Is the whole boomer vs. gen X vs. millennial vs. zoomer thing simply another form of false consciousness?
For example, someone born in 1986 and someone born in 1994 are both “millennials” but someone born in 1997 is a “zoomer” even though someone born in 1994 has a life experience much more like someone born in 1997 than they do someone born in 1986. Likewise, we don’t even know how to define when certain generations end or begin. Is the cut-off for boomers 1963, 1964, or 1965? To what extent does it matter?
It seems like scapegoating “boomers” for everything has become a popular thing to do on social media and I have to ask why is blaming the older generation somehow worthwhile? “Boomers were the hippies who ended up becoming conservative and voting for Reagan” — that doesn’t explain the material factors that lead to the rise of Reagan and neoconservatism in the first place. You can’t simply “blame boomers” when “boomer” exists in a materialist context. Likewise, you can’t blame Gen Xers and millennials for being “vain” or whatever when Gen Xers and millennials also faced material conditions beyond their control. So why are we placing blame on generations? Does it make any sense to do this?
>usa idpol marketing terms for random ranges of age cohorts are universal and must be talked about incessantly
lobotomized
>>2836040That’s exactly my point.
Boomers did nothing beneficial. They have always been entitled and cruel.
>>2836044not worth a thread, just say it when other people bring it up
>>2836129That’s every generation.
Hot take, but blanket hatred towards “boomers” is almost always rooted in ageism and covert ableism.
When people say “boomers” they automatically think of white, upper-middle class boomers who are casually spending away their children’s inheritance. In reality, there are a ton of queer elders, Black elders, Palestinian elders, indigenous elders, working-class elders and so on. All of these people faces tremendous oppression when they were growing up 60-70 years ago. Also, the New Left was run by boomers. The Panthers were boomers. The queer activists at Stonewall were boomers. Not all boomers became conservative as they aged. Some got active in the anti-globalization movement and Iraq War protests. Some are still politically active today despite pushing 80.
Millennial and Gen Z has the most solidarity. They both see the empire as crumbling.
Older Americans still benefit an absurd amount from America's rotting corpse
>>2836873That solidarity will dissolve as soon as boomers die and their kids and grandchildren inherit their ill gotten gains
>>2836036Yes, it's idpol, generations aren't class and therefore are a diversion and divide and conquer tactic, what's worse is that generations are arbitrary social constructs, like why 10 years and not 20? Etc etc.
>>2836036Yes. Now move on and please don't waste your efforts on Idpol.
>>2836036>false consciousnessi hate retards who still mindlessly parrot gramscian jackassery to justify making literally anything revolve around communism just to feel theyre "doing something". no, making fun of boomers or millennials or zoomers isnt whats preventing the fucking revolution dipshit
>>2836494>>2837380It's actually pretty disheartening to see how much resentment towards the elderly exists among younger leftists.
It's also pretty hypocritical how disability advocacy seems to be the "hot topic" right now on the left (following covid and going along with things like autistic idpol) yet there's zero regard for the elderly in the same way. The notion that the disabled/neurodivergent deserve care is talked about all the time among modern leftists but no one feels the same way about caring for the elderly, as if people are disposable by the time they turn 70.
I remember long ago, like I'm talking pre-Occupy long ago, I knew this comrade in her early 30s who cared for this old comrade in his late 80s. He was an old school CPUSA member and she was a member of one of the Trotskyist parties that existed during that time (ISO I think). He had no family nearby, so every day this young woman would come over his apartment and help him out. She said she learned so much about Marxism from him and loved hearing his stories of living through the McCarthyism witch hunts and the 60s New Left drama. This guy was still politically active until his last dying day (I remember this woman making a Facebook post about his death on the day he died in 2012; she was absolutely heartbroken). I can't imagine comrades doing the same to help any elderly comrades today.
>>2836036>For example, someone born in 1986 and someone born in 1994 are both “millennials” but someone born in 1997 is a “zoomer” even though someone born in 1994 has a life experience much more like someone born in 1997 than they do someone born in 1986.Microgenerations exist for a reason.
Someone born between 1975-1983 is a xennial.
Someone born between 1993-2001 is a zillennial.
I think someone born between 2007-2015 is a "zalpha".
