Generations
There's a new "generation" term floating out there attempting to capture a particular cohort's mindset: Generation Jones. Interestingly, it is not a term for a set of people younger than those groups already "defined" ("Baby Boomers", "Generation Xers" "Millenials", etc.), but rather one that encompasses the latter part of the Baby Boomers' era--my age group. Generation Jones is that group of people born between the years of 1954 and 1965 (to which both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin belong, by the way) who have heretofore been fairly lost in the more traditional generational descriptions.
I never felt in tune with the descriptions of the Baby Boomers I have read: I was too young to have participated in any of the seminal events Boomers are normally linked with. I was 1 year and 3 months old when JFK was shot, 4-5 years old during the Summer of Love, 7 years old when the Beatles broke up, and still only 11 when Nixon resigned. How on earth was I supposed to identify with people who not only lived through these events, but actively observed or participated in some of them? In just a single sense, my take on Baby Boomers is that they protested and voted against (or, much more rarely, for) Nixon; I can barely remember him, especially since my parents were not all that political. I left for college in 1979, by which time many Boomers were already thirtysomething home owners and parents of their own school-aged children--what did I have in common with them?
I felt much more akin psychologically and socially to the Generation following me-the Gen Xers. I, too, felt misanthropic and cynical in my 20s (I still do!), as I tried somehow to carve out some sort of career in a job market flooded with Boomers who were more educated and more experienced than I was, and I was drawn to more aggressive and angry musical styles reflecting that angst. On the other hand, I was old enough to have seen (and more importantly, understand what I was seeing) Devo, Patti Smith, and Elvis Costello on their original Saturday Night Live broadcasts; I saw the Minutemen and Hüsker Dü live in "over 21" clubs myself (legally). I was old enough to know that Ronald Reagan portended disaster (as we have seen in the '00s, as his policies finally came to fruition via his political progeny), not "Morning in America", as the stereotypical Gen Xer theoretically believes. So I didn't fit in wholly with them, either.
So now I have my own moniker, and apparently this is our bellwether election, as some pundits believe we will be the deciding demographic factor between Obama and McCain. Of course, the pundits shown in that YouTube video are almost all right wing dupes trying their hardest to convince anyone they can that this won't be a total landslide in Obama's favor, which most objective observers are beginning to recognize. Once again, it therefore seems, my generation's salience will be obscured by others acting in concert. Or maybe instead, everyone else has finally figured out that Generation Jones actually contains all the smart people (Sarah Palin notwithstanding) and are following our lead! Yay!
I never felt in tune with the descriptions of the Baby Boomers I have read: I was too young to have participated in any of the seminal events Boomers are normally linked with. I was 1 year and 3 months old when JFK was shot, 4-5 years old during the Summer of Love, 7 years old when the Beatles broke up, and still only 11 when Nixon resigned. How on earth was I supposed to identify with people who not only lived through these events, but actively observed or participated in some of them? In just a single sense, my take on Baby Boomers is that they protested and voted against (or, much more rarely, for) Nixon; I can barely remember him, especially since my parents were not all that political. I left for college in 1979, by which time many Boomers were already thirtysomething home owners and parents of their own school-aged children--what did I have in common with them?
I felt much more akin psychologically and socially to the Generation following me-the Gen Xers. I, too, felt misanthropic and cynical in my 20s (I still do!), as I tried somehow to carve out some sort of career in a job market flooded with Boomers who were more educated and more experienced than I was, and I was drawn to more aggressive and angry musical styles reflecting that angst. On the other hand, I was old enough to have seen (and more importantly, understand what I was seeing) Devo, Patti Smith, and Elvis Costello on their original Saturday Night Live broadcasts; I saw the Minutemen and Hüsker Dü live in "over 21" clubs myself (legally). I was old enough to know that Ronald Reagan portended disaster (as we have seen in the '00s, as his policies finally came to fruition via his political progeny), not "Morning in America", as the stereotypical Gen Xer theoretically believes. So I didn't fit in wholly with them, either.
So now I have my own moniker, and apparently this is our bellwether election, as some pundits believe we will be the deciding demographic factor between Obama and McCain. Of course, the pundits shown in that YouTube video are almost all right wing dupes trying their hardest to convince anyone they can that this won't be a total landslide in Obama's favor, which most objective observers are beginning to recognize. Once again, it therefore seems, my generation's salience will be obscured by others acting in concert. Or maybe instead, everyone else has finally figured out that Generation Jones actually contains all the smart people (Sarah Palin notwithstanding) and are following our lead! Yay!
Labels: baby boomers, Barack Obama, generation jones, generation x, sarah palin
posted by bryduck at 7:56 AM
5 Comments:
mmmmmm what do you call today's kids? Generation Debt!
Got that right, although maybe with a re-engineered tax structure and revitalized manufacturing base and the elimination of ignorant policies, we can ameliorate the worst burdens we've inflicted on the young and unborn to come.
We will never decrease the budget shortfalls or eliminate any sort of debt until those in charge realize a "budget" means you don't spend more than you bring in. Elementary, huh? So how come nobody in power understands this principle?????
GOM
The "Generation Jones" meme has been getting some real traction of late. I must confess that it is new to me, but now that I am aware of it I am seeing it everywhere.
There was a post on Huffington Post today about it:
[Huffington Post]
Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune and MSNBC fame has been touting it:
[Clarence Page]
Generation Jones even has its own website!
[GenerationJones.com]
Well, GOM, the people in power for most of the last 28 years were supposedly the Party of fiscal restraint, but that was a canard used by the Republicans to garner votes in their cynical and successful bid to attain/maintain their positions and strip our country of its wealth to line the pockets of their business friends (and theirs, too). I have my doubts that even now most of the electorate get what has happened. Those in the know have been telling us about the class war that was waged against the poorer 90% of the US for decades, but apparently, cheaper VCRs (then PCs, then CD and DVD players, then iPods, etc.) confused most of the voters into thinking everything was just fine. Now our country produces nothing of value for export, our trade barriers are unhealthily kept open by legislative fiat, and the only way we've kept our government afloat in this era of egregiously low taxation has been by selling our assets--think bonds as well as buildings--to foreign countries and citizens. We owe so much money to other countries now that we're in danger of losing control over our own economy for the first time in our history.
Well done, Republicans! Way to keep us "safe" from those scary communists/terrorists/Muslims/boogeymen who now own us.
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