Read on for a toast to an unsung era; to the forsaken, cynical inbetweeners who may be the last honourable breed; to the skeptical, jaded, tragic Generation X.
This is great Ben. Any Gen Xer will relate. I never thought technology was having too negative an impact before social media. In my opinion social media has done more harm than good. The early days of the internet didn't seem nearly as destructive. People mostly kept to their groups with shared interests.
The difference could be that the technology of the Information Age--especially software--works directly on the mind. Big tech companies hack the mind with algorithms to addict users to the social network or the app. Technologies can empower our bodies, but they can also alter minds and societies.
It seems that the millennials and the boomers, for all their bad blood, have much more in common with each other than either of them do with Gen Xers. At their best, both are idealistic optimists; at their worst they are both prone to self-righteousness, narcissism, and zealotry. Generation X, meanwhile, could never bring itself to buy in to all these grand schemes, adopting an almost fatalistic outlook towards the future. But not the millennials! Instead of emulating the realism and resignation of Gen X once it became apparent that 2001 wouldn't be like the movie, they doubled down on hope and outdid their boomer parents. It's a mystery to me.
This is why I say that in being the outsider generation, Gen X symbolizes our species' distinctive capacity for detachment via objective thought.
But the problem is whether Gen Xers did anything heroic with their skepticism. If they eventually sold out to the big corporations to earn a living like anyone else, it's no wonder their children don't admire their cynical perspective. If even Gen Xers abandoned their cynicism, why wouldn't their children do the same? (It's not so simple, of course, since there are degrees of abandonment. Gen Xers may play the corporate game while still secretly despising it.)
As for the optimism of Gen Z, it's something that annoys me about Medium, namely the prevalence of positive thinking, and it's what I focus on in my more recent, exhaustive criticism of one leading purveyor of what I call neoliberal propaganda on the platform (link below).
In short, I'd say that as part of the happiness industry, positive thinking and infantilizing self-help therapy have replaced the more honourable but less enabling pursuit of philosophy or of religion.
I became pessimistic because I was just beginning to essentialize my gaze, aiming behind the stage curtains.
But what exactly is the problem with being self-righteous? Especially if you're right?
Am I wrong, by any chance, to consider my opinion about morality, superior of someone who uses religion as a basis and still defends deplorable positions?
I found it a little bit astrology to believe that all individuals of a generation exhibit the same behavioral tendencies.
I understand that there are similarities caused by the variable sharing of cultural and historical experiences, but I don't believe that my personalities are just a product of my time.
I think that those who most identify with the characteristics of their generation are those who probably showed great agreement with the cultural scenario of their time and space, especially in their first thirty years of life.
In the same way, those individuals who believe in zodiac signs and who believe that their personalities are in great agreement with the characteristics of their signs are the most enthusiastic about attributing a causal relationship between them.
I agree that this talk of generations is highly general. There are bound to be exceptions, and even those who submit to their generation's tendencies will differ in some ways too. In talking about a generation, we're not talking about any individual or even about the sum of individuals, but about a pattern holding across that population. And we're talking about the culture, the zeitgeist, the history-defining moments that influence some people (the young) more than others at that time, such as Kurt Cobain's suicide.
This is great Ben. Any Gen Xer will relate. I never thought technology was having too negative an impact before social media. In my opinion social media has done more harm than good. The early days of the internet didn't seem nearly as destructive. People mostly kept to their groups with shared interests.
ReplyDeleteThe difference could be that the technology of the Information Age--especially software--works directly on the mind. Big tech companies hack the mind with algorithms to addict users to the social network or the app. Technologies can empower our bodies, but they can also alter minds and societies.
DeleteAmen.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the millennials and the boomers, for all their bad blood, have much more in common with each other than either of them do with Gen Xers. At their best, both are idealistic optimists; at their worst they are both prone to self-righteousness, narcissism, and zealotry. Generation X, meanwhile, could never bring itself to buy in to all these grand schemes, adopting an almost fatalistic outlook towards the future. But not the millennials! Instead of emulating the realism and resignation of Gen X once it became apparent that 2001 wouldn't be like the movie, they doubled down on hope and outdid their boomer parents. It's a mystery to me.
This is why I say that in being the outsider generation, Gen X symbolizes our species' distinctive capacity for detachment via objective thought.
DeleteBut the problem is whether Gen Xers did anything heroic with their skepticism. If they eventually sold out to the big corporations to earn a living like anyone else, it's no wonder their children don't admire their cynical perspective. If even Gen Xers abandoned their cynicism, why wouldn't their children do the same? (It's not so simple, of course, since there are degrees of abandonment. Gen Xers may play the corporate game while still secretly despising it.)
As for the optimism of Gen Z, it's something that annoys me about Medium, namely the prevalence of positive thinking, and it's what I focus on in my more recent, exhaustive criticism of one leading purveyor of what I call neoliberal propaganda on the platform (link below).
In short, I'd say that as part of the happiness industry, positive thinking and infantilizing self-help therapy have replaced the more honourable but less enabling pursuit of philosophy or of religion.
https://medium.com/grim-tidings/should-writers-advertise-for-the-big-tech-platforms-they-use-2445da230dff?sk=7d6bf781c01a86182c977f76d542dbf0
I became pessimistic because I was just beginning to essentialize my gaze, aiming behind the stage curtains.
ReplyDeleteBut what exactly is the problem with being self-righteous? Especially if you're right?
Am I wrong, by any chance, to consider my opinion about morality, superior of someone who uses religion as a basis and still defends deplorable positions?
I found it a little bit astrology to believe that all individuals of a generation exhibit the same behavioral tendencies.
I understand that there are similarities caused by the variable sharing of cultural and historical experiences, but I don't believe that my personalities are just a product of my time.
I think that those who most identify with the characteristics of their generation are those who probably showed great agreement with the cultural scenario of their time and space, especially in their first thirty years of life.
In the same way, those individuals who believe in zodiac signs and who believe that their personalities are in great agreement with the characteristics of their signs are the most enthusiastic about attributing a causal relationship between them.
I agree that this talk of generations is highly general. There are bound to be exceptions, and even those who submit to their generation's tendencies will differ in some ways too. In talking about a generation, we're not talking about any individual or even about the sum of individuals, but about a pattern holding across that population. And we're talking about the culture, the zeitgeist, the history-defining moments that influence some people (the young) more than others at that time, such as Kurt Cobain's suicide.
Delete