I Hate The Phrase ‘Generation X’
by Michael McGruther
I hate the phrase “Generation X,” and I mean hate in the dictionary sense (feel intense or passionate dislike for) because if there is one trick that the left leaning media likes to use against the young in furthering their social political agenda, it’s the mass marketing (see browbeating) of an idea that is packaged and sold as a vague and cool sounding compliment but in reality is a cultural tranquilizer meant to stifle, divide and prevent any chance of unity among an entire generation. Hey “Baby Boomers” what if “The Greatest Generation” before you had decided to brand you “Generation C”, reasoning that you’re to inherit a new civilization, but then secretly went about setting up all the fail safe systems necessary to keep you from getting too close to real political power? That’s the way it feels to us “Gen-Xers” who woke up one day at the start of our young adult lives to a new identity courtesy of the media, and some silly book by that title. Thanks, but no thanks. How do you even describe yourself as an X anyway? It’s so vague and meaningless that it’s offensive.
Here’s how TIME magazine portrayed us in the late 90’s.
The do-it-yourself, no-one-is-going-to-look-out-for-me-but-me spirit among Xers is a product of coming of age when that was the message coming from the Administration,” says Mia von Sadovsky, 29, an ad-agency researcher. “We have hard-wired into us a different approach to getting things done.” A survey by Third Millennium found that 53% of Gen Xers believe that the TV soap opera General Hospital will outlast Medicare. If permitted, 59% of Xers would opt out of Medicare and save on their own. Of any adult generation, they have the weakest attachment to political parties, and in 1992 Gen Xers cast a higher percentage of votes for Ross Perot than older adults did. “We have a libertarian streak,” says Thau. “We grew up in a period with one instance of government malfeasance and ineptitude after another, from Watergate to Iran-contra to the explosion of the Challenger to Whitewater. We believe government can’t be trusted to do anything right.
To assume that my generation is politically center-right simply because a significant number of us grew up in the Reagan era is to not know what actually binds us together in the first place – the birth of video games and the home computer revolution. We were the first kids to get smart toys in the form of small electronic gizmos, followed by arcade games and home computers, made for and marketed specifically to children.
Every boomer I know recognizes that video games are eternally “hip and cool”, (Their words, not mine) but hardly any of them know what those early games ingrained in the minds of the children that played them; that life is a puzzling challenge and you have to fight for your survival from the bottom up. You begin alone, with little or no help and minimal supplies and you don’t even know all the rules. And when you finally do reach the top it’s time to use every hard earned skill you’ve picked up along the way to beat the boss. The message is always survival of the fittest and and the experience of beating those old time games translates into a solid conservative worldview in the heart of many players. There’s no concept in the mind of a hard core gamer for favoritism or nepotism — and we’re especially adverse to being directed to the back of the line to wait our turn. This is what really bothers the left, that we happen to be the most individualistic, self-reliant and therefore non-brain-washable group of young people to ever come of age.
We went from the smoke filled arcades one summer to computers in the classroom in the fall. At an early age we were taught how to build them and how to program them. How to get the system to do what we wanted it to do. This created lawless high school hackers but also reinforced lessons learned in the arcade – that the new frontier of electronics and computers was the domain of children. Adults have already sailed the seas and been to the Moon. This new frontier was ours.
But now we’re hitting our mid-30’s and the generation known as “X” appears to have been completely neutralized to the point of non-relevance politically. Now it’s all about “Gen-Y” as the media elite so eagerly point out. Obama is the first Gen-Y President they say. (Where was the Gen-X President? Shouldn’t there be one before Y?) Some call him part of Generation Jones, whatever that is. There’s got to be a reason we’ve been so cleverly cast aside by the main stream media and my guess is that they know we’re the biggest threat to their industry they have ever seen. The battle lines were drawn long ago when as young people we started to look away from the TV, movies and newspapers and instead towards, arcades, BBS’s and next, the World Wide Web, making us a 47 million strong swing vote in this election and for many more to come.