>>2836036Yes, old news. However, generations have a rational kernel in that people born in different times will have different upbringings and experiences which informs their personality and political outlook. It's not random that younger generations tend to be more against the status quo than boomers.
>>2837746That is true, but not all boomers have it well either. Boomers who aren't white and rich or middle-class aren't exactly conservative. Plus, there are a ton of zoomers who are full-blown fascists. Nick Fuentes and Sneako are Nazis and both are zoomers in their 20s.
>>2837766I thinknat this point we can see thag liberalism is just as bad as fascism. Baby boomers rose when liberalism was at its peak.
>>2837778I really hope you're not insinuating most boomers are fascists. Most millennials are also liberals (even if they misappropriate radical jargon) so you would have to argue most millennials are also fascists.
>>2837780I think more millennials and gen z are openly fascist.
As people have said theres plenty of Gen z open nazis
>>2837779What's the quote about making people like machines after failing to make machines like people already?
>>2837779Blame the parents, the kids can't be responsible for it
>>2837779That pic makes me sick. Look at that kid's eyes and how consumed he is in that phone.
>>2837787You can barely even see his eyes, stop being weird
just read a neolib opinion piece in SPIEGEL (basically The Economist in German).
>End the Tyranny of the Old>For decades, political conflict has played out along the divide between rich and poor. In reality, however, a different conflict threatens the country's future.>Germany is suffering under the tyranny of the old. The interests of succeeding generations are being played off against the perceived needs of the elderly. The complaint by young people that they are being systematically discriminated against is justified.>let's raise VAT, it would only hit the elderly which is okay because they deserve it "Boomers enjoyed peace, decent working conditions and a decent living standard. That's immoral and on the expenses of young people!" is one of the worst recent bourgeois propaganda narratives
- create another scapegoat conflict to divide the proletariat
- suggest boomers going into retirement at age 65 is supposedly "immoral" with regards to young people
- boomers receiving decent pensions that enable them to actually enjoy the rest of their life in dignity rather than poverty after working several decades their asses off for some porky prick is supposedly "immoral"
the bourgeois do not want millenials, zoomers and so on to retire that "early" nor does the bourgeoisie want succeeding generations to get a full pension from the state like it was normal since 1893 because they want them to make contracts with private insurance companies. zoomer pensions will not be sufficient to buy groceries, that's the plan.
Raising retirement age enables tax cuts for the rich without touching tax money allocated for war efforts, population control/surveillance, corporate bailouts & pampering the rich etc.
Over here the bourgeoisie is conducting a full frontal assault against the working class right now but nobody except a couple nerds on the fringe left even notices. The average normie still only cares about idpol shit and Putin. It's fucking depressing.
>>2837929And yet boomers voted for the politicians who want to raise the retirement age.
>>2838235They are retards
>>2837779You weren’t any better with your game boys and psps and ds
>>2838265Game Boys weren’t anything close to iPads in terms of how much they damaged cognitive skills. iPads have become a substitute for living that Game Boys never did.
>>2837780Most boomers and millennials are fascists.
>>2838308Pokemon with its type matchups literally makes you retarded and destroys your creativity
>>2838387In seriousness I think this comparison doesn't really work, for one thing we weren't allowed to just play DS in class, for another, while videogames are fun they didn't really replace social interaction completely, also they weren't full of clout goblins promoting the worst possible values to kids constantly
>>2837779Where are you from? This legit just seems like a uniquely American issue to me. I constantly see American teachers online complain about the stuff you mentioned. They often mention children never being held back, so there will be kids that are cognitively behind in a higher grade, meaning lessons need to be dumbed down. There seem to also be a lot of children in regular classrooms that probably should just be in special education. This is just shit gleaned from social media though.
>>2838566NTA but I'm Canadianand I rarely ever see kids here using iPads. The only time I've ever seen kids with iPads were American tourist kids who were on their iPads while at a restaurant in my city that's a known tourist hotspot.
>>2837779>I'm not kidding, a fucking six-year old child with normal intelligence wearing a diaper.To be fair, a lot of autistic and AuDHD kids have issues with bowel movements because of how their brains and bodies work.
