Mar
21

OpEd
by Kyle Brady

The Failed Generation


While not strictly a generation, those citizens currently over the age of forty constitute a group of people that have caused possibly insurmountable problems, massive debts, and extreme hardship, both now and in the years to come, for those younger than them – this is the Failed Generation.

Baby Boomers and the older half of Generation X like to claim to be the greatest generation the world’s ever seen, and consistently congratulate themselves on what they imagine to be a job well done, having indelibly effected the world for the better; however, this could not be further from the truth.

This Failed Generation has been behind almost all of the disasters and problems that existed in the late 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century – the blame can be passed to no-one else.  Governments have become stagnant at best, the world was brought to the brink of economic collapse, the civil rights of countless groups have been subjugated, massive accumulated debts both personal and national will take many decades to repay, human-accelerated planetary ecological danger has been ignored for countless years, monetary greed surmounts any and all other nodes of life, public education has been all but ruined, intellectualism is highly distrusted and unwanted, liberating technological innovations are hampered with procedure and censure, and considerably more.  Welcome to the greatest generation the world’s ever seen.

It is these individuals that are solely responsible for the current state of the world, and there are a few prevailing themes:  greed, stupidity, and traditionalism.  For the latter half of Generation X and Millennials, the future looks exceedingly bleak, since many of these issues will likely have a disturbing large effect on how much can be accomplished during their reign of power.  Instead of innovation, exploration, and the betterment of society, the majority of effort now has to be spent on fixing the problems created over the last fifty years, which is, in and of itself, an entirely unprecedented event.  Yet this work cannot begin until those in power are replaced and the electoral population is modern enough to address these issues – gay marriage, a perfect example in generational differences, is only likely to become a non-issue once the older generations either die out or are stripped of all their influence.

Those who grew up on Star Trek/Star Wars, computers, and dreaming of the stars must now downgrade their dreams to far more earthly and mundane goals, implementing a method of self-control that was simply not part of the Baby Boomer or early Generation-X’s vocabulary.  College graduates that had entered school with hopes, dreams, and a shining future are now scrounging for jobs, and have had their careers substantially set back by both years and income.  It is these young citizens who will, literally and metaphorically, save the world, and still they are cheated, ignored, and generally used by the selfsame individuals who need saving.

Keep your chin held high, Failed Generation – it’s the only pride you’ll ever have, since history will not smile kindly upon you.

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  • Bob Sherunkle
    Blame the boomers, Blame GenY, blame whomever you want. It is in the nature of youth to blame their predcessors for all the ills of the world just as it will be the place for their progency to blame them.

    The fact is that those whom you ridicule and mock have had to make decisions and experience things that are currently beyond your comprehension. You may examine your mind and actions and find them free of fault and of the highest moral standard but that is because you have yet to encounter the realities of life that make choices seem less clear cut than you would imagine.

    You have within you the seed of what the next generation will call bigotry and prejudice and you wont even know it until some fresh faced youth, their eyes burning with the rage of righteousness, accuses you of being the cause of all the ills of the world. And then you will understand that simply holding an opinion does not make someone right.
  • I'm sorry, but this reads as someone getting defensive because they're part of the problem.

    And as far as the "blame game" goes, I realize that it's very typical to point fingers at the older generations - but this time is different. As I said in the article, never before have there been so many issues, so many potentially catastrophic situations, that are either caused or enhanced by those generations' activity, or often inactivity. This is not just the opinion of a Millennial, it's the opinion of many analysts and pundits that are actually within the very generations receiving the blame - it's a simple mathematical and statistical analysis.

    The rest of your comment was essentially preaching, so I will say only this: my generation will not have the problems of bigotry, ineptness, or general rash stupidity that has been such a problem in the past. You need only look at the behaviors of us and see this: we're the first generation to not be reliant upon our elders for the formation of opinions and beliefs, and we're far better off for it.

    --Kyle
  • tgf44
    Interesting blog, Kyle, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (between the Boomers and Generation X). Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten lots of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009.

    It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. And most analysts now see generations as getting shorter (usually 10-15 years now), partly because of the acceleration of culture. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:

    DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
    Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
    Generation Jones: 1954-1965
    Generation X: 1966-1978
    Generation Y/Millennials: 1979-1993

    Here are some good links about GenJones I found:

    http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ta_Du5K0jk

    http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
  • Thanks for the info - I didn't know there was a Generation Jones, especially since alot of documentation (like Wikipedia, for example) lists them as Boomer->X->Y chronologically.

    In terms of "Boomers", though, what I was referring to was the cultural generation, not necessarily the exact boom in babies, much as Millennials are more culturally defined than by age.

    --Kyle
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