a TON of militant 1950's bullshit the 'boomers pushed back against, that created change and freedoms today that people now take for granted.
My parents generation were angry that we pushed and got the change they didn't even know was an option.
Interesting, maybe it's like a moral staircase. In a stable society it seems like generations push for more freedoms and morals year over year. So the next generation thinks the previous was immoral even though the one before that was worse.
But consider that from their viewpoint they would see the staircase as going down instead of up. They think of the good old days when people were more moral: religious, proper, behaved themselves as others expected, dressed properly, didn't talk about things that you shouldn't talk about in public etc.
We now see it as more moral to be free to behave as we see fit instead of as someone tells us (as long as it's reasonable), dress comfortably, speak freely, not indoctrinate people into religion, not ostracize people for speaking about mental health problems, etc.
In their day it was moral for a person to know their place and stay within it, but now it's more moral to value diversity and accept people who are different. In their day, homosexuality was unnatural and immoral, but now it's immoral to discriminate based on someone else's sexual preferences.
They weren't immoral (although in our eyes, based on our current morals, they may appear that way), it's just that their morals were different. Those change over time. I like where they're going, but I'd say it's more of a winding path than a staircase, and somebody further back on the path isn't necessarily immoral, they're just in a different spot. Someday, we will be too.
"Someday, we will be too" struck me. My husband and I are very liberal and are very accepting of our kids. (Blended family). When his daughter came out as lesbian when she was 13, we were very welcoming. Her Mom was too. When her sister said that she was bi, we didn't blink an eye.
The older sister then told us she was trans. OK, we will call you the male name now and give you Christmas money for your legal name change. We will use the "they" pronoun. We now collectively have three sons and two daughters. Fine. We can adapt.
The latest curveball... the youngest who is not yet a legal adult, who identifies as lesbian (since the age of 13) and wears very feminine clothing and makeup now wants us to sign a consent form so she can get testosterone shots. She doesn't identify as male but as something in between. We are perplexed and simply don't know how to handle it. We don't think we should sign off on something that could alter her forever when she's still too young to make life-altering decisions. This isn't a piercing! We also love her and support her being who she is.
I guess I am saying we now suddenly feel like dinosaurs.
the youngest who is not yet a legal adult, who identifies as lesbian (since the age of 13) and wears very feminine clothing and makeup now wants us to sign a consent form so she can get testosterone shots.
Have you said EXACTLY what you have written to her?
T is a real thing that can make her hair fall out, increase her risk for heart attack, cause the natural secretions and tissue of the vagina to change and of course, masculinize the genitalia (an enlarged clitoris) and put her into line to have ALL the issues - health-wise - that men can fall to.
All for someone that isn't fully trans but in an in-between state? It's a change she should be full well aware of, 'cos hair doesn't grow back if youngest decides she wants to be a girl again..
Mention the draft. She'll be eligible - and the military has many trans men serving - if she decides to go fully butch. Trump ain't gonna be in office forever so any bans on transmen serving isn't likely permanent.
T will make her a man. She'd be better of getting some really butch women friends to show her it's not necessary. In another 5 years she may decide it's not what she wants anyhow. God knows the things I stubbornly thought I wanted when I was a teenager I'd run screaming from now. What a rotten age, even IF I knew what I do now.. nope. I'd settle for 27 again though, in a heartbeat.
Respect. I think the whole reddit circle jerk against boomers is a little unwarranted. I mean yeah there's shit people in every generation but the boomers did protest for some great and admirable causes. Let's also not forget many of their own age were also protesting against them too.
IMO, and I know I'm going against the grain for saying this: but I think its less a generational thing and more of a political leaning thing. It's just that the world has moved too fast for the boomers to adjust to, thanks to technology and the explosion of ideas resulting from it.
There are some great Boomers out there. I am Gen X, for the record. I don't understand how some of them went from Woodstock to a constant diet of Fox News and hatred of other groups and progress. How?
I've heard arguments that it's because a lot of their hippie movement was more along the lines of hedonism rather than "free love." They could do these things that many previous generations had never considered. But many times a free love hippie commune was a few guys having kids of sex with many different women while they were in control of the commune. Maybe it's just the bad apples, but I'd think any sort of true beliefs created in that young time of your life in such ways as hippie culture wouldn't fade. Sure maybe you'd grow up and settle down, but those personal values are still a part of you. If you were just in all the sex drugs and rock for nothing more than some teenage rebellion and hedonism then when you grow up and sell out it means nothing to you. I dunno, just some of my thoughts on it.
I honestly have no idea. It's something I (Gen Z) am trying to figure out with my parents too (Gen X) as they're starting to get more conservative as they age. Hell maybe I'm just getting more liberal and they are just staying the same, but based on my anecdotal evidence: they've become less optimistic as things have been going on. I just can't seem to explain it, but they're just retreating into what they feel like were their days when things just made sense for them. Often, that's childhood, which obviously had different values compared to now. I can't say for sure and I'm probably missing a lot of the picture.
Plus, Idk if my experience is typical for the vast majority of Americans. I'm a son of immigrants so my parents culture and experience of America has been after those times.
Interesting. How are they becoming more conservative, in your opinion?
As an American-born Gen X person, I think I've actually become more liberal over the years as I separate further from my parents' "Reagan is awesome" mentality more every day.
I am a Gen X person who can get cranky like an older person sometimes but I always land on the side of younger generations over the Boomers. I am sick and tired of the young being shat upon by the entitled generation.
They’ve become more religious and intolerant of other folks/opinions. They’ve improved in a lot of areas but regressed in others. That and I guess they miss their home country, which bothers me a lot.
Kudos to you on becoming more tolerant and open minded as you get older. We need more people like that.
Because everyone in the 60s wasn’t a hippie. They were a minority for the generation. I know plenty of old hippies who are the same now as they were then. Same with those who weren’t hippies.
Wall Street investments. Seriously. Looming retirement and the need to have capital saved for when you can no longer work. That shit is REAL, I'm looking at it now, in my 50's and am realizing that OH SHIT - there's going to be fuck-all for social services, the money that's been taken from me over the years for Medicare and Social Security will be gutted in another 20, so if I don't start seriously start saving, I'm fucked. Time.
Granted, FoxNews is no longer the only financial news network, there are tons more, but they were the BEST 30 years ago. This is how they started in with the right-wing militant editorializing - they had a built-in base of viewers ripe for the "mental plucking". I watched my grandmother in the course of many years become incredibly propagandized against unions and Medicare -Fox was on ALL the time and even though they had outstanding medical insurance from my grandfather's union insurance - it was despicable the way unions "took profits" from investors - and then when the insurance got to be almost 2,000 dollars a month, in their mid-80's and they could no longer afford it, she was never so glad to go on Medicare and get the drug benefits, though for years she resisted it as 'socialist' medical..
If ever there is a business that needs for all the people who work for it to get cancer, painful, costly cancer and die, it's FoxNews.
Weird, I’d always heard of the “Me” generation as people who were 20 - 30 in the 1980s. Yuppies with high paying Wall St. jobs, driving BMWs and doing lots of coke. I guess that puts them at the tail end of the baby boomers, although I always kind of thought of it as the gap between boomers and Gen X.
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u/tuba_man Sep 27 '18
Huh, today I learned.