It is only ok to think of it this way though if you immediately qualify that with it is a problem with a specific subsection of a generation within colonial powers who are or believe they are middle-class, upper-middle class or wealthy.
I guess that can seem like a pedantic qualification, but it actually isn’t because all of the energy in people’s agitation just siphons off into hating old people from a perspective that doesn’t illuminate anything, and it REALLY isolates older people who weren’t included in that collective selfish foreclosure of our future. All the seniors who are forced to work, living in poverty or alone. Even if they have shitty politics, when we just talk about it as a generational problem we deny their agency and potential as individual human beings.
We also feed into an unspoken centering of the experience of people in colonial powers and ignore the colonized who have been excluded categorically.
At the same time I also bristle when people get upset at people exclaiming shit like “gahh man, fuck boomers” without an acknolwedgement that… yeah I mean fuck boomers kinda…
It is like if someone says “fuck men” in exasperation nearby me, yeah well I am a man and in my heart I try to be a good person and I know there are good men who are loving and mature… but like… I join in with the vibes because I know they aren’t talking about me (or if they are maybe I need to take a step back, breathe, and listen?). I don’t say “not all men!!!” and I think there is a tiny bit of that in the response people have to shutting down people exasperated with boomers because the truth is complicated.
TL;DR Vent, be wary of people who snap at you the moment you vent about something understandable, but also be wary of narratives simplifying to a hurtful point
It is only ok to think of it this way though if you immediately qualify that with it is a problem with a specific subsection of a generation within colonial powers who are or believe they are middle-class, upper-middle class or wealthy.
I guess that can seem like a pedantic qualification, but it actually isn’t because all of the energy in people’s agitation just siphons off into hating old people from a perspective that doesn’t illuminate anything, and it REALLY isolates older people who weren’t included in that collective selfish foreclosure of our future. All the seniors who are forced to work, living in poverty or alone. Even if they have shitty politics, when we just talk about it as a generational problem we deny their agency and potential as individual human beings.
We also feed into an unspoken centering of the experience of people in colonial powers and ignore the colonized who have been excluded categorically.
At the same time I also bristle when people get upset at people exclaiming shit like “gahh man, fuck boomers” without an acknolwedgement that… yeah I mean fuck boomers kinda…
It is like if someone says “fuck men” in exasperation nearby me, yeah well I am a man and in my heart I try to be a good person and I know there are good men who are loving and mature… but like… I join in with the vibes because I know they aren’t talking about me (or if they are maybe I need to take a step back, breathe, and listen?). I don’t say “not all men!!!” and I think there is a tiny bit of that in the response people have to shutting down people exasperated with boomers because the truth is complicated.
TL;DR Vent, be wary of people who snap at you the moment you vent about something understandable, but also be wary of narratives simplifying to a hurtful point