>>2838567Not sure if there are any numbers on this out there but surely across western nations the hours of screen time for children are not radically different. I'm just wary of blaming a mass dumbing down of children
(if this is even the case, I've seen people dispute the idea of a "literacy crisis" as well) on technology at home or in the classroom when the more likely explanation to me seems to be an austerity regime in public education. You can't force a child to live life like its the 90s/00s in 2026, but you can make sure there is enough money, resources and personnel to make sure every child gets the attention they need in school.
Also, I'm from '98 and I remember when we were the worst generation ever, just like every generation before us.
>>2838235Millenials & zoomers have no right to shame boomers for getting duped into voting bourgeois right-wing grifters when they do the same. Lolberts didn't even exist here before Y2K, wokeism and the alt-right are both millenial things and far worse even than boomer neoliberals when it comes to economics, worker's rights and social policy.
I'm thankful that late millenials, zoomers and Gen Alpha resurrected OG socialism, OG communism, orthodox marxism, ML-ism etc., however it is nowhere near as popular as liberalism, lolbertism and wokeism among them either.
>>2837665>It's actually pretty disheartening to see how much resentment towards the elderly exists among younger leftists.It's bad yeah and I don't like it. Gave a talk once on a program (org stuff that I was involved in) in a room full of leftists and stressed a section on how the right wing attacks the elderly and capitalism devalues the elderly, and I told everyone that we really shouldn't say "okay boomer" stuff. I said it in a way that was like "yeah we're leftists and I get it but still we… really shouldn't do that." There were older people in the room who perked up at that.
Also it's self-defeating because populations around the world are just getting fucking old. We're all going to be old.
>>2837746>Yes, old news. However, generations have a rational kernel in that people born in different times will have different upbringings and experiences which informs their personality and political outlook. It's not random that younger generations tend to be more against the status quo than boomers.I think there was a really extreme gap that opened up after WWII just because the experiences were so radically different compared to people (in industrialized Western countries at least) who grew up before the war where a lot of homes still hadn't been electrified.
>>2838581>Also it's self-defeating because populations around the world are just getting fucking old. We're all going to be old.Keep in mind too that birthrates are shrinking all over the world. India's birthrate just fell below replacement level. Mexico's birthrate has been below replacement level for a few years even before they decriminalized abortion. Most European and East Asian countries have pathetically low birthrates. This means there's going to be way more pressure on the younger generations to support an aging population that can't simply go out and do revolution.
>>2838584Yeah, it's only been since like the 1950s or 60s that youth has become so glorified. Before that, people revered the elderly on the basis that the elderly were the ones giving wisdom and knowledge to the youngsters. It's also interesting how much of this lines up with the rise of consumer society, like youth is glorified because younger people are better consumers and youth culture is a gold mine of profit for corporations.
while the whole thing is idpol, i think it should be allowed but not taken too seriously, boomers deserve to be criticized, they dont get a free pass. they went from being anti establishment to being the establishment, now their aging fingers are holding onto property, money, and jobs while the youth suffer
we live in the world boomers created, culturally, politically, socially. and we have a right to be critical of it
>>2838598>they went from being anti establishment to being the establishment, How many of them were anti-establishment though?
>>2838598>we live in the world boomers created, culturally, politically, socially. and we have a right to be critical of itBoomers inherited the world from the Greatest Generation who inherited it from the Silent Generation who inherited it from the previous generation.
Blaming "boomers" for the innate problems of capitalism is pretty pathetic TBH. If every boomer died tomorrow capitalism would continue running exactly the same. You're invoking petty cultural nonsense.
>>2838598Elon Musk is Gen X.
Jeff Bezos is Gen X.
Peter Thiel is Gen X.
Alex Karp is Gen X.
Mark Zuckerberg is a millennial.
Sam Altman is a millennial.
Who are the boomers we should be worried about in 2026, aside from Trump and Larry Ellison?
>>2838577It's more that when capitalism collapses both left and right become more extreme because they want to put an end to the status quo.
Every generation is shit just for different reasons.
>>2838584Can you entirely blame them though? Getting old sucks. Hopefully they can reverse aging before that happens or I'll cryognically freeze myself tbh.
>>2838616Gen X to the gulag too.
>>2838392Agreed. I would talk to other people about Pokémon at school. Then I would watch the show and play the game later. It was a social experience that made Pokémon so succesful.
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