Here’s how the dictionary of marketing terms describes us:
Generation-X: consumer group consisting of the post-baby boomersgeneration, born between 1964 and 1984. Generation-X is estimated to include 46 million Americans, or 17% of the U.S. population, spending $125 billion annually. Generation-Xers are characterized as having a high affinity for technology and as being computer and Internet proficient, skeptical about advertising claims, fast spending, and more impressed by personal style than designer price tags. They can be divided into three groups including college and graduate students, young professionals, and married couples. Entrepreneurship is high among Generation X-ers, and they tend to move easily from one employer to another. Coffee bars, extreme sports, and adventure vacations have developed in answer to the desires of Gen-X. Moderately priced retailers such as The Gap are favorites of Gen-X.
The dictionary of marketing terms actually describes us correctly in the broadest sense, which only proves my point more clearly that a subversive form of political divide and conquer is under way on all generations that follow the greedy boomers. To say that my generation has a “high affinity for technology” is to totally disregard the hand we had in creating it.
We have been the ones to innovate against the mainstream press. We are the ones who understand the system the best because we grew up right along side it. That’s why I call my generation by it’s true name. We are The Programmers. And the operating system is badly in need of an upgrade.
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51 Comments
Glad that I’m not part of the generation who’s biggest accomplishment is video games. I agree with you as far as no press for your generation. We seem to have a void of leadership, new music and creativity since the 70’s. Don’t know why but wish some generation would rise up and produce. It’s never too late so maybe X will move ahead.
Boy, how I hate labelers; born in 1962, I am allegedly a baby-boomer but I never protested the warm made peace not love—-I was in diapers, then in grade school.
I have friends born in 1964, friends born in 1973, and friends born in 1980, and they were shaped very differently. When computer technology is outdated when it walks out the store with you, it is imbecilic to bunch millions of people born over a TWENTY year period and generalize.
But the young have made the most of the technology; great job, but there is more to me done. And not just with Flash or Adobe, or by updating the iphone.
Generation X is a phrase designed by liberals to push the legalization of pornography and interracial marriage. I like The Pogrommers much better.
Generation X is the generation that grew up parentless — my siblings and I were sure orphaned by sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Now my parents wonder why we moved far, far away with our own kids…
Not a bad post, I’m a Gen X’er by some measures (born in ‘62) and especially by my own estimation- I’d rather jab my eye out with a spork than identify as a baby boomer.
Don’t know if you’ve read it yet, but check out “X saves the World” by Jeff Gordinier. He addresses a lot of the same topics you did in your rant, and because it’s a book he can expand a good deal more.
He also executes a near perfect evisceration of “Gen Y” in clean, fluid slices that is breathtaking to see.
As if our liberal parents thought we would like their lifestyles so much that we would continue the tradition of Godless self-indulgence. I know exactly what you mean Jadzia — and what kid wants to be just like Mom and Dad when they grow up anyway? The boomers made conservatives out of us by being themselves.
Sammy – you miss the point. As kids we could get inside Tandy/TRS-80s and CREATE the games. You could go to the mall and run any word or phrase you wanted across all the floor model computers (childish but powerful for a child, especially if no one in the store knew how to make it stop).
As an aside, I can’t stand the movie “Reality Bites” (although like a train-wreck, when passing it on cable I can’t look away). I could never understand what Lelaina saw in Troy – self absorbed, too smart for everyone and looked like he didn’t know how to bathe. Also, the Michael character apologized quite nicely for trying to market her work (what a jerk, eh? Did she really not realize fledgelings don’t get creative control) – but he was supposed to be the loser?
One thing that has been written about our generation that I like is the fact that we are extremely skeptical of the Boomers and disdainful of what they hold dear, and that we admire their parents generation immensely, the WWII generation.
If you asked me, we’re mostly a replay of the WWII Generation, or maybe more precisely simply a return to normalcy after the Boomers.
Your revolution is over, Lebowskis. The bums lost. And whatever name we go by, we’re in the saddle now, and we’ll write you the history you deserve.
