Generation-X culture vs Boomer culture

[Higgenbotham]

> These statements I am making are not personal.

Well, with all due respect, in your previous posting you referred to
some person named "John." So yes, I do assume that the statements
you're making are personal.

It's only to the extent that it was necessary to use your name to illustrate that this thread is an excellent microcosm of general Boomer/Xer discourse. And if I recall right, your name was only used in connection with the word "Boomer".

Of course your example was dismissed by this Boomer: Streaking didn't
hurt anyone. It was a college prank, a joke, a publicity stunt, a
form of protest...

Here we go again with the endless dissection. Xers weren't committing financial fraud when they were the same age as the Boomers who were running around naked on college campuses. The Boomers started by running around naked and progressed to streaking through the financial world and the White House. And I would not say that Boomers running around like naked savages didn't hurt anyone, particularly the millions of young Xers who repeatedly saw it on TV, but that can be debated endlessly because there is no concrete answer.

One last thing. This is the entire content of an e-mail I sent to another Xer yesterday regarding some links that contained the market opinions of two Boomers: "I have no way to know if these 2 guys are right. They have both been around the markets for a lot longer than we have and this is what they are saying."

[Trevor]

It's true that most Generation X-ers did not commit fraud and some even tried to blow the whistle on it. However, for the ones that did, they should be punished and punished severely without making any kind of excuse for them. It doesn't matter if they're a CEO, CFO, middle management, or even an ordinary employee. If they screw people over, they suffer the consequences. That includes the bosses who knew and did nothing about it, either because they're idiots or because they benefited from it.

Same thing for Boomers; they should be serving long prison sentences. I'm amazed that so few people have been held accountable in either generation.

It reminds me a little of things I've heard excusing other criminals, like: "It's not his fault; he had a bad childhood/ society made him to it, etc".

[Marc]

I respectfully feel that the personality types and moral dispositions of any generation are not monolithically of a “blanket type,” but would tend to resemble what could be graphically described as a multidimensional bell curve. However, I think that in a strong majority of people, one’s generational membership (Silent, Boomer, X’er, etc.) does tend to significantly leave its mark. As an example regarding myself, I am of the INFP Myers-Briggs personality type, which one would think (who is familiar with Myers-Briggs/Jungian personality types as well as generational theory) might be just perfect for a Prophet or Artist type of person (although maybe not in the business world). Yet, I’d have to say that even though I look at myself as sensitive and social-justice-conscious, I've been “Nomadized” due to so much of what I've had to put up with: that is, a strong mark of “liberty, survival, and honor” has been stamped into me. However, this “Nomad/X’er stamp,” I feel, has value for me, in helping me to pursue “pragtopias” that are politically possible in this politically-gridlocked, super-polarized social/political environment.

I think that more research regarding how the generational archetypes “distribute out,” especially over time and different “Turnings,” would be interesting and valuable to know. —Best regards, Marc

[Trevor]

I actually took a test, just for the hell of it, and it said I belonged to the Silent Generation. It was actually kind of amusing.

[Marc]

I actually took a test, just for the hell of it, and it said I belonged to the Silent Generation. It was actually kind of amusing.

Haha, I took the same test (I believe the same one), and it also had me in the Silent Generation! I believe the John, who also took the same test, stated that if he only had a nose ring or some such thing, this may have helped to put him into a later generation Probably us, too! —Best regards/Cheers, Marc

[Marc]

I will also add that, as one who, like many others, has really felt some bee stings from some pathological managers/people (both Boomers and X'ers) who had vindictive, paranoid, or other pathological personality types, I try to make "lemonade out of lemons" to allow such experiences to refine my theories (including applied theories regarding improvements) in human-resources management and interpersonal relations. In other words: How does one create organizational environments that don't likely allow a worker to be "set up" to get a bad evaluation and unfairly demoted or terminated? How do you create workplace structures that don't allow people to get maliciously overloaded (or maybe even underloaded) as a way to ostracise them and sabotage their jobs? How can an organizational environment be created that has a passion for creativity and a passion for detail, ranging from production to software encoding to customer relations? How do you create friendly work and social environments that make people feel respected, and minimize the chance of disgruntled people? And so on....

Things ranging from not allowing managers to have excessive control over their subordinates (including with training functions); creating interdepartmental work opportunities; having anti-nepotism policies; having "bully-free environments" which are assiduously tended to by key mentors to make sure they stay that way; and even, in many cases, allowing people to be "loose and funky" with the way they dress, can all help. Now, I realize that with the Wall Street financial world, there were likely inexorable forces that would make some of these interventions very difficult to implement. However, in many other organizations/environments, I feel that they can be implemented, even in Third Turnings and the Post-Unraveling portions of Fourth Turnings.

Life can suck, but I feel that we can try our creative, tenacious best to make it unsuck as much as possible, including in our organizational and interpersonal-interaction lives. —Best regards, Marc

[Higgenbotham]

I respectfully feel that the personality types and moral dispositions of any generation are not monolithically of a “blanket type,” but would tend to resemble what could be graphically described as a multidimensional bell curve. However, I think that in a strong majority of people, one’s generational membership (Silent, Boomer, X’er, etc.) does tend to significantly leave its mark.

On an individual basis there would be variability within generations, but it doesn't seem to take a lot of Boomers/Xers "working" together as a group for predictable patterns of group behavior to emerge, and I think that may be especially true at the cusp of a crisis (or near the Fourth Turning catalyst event).

