Gen-X has polled several places as being the least obnoxious generation.
As an Elder GenX, I must sadly disagree with this. I was going to write that it was once true, but as I was trying to come up with examples, I realize the best we ever did was be better than the Boomers. Which was not a high bar, when we were the youngest cohort, and were young enough to pay no attention to the absolutely better Silent Generation.
But holy shit did we whine when we were young and Boomers dominated the job market. The whining was justified for a period of time.
But as time went on and we got those good jobs, and Boomers started to retire and mellow with age, we seem to have achieved a high of self-absorption, a quality we used to criticize the Boomers for. We lost all sympathy towards young people who were having the same difficult experiences that we once had. Now it's like, fuck you, I had it hard, you should too.
We have entirely forgotten the problems that we had starting out, as a result of which we seem to have no patience younger generations who are hitting a similar rough spot to our early experiences. We are now the biggest NIMBYs on the planet, always thinking that someones else should make whatever sacrifices we think are necessary.
My parents are Silent Generation. I remember when I was young and living in rural Alberta, how the center of life was always the community. The community I was in was too small to be incorporated, so there was no mayor or town council. If somebody wanted something done, they got together to figure out how to do it. One of the wealthier members of the community donated some land, and the community came together and build a community center with their own hands. The community had no kindergarten, so they organized, bought a beaten up one room schoolhouse, moved it to donated land, fixed it up and eventually built an extension on it. Public holidays were always centered around the community.
I see nothing of this now. GenX prioritizes, or at least rewards, fanatical self-interest. Public service is derided, public institutions are assumed to be wasteful and unnecessary, community groups and altruistic acts of kindness or charity are viewed cynically, and assumed to be no more than grifts or at best, resumé padding - and many participants use it as such. Treating those who serve the public like parasites drives the best and brightest away from public service or charitable work, because why should they have to put up with that shit?
We are in a spiral where we ignorantly criticize institutions, use that criticism to justify taking resources away from the institutions, which erodes institutional capacity, which reduces the level of service, which is treated of proof that the institutions were dysfunctional
before the budget cuts, and is used to justify more cuts. Rinse and repeat.
GenX is now the generation in power, and under our watch an 80 period of relative peace and prosperity is coming to an end. International cooperation is giving way to interstate anarchy, aid is giving way to isolationism. We are creating a culture that sees kindness as weakness, and compassion as a threat. Acts of cruelty are lauded. Those with the power to be cruel are deemed to be virtuous, while being poor or powerless is treated as a character flaw.
Polls say what they say. Attitudes often don't match reality, but also polls can be cooked to create a preferred outcome. Also, we have absorbed so many of the traits of Boomerism that lots up people younger than us often think we are Boomers - we are the "forgotten generation," remember? So I will be skeptical until I meet these polls in the wild.
Well, that was depressing. Y'all have a nice day.