Just call them by what they really are:
Generation-Whine…
I’m not sure that all of the people in this demographic are “Programmers”. I think you need to expand on your theory a bit more. Afterall, not everyone is white upper class [which usually defines this Gen X group] and many are not proficient with the internet[s].
Also I am not sure why the Gen X label is [suddenly] a liberal term.
The term was first used by an English writer in the 1960’s and made popular by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel. The media picked up on it as they are wont to do. But this isn’t a liberal trait.
Yes it is meaningless and vague but that’s what happens when you try to define an entire generation with two words. Baby Boomer is probably the exception – but it is very general and is more literal.
Also the ‘Godless self indulgence’ remark you mention is off the mark. I hope you are not assuming that everyone’s parents fall into this? Maybe you’re joking. Afterall many of our parents were Republicans. Remember Nixon won in a landslide in ‘72. Then Reagan won big time in 80 and 84 and the Gen X parents helped him win.
I am one of the older X-ers, born in 66. When you look up Gen X in many encyclopedias, they describe it as the “baby bust” time, because there were fewer babies born in our era. Gee, could that have been due to the Pill and abortion becoming legal? Also, women becoming feminazis, and deciding they could have it all? I think most people my age are more conservative, we saw that free markets worked, we saw entrepreuners make it, and even though I was a little early for the biggest tech boom, I spent plenty of time in those video arcades in the early 80’s. Boomers, for the most part, have to be the worst generation. The whole free love, march for rights, white guilt crap, hippie dippie bs was in full bloom. My fear is the future with the young people of today. I think if they are ever forced to the wall, they will all end up like cannibals.
Speaking for myself, born in 1967, and as a part of the Baby Scoop Era to boot, the ‘X’ in the label to me signifies the frustration that others have in labeling us, which pleases me to no end. I see the article and comments and think “yeah, that’s a part of the generation I am in” but its not the whole story. My parents were on the leading edge of the Baby Boom (Mom in 1940, Dad in 1936, so their memories are more of the hardships the country was coming out of during the Depression and the lean times of WWII. By the time their younger siblings were in the full flush of Boomer-era prosperity (and later, hedonism), they were in the work force and settling into the Real World as Regular Folk. So my values, while straying a bit while *I* was in college (all in the name of archaeology and anthropology) were ultimately conservative, being fully aware that the Hippies that dominated my childhood were NOT people to follow. So I decided if they wanted to scorn my generation and cast us off as “undefineable” and “meaningless” that was fine. Throw me into the Briar patch, please! To me, “X” means anything, and since our generation, growing up with high divorce and parents who went “looking for themselves” even though theyd had 20 years previous to do so before we came along, and a relentless campaign to tell us that we didnt need heroes (how many of my generation remember 1976?) the election of a “grandpa” who still believed in America and pulled us aside and said “let me tell you what life is really about…” was what I felt we had been waiting for.
So unlike a lot of my fellow GenXers who hate that label, I take it as a badge of pride. Those descriptions y’all list are only a tiny facet but I know of plenty my age and hence who have been self-made because we didnt follow the Pied Piper of Boomers. When I think of what we might be like had we emulated them, the label could be a heck of a lot worse…
Just my two cents worth….
I’m kind of suprised that I fall into the gen-x category according to the marketing dictionary. Being born in 1982 I was always told I wasn’t part of gen-x, go figure.
You are absolutely right about video games. For anyone that doubts what one can learn from a game I recommend going online and finding a copy of Ultima IV. Its freeware, so downloading its not illegal. Its an RPG about doing what’s right. Honor, Valor, Sacrifice, Justice, Compassion, Honesty, Humility, and Spirituality. The game teaches you about yourself. This is more then can be said about most movies, television shows, etc. And games have only improved in their ability to tell compelling stories and convey messages. Is it any wonder they have been out performing Hollywood in sales for the last four years or so?
I’m really enjoying Big Hollywood. Any chance to read and converse with like minded people is worth its weight in gold.
