Things that haven't destroyed society

[Mike]

Off the top of my head, here's a list of things since the Civil War that have been touted as a big part of the reason that "this new generation" is so woefully inadequate, and why our culture will never be as great as it once was:

Bicycles
Newspapers
Paperback novels
Cars
Moving pictures
Radio
Jazz music
Television
Telephones
Rock and roll music
Reefer
Video games
Heavy metal music
Cell phones
The internet
Texting
Smartphones
Social media

I'm sure there's a bunch of others. So far, none of them have destroyed society, and in fact, none of them have made "the new generation" that much different from the previous generation.

For thousands of years, I think the real problem is that old people are annoyed by young people in general, so they look back on their own youth with rose-colored glasses and decide that "kids today" just don't measure up. And then they latch this feeling onto whatever the newest "different" thing in society is and decide THAT is what's to blame. So I really find all of this talk lately about "the problem with millennials" to be really tedious. Every time someone over 40 complains about millennials, all I see is the geezer on the porch screaming at those damn kids to stay off his lawn.

[Kyle]

Let's take a step back. While I MIGHT agree with you on most of that list, I refuse to agree that Jazz Music hasn't damaged the social integrity of our culture in a terrible and permanent way.

[Mike]

Sorry... sorry... I meant real jazz... early jazz. 1920's and 30's stuff.

[Mike]

And yes... I know Jazz is older than that, but the 20's and 30's are when white folks started noticing it and it became more mainstream and threatened to destroy our culture.

[Mike]

Crap. I forgot rap music. I'm racist.

[Phoebe]

Like most things, some of the above are mostly good with potential for harmful uses, and some of them are mostly bad with the potential for benefit. I'm looking at you, TV. However you want to slice this up, here are a few ways that some combination of the above has caused a massive problem with society: (1) people have become sedentary, leading to major health issues, leading to major $$$ and political problems related thereto, (2) all the burning of fossil fuels related to cars and other things on that list, indirectly, and (3) many people now carrying around a handy surveillance device. Yeah, I want my surveillance device and I use it like crazy, and my individual life is improved in a lot of ways by having it, but we now live in a surveillance state like never before. The thing is not to be a Luddite about everything, but to point out the dangers and damage so we can do something about it. But we probably won't.

Also, "the Millenials" are educationally and personally deficient - as a broad class, not as individuals, obviously - in some pretty damn profound ways. I don't know what combination of the above or "old person shaking a finger at the kids on the lawn" is responsible for that, but it's a fact I observe up close all the time. I'm not blaming the Millenials for it - I am blaming the Baby Boomers for it. They're the problem. Let's not lose sight of that.

[Mike]

[Kyle]

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[Mike]

[Mike]

[Phoebe]

Yep. I'm not saying the human stock has deteriorated; I'm saying current employees and students have measurable deficiencies in terms of their educational preparation and expectations and behaviors. Note I'm not blaming them; I'm blaming the conditions that shaped these people before they could do anything about it. The culture produces things and norms; some of those are undesirable.

[bralbovsky]

Vernon is still an asshole.

Evolution is costly. Ya, very few of the kids I know could grow up to haul blocks of ice to the top floors of tenements. Thank goodness they don't have to.
Will they be ready to get in front of what comes next? Enough of them, I suspect. And the oldsters and Luddites who get swept away by the next technological tsunami, too bad. Will they be Cal Drogo? Nope. With luck they will invent a world without him, maybe a world where girls who don't happen to be statistically as strong as guys, have an equal shot.

Evolution is messy. There's tons of waste, and eggs that never reach their potential, and tool makers who get burned at the stake, and philosophers who are beheaded. Progress isn't a straight line.

[Kyle]

[Phoebe]

I mean things like not knowing how to communicate in the manner appropriate to a situation, or treating people with the "entitlement mentality" we hear about - I experience that as a very real thing and it's new. Social standards change but I'm talking areas where standards definitely haven't changed - the ones hurt are the younger people who aren't respected in turn as they might've been. Unfortunately I can't give you specific examples here, though I have MANY, and a multi-year context for comparison.

Let me add: this is also changing among younger people of whatever the post-millenial generation is. So there's a rise and fall effect being witnessed.

[Mike]

Well, I still maintain that this same conversation has been going on for centuries, and wise elders in your position have repeated your lament for just as long based on their very real experiences with the youth of their time, and so it seems extremely unlikely to me that all of them were wrong but that in this current moment, somehow now the complaints have merit. Too convenient. And I understand that you have serious empirical evidence that you can't share for reasons that I fully understand, and so without being able to see it, I will call it anecdotal and unlikely.

But there's a bright side for you! You claim that this millennial generation is uniquely less qualified and less prepared for the realities of life than previous generations, and if you are correct, that will have measurable consequences. And fortunately for you, experts have been predicting for years that the millennials will be the first generation to be less successful in many respects than their parents' generation. So all you have to do is wait 20 years, and then point at them and call them all a bunch of losers. You will be vindicated. And of course they'll whine about increased corporate power taking rights away from workers and they'll go on and on about how the costs of education and health care and home ownership have all risen well beyond the cost of inflation since their parent were their age, and they'll claim that this puts the "American Dream" lifestyle of previous generations out of their reach through no fault of their own, but we'll know it's all a bunch of excuses to cover up for their inadequacies.

Victory shall be sweet.

It's honestly reduced to a matter of opinion at this point. I've stated my case as clearly as I know how, and you claim enough personal experience to convince you otherwise. And so it goes.

[Phoebe]

Well, that is not really fair to what I'm saying, is it? I didn't claim millennials were the only generation of humans with flaws, or who have annoyed people raised in a different time period. Nor did I say they would be economic failures due to their flaws. Rather, as a generalization about this group relative to others, I see certain specific and serious deficiencies of educational preparation and personal behavior. It would hardly be surprising if changing trends in education and culture had something to do with that. People do differ. This group overall has good qualities too, like being more idealistic and generous and liberal than people of my own generation. They're less likely to be part of organized religion but more likely to be "spiritual" or have religious beliefs (which is in fact related to a few of the educational problems...) If there are real trends like this in a culture and population, why wouldn't others manifest too? And like I said, it's changing with the next group coming up. I'll probably have something to be a cranky old guy about with that group too, but maybe it will be something different. We don't know what, yet.

[Mike]

I was being hyperbolic in an attempt to be funny. I then tried to punctuate it with an amicable agree to disagree ending. Maybe that doesn't come across.

[Phoebe]

Ohhhhhhh I see! It does come across; I was just trying to, you know, change up my style.