The myth of the entitled, self absorbed, loafing generation.

[tunalegs]

Ran across this article which points out that the myth of the selfish, entitled younger generation is one which has been repeated through the ages: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/me-generation-time/65054/

It turns out that young people have always been selfish, and old people have always thought anybody younger than them doesn't do anything ever. 🙂

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[okto]

Also, as one of the "selfish, entitled younger generation", it's because the freakonomics of our childhoods set our expectations unreasonably high, and the inevitable economic downturn that followed it (exacerbated by the RIDICULOUS wars we've been fighting literally my entire adult life) means that there are fewer good jobs available, and those mostly go to people with connections. We're all in massive student loan debt and the jobs that can pay those loans off just aren't there.

We deeply resent insinuations that we're lazy or unmotivated. We would go get better jobs if there were any. We want to do stuff with as much or more fervor than any generation before us, but we came of age into the deepest economic hole in the past 50 years.

Don't judge us until you look into what's actually involved in supporting yourself in a recession with student debt you may never be able to pay off.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Read Chavs, The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones, published last May (2012). It ain't just the young who are demonized.

See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Demonization-Working-Owen-Jones/dp/1844678644

Cheers,

R.

 

[pdh]

but if everyone took a rational view of youth and the young, what would angry bitter old men on camera forums have to moan about instead?

hmm ... come to think about it, I'm sure they'd find something ...

 

[RichL]

Also, as one of the "selfish, entitled younger generation", it's because the freakonomics of our childhoods set our expectations unreasonably high, and the inevitable economic downturn that followed it (exacerbated by the RIDICULOUS wars we've been fighting literally my entire adult life) means that there are fewer good jobs available, and those mostly go to people with connections. We're all in massive student loan debt and the jobs that can pay those loans off just aren't there.

We deeply resent insinuations that we're lazy or unmotivated. We would go get better jobs if there were any. We want to do stuff with as much or more fervor than any generation before us, but we came of age into the deepest economic hole in the past 50 years.

Don't judge us until you look into what's actually involved in supporting yourself in a recession with student debt you may never be able to pay off.

I hear ya. My son has an excellent job and it is still going to take him at least half his working life to pay his student loans off.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

I'm 52 and live in the UK. When I was at secondary school, there were far fewer "Universities" than there are today - mainly because most "Polytechnics / Colleges of Further Education" subsequently morphed into Universities, swelling the number of degree courses available. About the same time (late 70s / early 80s) the UK government oversaw the dismantling and destruction of the lion's share of the UKs manufacturing base and sold off all the public utilities to the highest bidders. The new profiteering owners reduced expenses (laid off as many staff) as much as they could. Apprenticeships became virtually extinct and student populations exploded as kids who would have gone to "further" education went to "University". As a result of the need for them / their families to fund this further study period, tuition fees also ballooned. Worse still, as mentioned above, the jobs / industries that would have soaked up this supply of fresh meat no longer exist - otr exist in such a reduced capacity as to be of little use. "Be entrepreneurial" calls our government. "With what?" we all ask - just as the banks go belly up and the tax payer has to bail them out. OK, I'm exaggerating aslightly to highlight the point but it does seem to me that we've been living in a false economy for a long time and students / youngsters are caught up in it as much as the rest of us. One economist (can't remember the chap's name) said recently that the generation about to reach working age is the first for hundreds of years that will "enjoy" a worse standard of living than its parents did. It's a sobering and not very pleasant thought....

 

[shadowfox]

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.

- Ecclesiastes 1 (The Bible)

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sounds better in the Authorized Version!

Cheers,

R.

 

[jim sparx]

"It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us to reproduce it—just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words and casts up the same astonished beings on the same sea-shore."
Camus