Well-written article. But Obama is certainly not an Xer. As many nationally influential voices have repeatedly noted, he is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a lot of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (New York Times, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) are specifically referring to Obama, born in 1961, as part of Generation Jones.
You’ve triggered one of my pet peeves…a political generation is 8-12 years, not repeat not 20 years. All the talk of Boomers/Gen X/Gen Y is nonsense.
And Obama is an outlier. By age, he’s part of the Baby Bust decade group (~1955-1965). But his worldview is not that of someone who spent his teens and early 20s enduring the Great Inflation and watching his country groveling in the late 1970s. Mentally, Obama is the last Brat Boomer, with a worldview ten years older than his body.
How about Generation Candy-Ass? This is all you’ve got to whine about? The big, bad media gave you a name you don’t like? You think the Boomers named themselves? Grow a pair, junior, and get over it.
BTW, your Godless Boomer parents no doubt provided that computer you “learned” your conservative values on. Your Greatest Generation-era grandparents would’ve told you to get off your ass, get a paper route and buy your own damned computer. But your lame, greedy, self-indulgent Boomer parents bought you one to no doubt stop your incessant belly-aching. The bastards.
“The Progammers”? You wish.
MATTL – Yes the Godless part was a semi-joke, playing off another post. Clearly not everyone is born from hippies and any reasonable person would know that. But another comment from OHIO WOLVERINE MOM hit something deeper about my generation — we’re the smallest because of factors like Roe V. Wade and the Pill. I was born in 1972, the last year before abortion became legal. That is stunning when you consider the small number of new people born from boomers and how they treat us as a group. You are wrong to think that people labeled Gen-X are mostly white upper class kids. The phrase is used to describe a whole generation of people. A better way to look at kids and computers back in the beginning is something like kids and cars in the 50’s — we got under the hood and compared rides.
(okay, my third time trying to post)
We GenXers are actually hitting our mid-forties. I remember that Time article well and how I resented it, because it labelled Generation X as being the “no-identity” generation that followed the hippie generation.
lets see I am a gen. Xr because I was born in 1968, to a WW2 vet and his wife, who were before he died married for 51 years. A big Catholic family. I was the youngest by seven years so my experiences growing up were vastly different, dare I say nearly only child in certain parts. I had a different world view because A: My Mom and Dad were the ages of most of my peers grandparents, B: Because them being older they imparted a certain type of wisdom that people who have seen a lot and learn from that past impart. But Gen. X? Eh….its a label. I hate labels but one label does fit the Boomers and especially the Clintonista, Obamunist types and Clint Eastwood coined it, Generation P……
Right on Mr. McGruther! I like your thinking.
with due credit to fussell, deverson, and coupland the x is actually roman numeral 10, and originally referred to the 10th generation of americans (from approximately ‘65 to around ‘85 … is that birth or adulthood?) since 1776, but of course has lost that meaning a long time ago, and justly so.
One kid wrote: “One thing that has been written about our generation that I like is the fact that we are extremely skeptical of the Boomers and disdainful of what they hold dear, and that we admire their parents generation immensely, the WWII generation.”
You guys are SO FUNNY!!!!!!
Don’t you realize that the *Boomers/Hippies* had total DISDAIN for *THEIR* PARENTS and ALL *THEY* HELD DEAR, and deeply admired *THEIR PARENTS’ PARENTS,* who had to LIVE OFF THE LAND and MAKE EVERYTHING BY HAND?!?! The Boomers/Hippies used “drugs” to achieve their highs; their parents used cigarettes and booze; and THEIR parents used HARD WORK and RELIGION!!!
HAHA, the more things “CHANGE,” the more they remain the SAME!!!
Thanks for the laughs!
One kiddo wrote: “One thing that has been written about our generation that I like is the fact that we are extremely skeptical of the Boomers and disdainful of what they hold dear, and that we admire their parents generation immensely, the WWII generation.”
You guys are SO FUNNY!!!!!!