[Marc]

I respectfully feel that the personality types and moral dispositions of any generation are not monolithically of a “blanket type,” but would tend to resemble what could be graphically described as a multidimensional bell curve. However, I think that in a strong majority of people, one’s generational membership (Silent, Boomer, X’er, etc.) does tend to significantly leave its mark.

On an individual basis there would be variability within generations, but it doesn't seem to take a lot of Boomers/Xers "working" together as a group for predictable patterns of group behavior to emerge, and I think that may be especially true at the cusp of a crisis (or near the Fourth Turning catalyst event).

I'd have to agree with this, largely based upon what I've observed at both a "macro" and "micro" level regarding how people interact with each other who have significantly different behavioral/philosophical dispositions. And, given what I know about the "stereotypical Boomer way" and the "stereotypical X'er way," the Boomer/X'er predictable interaction pattern you mention (yes, especially at the saecular point you mention) especially makes sense. Thanks for sharing. —Best regards, Marc

[Trevor]

I admit, I may be millennial, but I sometimes feel like I belong to Generation X, because I have a lot of cynicism about things. I don't put much store by the test, but I considered it fun.

Besides, all generations have something in common: having to prepare for the coming Clash of Civilizations.

[John]

Earlier this year, I had a notable experience in a workplace
situation.

One of the other workers in the office was a girl in her late 20s,
smoking hot. She started smiling at me, waving to me, saying "Hi" in
a breathless voice when we passed in the hall. And she was quite open
about it, smiling and waving when there were other people around.
(All of the people but me were in their 30s and 40s.)

This was causing a big problem for me. My hormones were telling me
one thing, and my mind was telling me something quite different --
that she was playing a game of "Rapo" -- trying to get me to ask her
out or make some other commitment so that she could humiliate me or,
in a worst case scenario, get me fired.
http://www.ericberne.com/games/games_pe ... y_rapo.htm

This went on for a couple of weeks and it was quite disturbing, so I
decided to do something about it. I went over to her desk, making
sure that there were lots of people around who could hear me, and
said, "Would you like to go out for lunch one day next week?"

My strategy here was as follows: Since she had been openly and
repeatedly flirting with me, and everyone knew it, asking her out for
lunch was quite appropriate. Furthermore, since I did it in the open,
there was no real opportunity for her to turn this into some scene
involving humiliation or harassment, which she would have been able to
do if I had tried to ask her out in secret, which I assumed is what
she really wanted. Finally, if she did agree to go out with me, I
would be able to ask her to tell me what the hell was going on. I
still considered it a possibility, though very unlikely, that she had
some non-malevolent purpose in mind, such as asking advice about her
father or something.

Well, her face turned red and she freaked. She sputtered something
about never going out to lunch, and she didn't suggest any
alternative. That's all I needed to hear. I smiled and said "OK" and
walked away. After that, we exchanged an occasional pleasantry, but
the game of Rapo was over, much to my relief. I was pleased that I'd
been able to get through this situation without getting myself in
trouble, and without pissing her off so much that she would have to
take revenge.

Basically, this girl treated me as a buffoon because I was a Boomer.
I recognized it because I've seen it happen to other people, and it's
happened to me online in other ways, as I've described earlier in this
thread. She was not a Gen-Xer, but she shared the Gen-X cultural
philosophy that all Boomers are clowns and idiots that can be
manipulated and humiliated for fun.

One reason that Boomers get into trouble these days is because they're
basically trusting people. They may be arrogant and narcissistic, but
generally they don't try to screw other people just for fun. Thus,
they're basically completely caught by surprise and baffled by
the Gen-X culture, where screwing other people is considered
fun. (See, for example, the Breitling commercial.)

For many Boomers, the first time they ran into this was in their
marriages, where the women adopted the feminist philosophy of using
children as bloody battering rams against their husbands in a divorce
situation. This is exactly the strategy that caused the children to
hate their parents, and by extension all Boomers, so that now in the
2000s they treat all male Boomers as piñatas.

If you're a Boomer male who is getting involved with Gen-X female, you
should generally not believe a word she says, unless your age is
pretty close to hers. If she's more than 10-15 years younger than
you, she might stay with you if you have lots of money, or if she has
no other place to go, but she will never love you. When the time
comes, she'll use false allegations of abuse to get as much money as
she can from you, and to humiliate you as much as possible.

If you're a Boomer, you have very few options if you want to survive
in the Gen-X culture. Boomers value expertise and hard work, but
incredibly this counts against you with Gen-Xers. I first noticed
this in the 1990s. Since I've always worked 50-60 hours per week, I
started getting angry remarks from Gen-Xers who said I shouldn't work
so much. One feminist, complaining that women get paid less than men,
said that you can't work more than 40 hours a week because you never
get anything done after 40 hours, something that's totally absurd.

But your biggest problem is if you're an expert on something,
particularly when you're dealing with Gen-Xers who are truly morons.
If they're in positions of power in a job situation, they'll screw you
and try to get you fired. This is particularly true if they're doing
something illegal, or if they're just incompetent. So if you show
your expertise, you'll be screwed. Being an expert on something isn't
of value to Gen-Xers who wish to glorify their own incompetence.

Boomers have to realize how much things have changed since the 80s and
90s. If you want to survive, you have to understand this change, and
try to do as much as you can to protect yourself from it. You may
have been valued as a human being in the 80s and 90s, but today you're
nothing but today you're a worthless bozo to be manipulated, screwed
with, and taken advantage of -- by people who actually get
satisfaction out of screwing people.