36. Generations

I'm just going to think out loud a little bit here. From my own very restricted brain-space. 

I saw a reference today to all the harm people of my generation are doing to the planet because we keep denying climate change. 

Well, okay. But people I personally know aren't denying climate change. People I know are installing solar panels and buying electric cars; they are deciding not to fly to farflung vacation spots because of carbon emissions; they're walking to the market to shop. No, no, of course not everybody I know. But enough people for me to say, seriously, is this a generational thing?

I see "boomers" attacked online for all the harm we've done to this country. I don't get it. For one thing, I'm not really seeing what GenXers and GenZers and Millennials, as a mass group, are doing for the country. I don't see young people out at the anti-Trump protests. (Not here in Monterey anyway. Maybe they're out en masse in bigger burgs. I hope so.)

All I really want to say here is, I really wonder how much of our woes are "generational." Yes, different people coming into the world are met with different challenges, and yes, perhaps the "boomers" had it relatively easy. I certainly had it easy compared to my parents, who were born before or during WWI, weathered the Great Depression, lived through WWII, and then got clobbered with the Vietnam War. 

And then there was the Civil Rights movement, which attempted to set things right in this country—and now we're seeing that it's not so easy... because of boomers? Or full-on bigotry.

What I mean to say here is, people are people. We, all of us, have various advantages and disadvantages as we enter the world. Yes, it seems to be harder to find good employment now than it did when I was coming up. But that's not "because of the boomers." It's economics—capitalism. It's the social milieu. It may be because of the billionaires, who knows? 

Workers have been devalued, owning things has been overvalued. Those that have, get more—and then leave it to their kids, who start out life entitled, privileged. 

Life is complicated. Centuries ago, most of us would have been living under some lord's domain. At least things are a bit better than that now. (I think?)

This "generations" thing is an invention of the late 20th century. It's another way of putting us into boxes. Race, check. Gender, check. Generation, check. We're all so different!

When really, shouldn't we be thinking of ourselves as all in this together? 

All human.

That said, "young people"—sure. "Old farts"—sure. Young people and old farts do see the world differently: it's a different world now than it was when I was young. It was a different world for my old-fart parents, too. Being young or old is itself objective: you can look at someone and it's obvious. It still doesn't mean that my take on how different the world is, or what that difference means, is the same as that of my 70-year-old neighbor down the street, who's as Republican as they come, listening to right-wing radio in his garage (we wave at each other in the afternoon, him sitting on his cushion-mediated hard wood chair, us walking our dog), flying his flag. We may be the same generation, but I identify more with our young-parent neighbors in the house behind us, who may be politically progressive, though I've never asked. 

As for climate change, whoever could be doing something to change our course—whatever generation—I don't see it happening. 

I don't see it happening.

Blame who you will.

Then again, maybe "blame" is not the best way forward.

P.S. I will say, maybe at least some of us "boomers" are in fact more outraged and traumatized by what the Trump administration is heaping on this country now than any other generation might be. Because we were educated to believe that this country was something great. Which it clearly is not anymore. And might I point out that those in Trump's inner circle are not, in fact, all boomers. Starting with Stephen Miller, who's all of 39. J. D. Vance is 40. What's wrong with that generation?

P.P.S. The cartoon here? It's definitely a fact that students today have it far, far harder than I did, so far as paying for an education goes. That should be addressed, and I hope one day very soon it will be. (Sure won't be during this administration, though.) As for Social Security, so far, since the 1930s, it's something most of us do: pay into a system, and trust we'll get to enjoy some of the benefits when our time comes. I wouldn't say anybody I know thinks that young people somehow owe it to us. If anything, the government owes it to us to keep the system running smoothly. Simply by lifting the cap on the SS tax, they could keep it solvent. The government—this government—just doesn't give a shit.