Don’t you realize that the *Boomers/Hippies* had total DISDAIN for *THEIR* PARENTS and ALL *THEY* HELD DEAR, and deeply admired *THEIR PARENTS’ PARENTS,* who had to LIVE OFF THE LAND and MAKE EVERYTHING BY HAND?!?! The Boomers/Hippies used “dr*gs” to achieve their highs; their parents used cigarettes and booze; and THEIR parents used HARD WORK and RELIGION!!!
HAHA, the more things “CHANGE,” the more they remain the SAME!!!
Thanks for the laughs!
The biggest problem with being a Gen-Xer (41) is being forgotten and/or overlooked by everyone; politicians, retailers, the media, cultural historians, etc.). We were skipped over, from the Baby Boomers to their kids, Gen-Y.
I find that there is no good description for Gen-Xers. There are way too many exceptions to any rule the media wants to apply to us. And they can all go to Hell.
DHARIL – I did have a paper route and also worked at just about every fast food chain in my town when I was kid. I bought all of my own things because my family was poor — but thanks for assuming otherwise. I take it as a compliment.
Sorry, I can’t relate to your programmer theory… unless a few afternoons in the ’70s playing with Pong counts. Born in ‘64 to suburbanites who turned into hippie-drop-out-nudist-pot-smokers, I had more than video games affecting my generation-gappage (it’s not a word, I know) from the Boomers.
The kids I grew up with in SF State Univ. Family Housing (also latchkey kids who cringed at their parents lack of clothing and public pot-smoking) and I refer to ourselves as the only generation more conservative than our parents’ generation.
I just think we (my friends and I, at least) saw toooooo much. I mean, should a six-year-old really know what fellatio means, or how to spell and pronounce it?
We rebelled by becoming girl scouts, high school cheerleaders and eventually suburban moms who WANTED to stay home with our kids.
Reagan being president (as the above article excerpt claims) had nothing to do with influencing my politics. Heck, in the ’80s I was too busy hair-spraying my hair and bouncing to the Go Gos to pay attention to any of that… and – unlike you – video games played little in my generational separation from the Boomers.
One more thing…
To the oh-so-witty “Mr. HaHa, Idiot Kids!” -
Regarding your point that the Boomers/Hippies were disdainful of their parents’ generation. Gee, no kidding? Are you also going to tell me about that new fangled gadget called the horseless carriage?
We’ve all had to hear about the Boomer’s disdain for their 1950s childhoods for decades. I heard about it through out my childhood, and hear about it still in documentaries (And why does Peter Coyote always do the voice overs, anyway?), in movies, in TV, in novels… yeah, yeah, we know. They feel the 1950s was a horribly repressive and scary, scary time.
Sure, scraggly young men in the 60s could hoist signs up high, stating: “Like father, like son – like hell!” But if any of us Boomer-raised kids had some negative comments about our parents’ lifestyle, it’s another story.
If my generation (children of those Boomers/Hippies) mentions that we might be a little cynical, maybe it’s because we heard our parents’ generation screaming about The Man, only to see them put on their own suits and too-wide ties to become The Man; or that maybe leaving us alone after school, and/ or asking us to pass joints, etc. wasn’t the ideal way to raise children… but mention this and I hear, “Who are you to complain?”
No, we mention these little black smudges in the rainbow of Nirvana that the 60s is in the Boomers’ heads and we get “Hey, stop the whining!”
So maybe it’s just the cycle of life, one generation claiming their distance from the other – but why are we not allowed to question our parents when the Boomers made a lifestyle out of it?
*If this is a duplicate, sorry. It just doesn’t look like this posted.*
One more thing…
To the oh-so-witty “Mr. HaHa, Idiot Kids!” -
Regarding your point that the Boomers/Hippies were disdainful of their parents’ generation. Gee, no kidding? Are you also going to tell me about that new fangled gadget called the horseless carriage?
