So, as time goes by, each generation advances, grows up, and experiences new things that put them in a different demographic or category. Our experiences of the world change, just as the world changes, and technologies we use to relate to each other change. But, I'm curious to know if generational differences have a real, significant impact on how we understand and communicate with each other? Does it matter in some contexts but not others? Which ones? Have generational differences affected you in any way, at work, school, friendships, etc.? Are you noticing significant differences among generations and how they approach work or life that you never noticed before?
Just synthesising a number of thoughts following on from the discussion so far ....
I have a very strong visceral resistance to the typecasting that generational classification labels force upon people. There's a whiff of something very wrong about it, because we then go on to talk about individual people we know as though they are representative of their generational lable, as though it defines them. There's a hint of stereotyping dehumanisation about it, and we just cannot treat individuals in each of these age groups as though the classifications were valid for them. They are generalisations at best.
Of course people are very different as they age - our mental attitudes change as we grow older, and we gain experience all the time. That's bound to affect the way folks of different ages interact - we see this most clearly in the way adults interact with young children and the way children of different ages behave with each other. Curiously though, unless folks are being extra specially polite to me, these differences seem to matter so much less here in the forum (I'm nearly 72), and a lot of the time I'm unaware of the ages of the people I'm talking to
I'm British not American so I guess the experience of people of my generation here will be different to those over the pond. Britiain was left in a pretty austere state after WW2, and didn't become noticeably affluent until into the 1960s. As a child, we had no central heating, no double glazing, no car, no television, no telephone, no fridge or freezer, no vacuum cleaner - and today's mobile phones or the internet or personal computers would have looked like something out of a rather unbelievable science fiction story. Foreign holidays were only for the very wealthy in those days. In winter, it was only practical to live in my parents' kitchen during the daytime because that was the only room with a fire. Most young people today are brought up with many of these things and take them for granted as I do now, but if I put myself back into the 1950s they make the current world seem privileged beyond measure. It was before medical care had advanced as far as it has today, and all childern caught measles and other nasties. There were often outbreaks of polio, diptheria, smallpox, etc, that were very frightening though only measles was widespread, but fear of illness was much greater then - those diseases are rare now compared with the 1950s. My generation was young and impressionable as well right at the heart of the cold war - when I was in my early teens I went off to school more than once wondering if I'd seen my family for the last time and if we'd all be radioactive waste by the end of the day - particularly at the time of the Cuba missile crisis. In the UK, we'd only have got 4 minutes warning of a nuclear attack and we all thought it was much more likely to happen than not, so there was a constant backdrop of fear.
As I got older and into my late teens, we too looked askance at the older generations. They were the folks who trashed the world in two world wars after all, and some of them clung to Victorian values that seemed irrelevant to the then modern world. I think this has nothing to do with specific named generations and everything to do with the natural cyclic processes of the world moving on. In general, young people will always have rather less than older people and resent them for it - the older one have had longer to accumulate wealth, and have had a lifetime to occupy the positions of power and control in society. But younger folks have more time left than us older ones so the world is always going to be yours before long - all too quickly in fact, because time doesn't stop. It was like that for us and it will be like that for younger folks today. On the other hand, this is where generational typecasting can be pernicious because although there are older people who have accumulated wealth and power and some of us misuse them, in my country there are lots of people of my generation who live in near poverty - on very low incomes, with no assets and in rented accommodation. Many are invisible too, unnoticed and locked out of the social world and terribly lonely as the people they know and love die off or become infirm. Some of us have enought to live on OK, but are not wealthy and often on fixed incomes that can be destroyed quickly by inflation. Many of us who are reasonably comfortably off don't hoard it but give help to our children and grandchildren with things like house purchases, childcare, practical and emotional support - and we provide an escape haven for them if things go wrong in their lives, as they help us out when we become too old and frail to live unaided.
I hear people saying that the older generation has ruined the world that they have to live in. I think this is the application of a flawed moral judgement without an effort to understand where the world is and how it's got here. For example, I have no doubt that some environmental damage is caused by greed, but on the other hand it's the so-called damaging technologies that have allowed so many people to live materially secure and relatively fulfilling lives in many parts of the world - compared with our Victorian ancestors for example. The world could not sustain the numbers of people alive today, and many of us living far better than we did in the 1950s, without those technologies. Their global environmental impact was not at all easy to predict 50, 60 or 70 years ago, and they saved many, many lives long before they threatened to harm them. Indeed, lots of people alive today would not be here without the technology that we are increasingly concerned about, and that gift of life was given to us by past generations.
If the human race is up to the challenge then I believe it's not to regret the benefits that the last century has brought through technology. I think a good attitude is to see it in a postive light as making lives more secure and comfortable, but now the very real big risks and problems arising from it have to be addressed. We have accumulated decades of insight and hindsight from the science and the technology, and we can use where we are as a stepping stone to a more sustainable future, one that sits in balance with the Earth and its ecology. My generation had to deal with the aftermath of what was passed on to us by the World War generations, and that was no less challenging than what the world faces today - just different. Every generation is faced with a crisis of living - I feel that there is great hope for the future in the fierce desire younger people have to solve our present day problems, but the solutions must come from the younger generations, not the older ones because that's where the energy for change lies. The future is yours and the mistakes are now yours to make or to avoid - the path is going to be messy and full of controversy, as well as fulfilling and hopefully successful, but that's just the way life has always been
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