There's a lot of talk, both friendly banter and genuine animosity, about which “generation” is the best, was the worst, and who knows what and who is wrong about broad swaths of ideology. And yet, from my personal experience of decades, Generation X does not get the recognition it deserves.
In the good ole days you would argue about what generation ruined your country. But now there’s no corner of the globe that is safe. There’s no escaping the battlefields of war torn Europe for a fresh start in colonial America. There’s no escaping an authoritarian government in for an untouched and pure place far away where your intellect is more important than your big mouth. There’s no refuge from your country of birth’s civil war that doesn’t already have their own hands full with their population born within their own borders.
The renaming of Twitter to X always made me wonder if it was purposeful as a nod to Gen X - a sly little wink and a nudge to give them a little ego boost. A much needed one as when viewed as a whole it’s the generation that really ramped up the I KNOW EVERYTHING mentality to an unhealthy degree. It’s the generation with the most Karens. The generation of entitled self absorbed brats that conflates grifting with free market capitalism. It conflates free speech with bold faced lying about the most basic facts (the worst being science versus religion). The generation that thinks capitalism and democracy are synonyms instead of just tied together. It’s the generation that for reasons no sane person can ever fully understand that instead of recognizing that control of vast amounts of wealth in the hands of very few people has never worked out well for the masses decided to embrace being poor, uneducated and miserable was somehow a great idea - so let’s pick the biggest assholes we can find among the ultra wealthy and worship them.
But as I often do, I’m getting ahead of myself. So let’s backtrack to unfair generational comparisons. A sort of beginning point to explain how we got here.
Official global political assessments of the United States correctly describe it as a FLAWED DEMOCRACY. I would wager a significant amount of money that a lot of Gen X doesn’t realize that before the British Empire a dominant economic superpower was the Dutch.
And already we have a first side trip. Even within the past few days Elon Musk has railed against Wikipedia. Of course. Actual factual information is anathema to him. When your entire brand is built upon lies and fraud you really don’t want the word getting out that a tiny little country like the Netherlands could hold as much influence as long as it did. Technologically superior, innovative, young and hungry. But just like other empires before and after eventually the economics failed to the overwhelming pressure of governments being more concerned about personal wealth than the will of the lower class citizens within their sphere of influence.
The U.S. has been in such a state of decline for quite some time now. Another historical note that is destined to be a target for memory holing is the last time the U.S. actively worked on improving the middle class. The sort of generational equivalent of an average person. And it’s shrinking. A lot.
Within that article is the defining characteristics of the class including my favorite - conspicuous consumption. I could buy an economical car that gets 40 miles a gallon. But fuck that, let me buy my pick up with a high interest rate loan (with satellite radio and gold plated cup holders) and I’ll catch up later.
There was a time when education was regarded highly. Get through high school. Go to college or a trade school. Learn a useful skill. Find someone you fancy and buy a house. Maybe have some kids. Retire with dignity. But only after hoarding enough wealth that you insist must generate as much passive income as you are spending, which over the long term is destined to fail. There simply aren’t enough “poor” jobs to maintain the pyramid scheme. So the solution? Make sure the history of bad ideas is covered up. Do everything to stop education possible and join the high income fraud crowd.
Politics and financial sector jobs. Perfect for propaganda to make average people feel smarter than they really are. It’s amazing how easy it is to manipulate someone when you sign their paycheck.
And make no mistake, the tech boom embraced by Gen X is the turning point. Hatred of boomers in general for the audacity to have influence because of strength of numbers. Genuinely more tech savvy, but with the lack of more formal educational experience and being around people different than themselves completely lacking in social skills. Calling Facebook or Twitter social is some sort of cruel joke. Finding an echo chamber of wrong answers to important questions is hardly proper socialization. You can genuinely find a decent sized swath of Gen X that thinks freedom of speech means gematria decodes is educational while thinking that massive insurance CEO bonuses are necessary to maintain the overall economy.
And oh boy howdy are they conservative. Of course they are. If you were lucky enough to be born wealthy and didn’t have to actual be productive to get by, you’d be wanting to conserve that, too. Congratulations. You’re biased now. As soon as you hear any buzzword that indicates progressive ideas your brain shuts down and the mouth starts running with more lies to cover up the previous lies. This might not actually be that bad except the pushback is inevitable. And instead of compromise, Gen X came up with their greatest socialization flaw ever. Insisting on regression instead of just conservatism.
As Gen X grew up and had children of their own they continued the emphasis of not educating and not socializing. Burning up resources that aren’t replaceable. Insisting there’s no downside. Watching contradictory information on Fox News and not being concerned since the liberal buzzwords were used and that makes their bias receptors turn off any remaining critical thinking skills. You may claim you aren’t racist, and you may even be right about that. But you sure don’t mind being politically discriminatory. And now their sad excuse for educating and socializing has been passed on to subsequent generations. Sure, maybe they’ve finally woken up to the Boomer era politicians not being that great anymore, but what they make up for in the lack of quantity they’ve ruined by the quality. Blind adoration of a Trump or Musk oligarchy cannot end well.
As I’ve often said, the unavoidable wake up call of massive inflation while mitigating climate change costs is pretty much unstoppable at this point. And with no corner of the globe safe from the economic impacts. It’s no longer a vague “maybe it won’t be so bad thing.” It’s a fact that’s here now. A likely result geopolitically seems to be a future rise of China being the dominant economic superpower. And like the Dutch were replaced by Britain and the British were replaced by the U.S. the U.S. will still be a big player, but forced to admit that they aren’t so bad.
———————————————————————
But let’s end this on a hopeful message. Before I start a series of not gematria related posts about great not acknowledged weapons created. If the U.S. really wants to be great again, if it wants to stay on top. Then start embracing education again instead of pretending to care about the children. And you’d better do it quick. Late stage capitalism disease is here now. Being the first to overcome that. Instead of political leaders not doing anything about the grifter economy because they’re part of it, actually hold these bozos accountable. You already failed with the lack of proper reaction to Jan. 6th 2021.