We’ve all had to hear about the Boomer’s disdain for their 1950s childhoods for decades. I heard about it through out my childhood, and hear about it still in documentaries (And why does Peter Coyote always do the voice overs, anyway?), in movies, in TV, in novels… yeah, yeah, we know. They feel the 1950s was a horribly repressive and scary, scary time.
Sure, scraggly young men in the 60s could hoist signs up high, stating: “Like father, like son – like hell!” But if any of us Boomer-raised kids had some negative comments about our parents’ lifestyle, it’s another story.
If my generation (children of those Boomers/Hippies) mentions that we might be a little cynical, maybe it’s because we heard our parents’ generation screaming about The Man, only to see them put on their own suits and too-wide ties to become The Man; or that maybe leaving us alone after school, and/ or asking us to pass joints, etc. wasn’t the ideal way to raise children… but mention this and I hear, “Who are you to complain?”
No, we mention these little black smudges in the rainbow of Nirvana that the 60s is in the Boomers’ heads and we get “Hey, stop the whining!”
So maybe it’s just the cycle of life, one generation claiming their distance from the other – but why are we not allowed to question our parents when the Boomers made a lifestyle out of it?
I’m a Boomer. Unlike the stereotype, I was never a hippie unless you count my long Joan Baez hair when I was in college. I never protested, I never smoked pot. I’m not rich (far from it) and I fully intend to work as long as I can do so. My grandfather retired at 93.
I’m a conservative. I look at the individual.
All confusing ?
Is a generation represented by the life cycle and the events of those times or the political winds ? As in how many years is the norm ? It seems some generations are being described as 10-12 years long while historically they were about 25 years long or so. Generally based on birth to being a parent cycle wrapped around major world events or trends.
You have a generation that is totally over looked. It was born between 1927 and 1945. It has been now and then referrred to as the Silent Generation or the Radio Generation. It’s representatives included the early brooding and silent types like James Dean , Clint Eastwood ,Steve McQueen to the younger members represented by Ali , Joe Namath , The Beatles , Elvis and Harrison Ford.
As to the Boomers being oppressed I cannot buy that.
Their parents were oppressed , The Greatest Generation,11 years of the Great Depression followed by 4 years of WWII plus 4 more years to get their lives on track. They had it the worst from 1929-to about 1950.
The problem with the Boomers is they were spoiled by their parents , The Greatest Generation , as American became wealthy and a consumer society driven by the box that talked and showed pictures.
dharil – why do you think our parents bought us those video games? It was a babysitter so they could go do their “thing.”
One feature of Generation X (or the 13th Generation, as Howe & Strauss dubbed us in their study of American generations) which nobody seems to have noticed yet is the positive hunger for ADULTHOOD. You see it in all kinds of odd ways, some superficial, some fundamental. We grew up at a time when adults had tossed away the rulebook and were acting like demented teenagers, so as we have become adults there has been a desperate search to figure out how one goes about being an adult. This explains things like the cocktails and “lounge” music revival of the 1990s — we knew that grownups like Grandma and Grandpa had liked that stuff, so we tried it out as part of our search for adulthood. It also explains the sincere veneration for the World War II generation — they are the last examples of genuine adults we have.
Obama is indeed an Xer, in my opinion. He certainly has the scatterbrained Boomer parent and is about the right age. Like many Xers he has learned to hide his true self and project the image that others want to see. Unfortunately, I fear he may have internalized the leftist Boomer mentality he found so useful in his rise. Or maybe he’ll surprise everyone and turn out to be a pragmatist using his lefty mentors as tools and stepping-stones. We’ll see.
Yeah, we are called “Generation X” because a lot of us were missing. We were “crossed out” by abortion. The world of hell created by Roe V Wade. I was born in 1974. If my Mother had succumbed to the trend I would never have seen the light of day. Thank you God for those of us who made it…God have mercy on those precious new lives that are being destroyed every day.
Very interesting and informative (for me) comments. Curious to know if the children of boomers are practicing a more “family focused” lifestyle since it sounds as if your parents weren’t necessarily present or focused during your upbringing.
Hey … get some beer. … And some cleaning products…
To Michelle,
Why don’t you get that CHIP off your SHOULDER?!
LOL.
P.S. NOT EVERYONE who is a “BOOMER” tuned in, got high, dropped out, slept in the parks (with anybody handy), had long dirty hair and smelly feet.
All these GLOBALIZATIONS & STEREOTYPES are what get people into trouble.
Notice when the whole retro thing started to get big we first had the 60s (of course) then moved to the 70s but strangely the 80s never had it’s turn we now continue on with some horrible toxic mix of 60s/70s. In fact whenever I hear a boomer or someone younger talk about the 80s they sneer at it. I can understand why the boomers might not like it, that’s when they hit their 30s, Regan got elected and making money was seen as a good thing. The younger ones are getting that from their boomer parents.
Another overlooked fact is that Desert Storm was fought with the rank and file sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines and junior officers being of Generation X
I did notice that PANDAX — and I am so bored of the 70’s always being rehashed and celebrated too.
Okay, I think the site ‘ate’ one of my comments, so I am going to try it again!
I like the phrase Gen X because, even if these generation designations are inaccurate, it was fun to distinguish myself from the boomers.
I had the experience, in junior high school, of having a history class where the teacher played protest songs for us to show us how much the boomers tried to make a difference.
A good project would be to collect these kinds of memories of indoctrination of gen Xers by boomers, a short play or something from a collection of similar vignettes.
ONPARKSTREET – I know of one moment of indoctrination in my public grade school education that must have come from the state level. They gave us all a book in around 4th grade called “Me Day” and I would LOVE to find someone who has a copy. From what I remember the whole story of this short illustrated book for school children was to have a “Me Day” and enjoy yourself. Enjoying yourself in the literal sense is a major part of social liberalism.
Here’s what G.K. Chesterton had to say about this subject so brilliantly “Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.” – The Common Man
Ironic is it not that computers were developed when the US government handed out huge subsidies to companies like IBM to do their R&D. Welfare to the rich. So much for free market rhetoric and lack of State control. Knowledge is Power, it would help Conservatives greatly if they did not utter such nonsense.
I am anti State, and dislike the way noble Republican beliefs have been ’socialized’ and lied about in public.
HERE’S SWEETER IRONY – I’m using my personal computer that I built by myself to post this.
And If you really are anti-state then I think you are referring to anarchist beliefs, not Republican ones. An anarchist is anti-state. Another word for them is PUNK. Republicans want less government, not no government. Government is a necessary evil — not THE evil.
Born in ‘82 here. I generally view Gen X as people a few years older than me, but I guess I qualify. My parents came from the biggest boom of the Baby Boom (’55 for dad, ‘57 for mom), and I had a wonderful child as the son of two Reagen Revolutionaries (if you’d like a fairly accurate depiction of my dad, imagine Alex P. Keaton as a software salesmen and you get the basic idea). I’m an artist so I tend to view things from a more cultural side of things, and I’ve noticed an interesting dichotomy in people my age. We tend to view things from, oh, the end of WWII to about the Jeennedy assassination as really cool. But stuff that happened after it, hippies, disco, etc. as incredibly stupid and lame. Until, of course, you get to the Smurfs, He-Man and above all Ducktales (good conservative show, go watch it again somtime and you’ll be surprised), and we like that stuff again. There’s also this interesting dichotomy of lving new technology while loving older art and culture. Pixar is a great example of this, they use some very advanced graphics technology to tell basically old-fashioned stories, with old-fashioned values, and often old fashioned artistic styles (watch the credit sequences for the Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Wall-E).
By the way Michael, excellent citation of Chesterton. I was contemplating the baby boomers and their relationship to the next generation awhile ago, and I came up with a single sentence. “A generation that spent all its youth saying ‘never trust anyone in authority,’ when they came into authority shocked and angered to find that no one was listening to them.”
Indulging a moment more in the probably pointless and wild over generalizations about generations’ divides, there is another thing to be said about Generation X.
Due to video games, our generation was the first to stay at home alone in front of their computers (personal!) rather than socialize AND read books. It might very well be that we wasted too much time on videogames and, nowadays, on internet AND videogames and lost quite a bit of opportunities.
At least, however, our games had often an educational value: yes, we had the load of shoot’em’up, but also real wargames which taught us history and strategic games that told us that to reach an objective you had to wisely invest early on, just to make an example.
I think generation Y is the playstation generation… lots of hype and graphics, almost no content.
“To say that my generation has a ‘high affinity for technology’ is to totally disregard the hand we had in creating it.”-Very well put. Our stolen credit is long overdue.
Thanks For putting it like it is (Like it REALLY is).
Generation X?? Thats a punk rock band. Billy Idol was in it.
I prefer to call myself a Reagan kid. I was a teen in the 80s. That was an alright decade. I even miss the Soviets. They at least weren’t crazy. I do miss my Commodore 64.
I’m a GenX at 41 and I’ll tell you what instilled conservative values in me. We GenX kids were the kids who had to actually endure (during the 70’s) the social engineering created by the boomers in the 60’s. The forced busing still certainly sticks out in my mind. I have actually seen with my own eyes minority boys openly groping and fondling embarassed crying white girls in school and when the white kids tried to do something about it, chanting and gang fights broke out and then the cops showed up…and then on the news that night they were talking about how us white kids were causing trouble and being intolerant. Seen it with my own eyes and been there. I’ve seen with my own eyes a minority guy pull his pants down and urinate right in the school hallway in front of god and everybody.
But what I remember most in a geo-political sense was the impact of Jimmy Carter and how depressed everything seemed. The gas lines…everybody just seemed poor…the world was coming to and end crap.
And then Ronald Reagan was such a breath of fresh air. I will be forever grateful to his memory for saving us from whatever crap that was in the 70’s.
I dispise the counter-culture hippie crap…because I had to grow up under the power of such people.
Some miserable Gen-X crybaby named StevDen whined, “I have actually seen with my own eyes minority boys openly groping and fondling embarassed crying white girls in school and when the white kids tried to do something about it, chanting and gang fights broke out and then the cops showed up…and then on the news that night they were talking about how us white kids were causing trouble and being intolerant. Seen it with my own eyes and been there. I’ve seen with my own eyes a minority guy pull his pants down and urinate right in the school hallway in front of god and everybody.”
Sounds like your BEEF is not with Boomers but with asinine BLACK PEOPLE!
Why don’t you get it straight in your head WHO exactly you are PI$$ED AT? It would help if you would start by NAMING the Offenders instead of calling them “MINORITIES.”
Shows how dumb and naive and poorly educated YOUR generation is; all you kids know is the POLITICAL CORRECTNESS you’ve been indoctrinated and brainwashed with, compliments of the ACLU and Liberal nitwits who seem to be running the schools nowadays.
Some miserable Gen-X crybaby named StevDen whined, “I have actually seen with my own eyes minority boys openly groping and fondling embarassed crying white girls in school and when the white kids tried to do something about it, chanting and gang fights broke out and then the cops showed up…and then on the news that night they were talking about how us white kids were causing trouble and being intolerant. Seen it with my own eyes and been there. I’ve seen with my own eyes a minority guy pull his pants down and urinate right in the school hallway in front of god and everybody.”
Sounds like your BEEF is not with Boomers but with asinine BLACK PEOPLE!
Why don’t you get it straight in your head WHO exactly you are P1$$ED AT? It would help if you would start by NAMING the Offenders instead of calling them “MINORITIES.”
Shows how dumb and naive and poorly educated YOUR generation is; all you kids know is the POLITICAL CORRECTNESS you’ve been indoctrinated and brainwashed with, compliments of the ACLU and Liberal nitwits who seem to be running the schools nowadays.
Michael — Late to the party…but I love this post. Thanks for the insight into the Vid Gamers! As one is my partner, Jace Hall ("V") who also created Monolith Games…it behooves me to grok these things. Thanks!
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