I think this happened when everything became a commodity and everyone fell for the lie that as long as we continue to produce and consume then nothing could take away the bright future.
So we all bought into private pensions and sunk savings into gambling on house price rises forever. We stopped looking at the roots of a strong society and were dazzled by the bright shining things the market dangled before us.
Exactly right. The dazzling things worked — that's the honest answer. And by the time anyone looked up from the shining things, the roots had quietly gone. Well put.
I’m not in the UK, but your list of failing institutions in which we once placed faith struck a cord. I am beyond 67 (let’s leave it at that) and have no defense except that old tired metaphor about the frog in water that eventually boils.
The voices that actually explained the consequences of our actions were few and far between. In our country, it is about getting reelected. After the first term, the politician belongs to the highest bidder and the upstarts have no chance against the money machine that keeps things the same or gradually sells them out to their pet interests.
I’m not making excuses; I’m trying to actually think it through. It’s only in the last decade of my life that I have come to understand economic policies or cultural foundations with a wide enough perspective to see where it began to go wrong. I frankly did not have the wherewithal to find out what was really happening in any depth when I was much younger. I was working, raising children - all while in the pot of water that was slowly getting hotter and hotter. I honestly wish I had paid more attention. That would have resulted in a better outcome for my children.
This article is humble and wise and honest, and I appreciate it.
That's actually what I miss most in that generation. Celebrating yourself for your achievements is one thing. But have you tried accountability for your actions?... for your decades of voting for parties that only catered to this generation as if there is no tomorrow. You feel like this wasn't within your power? Well you had the power to vote. And you voted for something because YOUR pension is save, the economy was ok back then, the houses where affordable...
I have a vote in the same way I have a bucket of water for watering a field of farmland. I don't get to actually spread the water. All I can do is select the representative who claims he or she will spread the water on the crops I want to support. The idea is that the representative will put the reservoir of water - collected bucket by bucket from constituents - to the use he or she claimed they would if the voters would just trust them to do so.
This is the point of failure. With the representation, not with the voters. It's a violation of trust that isn't immediately obvious in the way someone might borrow your car then sell it out from under you. We voted then returned to putting our shoulders to the wheel, paying our taxes and obeying the laws while trusting our representatives would water the crops we thought were important.
But they didn't do that. We wanted wheat, they planted marijuana. We wanted fiscal responsibility, they siphoned money to cronies and pet projects. We wanted accountability, they engineered obscurity, obfuscation, and corruption.
So here we are. Now fully aware of the violation of trust and yet incapable of comprehending the depth and breadth of the violation. Each of us with our allotted bucket of water and wondering which representative is most likely to toss it onto the biggest wildfire.
That's a genuinely good metaphor. The gap between what you think you're voting for and what actually gets planted is the whole story. Wheat, marijuana, and a steadily shrinking bucket.
You're not wrong. And I guess in the UK, with a 2 party System it's like in the US a vote between the better of 2 evils. Should people have started to protest or riot? To demand more while they are doing fine? I can't say. As someone from a younger generation, all I'm asking for is to stay humble before judging the struggles of other generations. You've did you fair share of good things, but own up to your shortcomings. Because your shortcomings are our burden.
"As someone from a younger generation, all I'm asking for is to stay humble before judging the struggles of other generations. You've did you fair share of good things, but own up to your shortcomings. Because your shortcomings are our burden."
The human condition.
As someone from an older generation, all I'm asking for is the same thing. It's a planet filled with flawed human beings, each in their own way and for their own reasons clambering for status and power. That's over 8 billion flawed human beings passing along their shortcomings to the next generation to deal with - a process that's probably been in play for 3 million years. Acknowledging this as a tenet of human nature goes a long way to building resilience when faced with adversity, regardless the origins.
As shortcomings go, the burden my generation passed along to younger generations pales in comparison to the burden passed along to us - 85 million dead after 6 years of world war and mass famine born from idiotic diplomacy, delusional quests for centralized control, and utter disregard for human agency. As a result, I grew up under the very real threat of nuclear holocaust. The Berlin wall, backyard bomb shelters, Cuban missile crisis - it's a long list of extensional threats. Perhaps we worked through this because of another tenet of human nature - each side believed the other side loved their children too.
Tribal hate is once again on the rise, fomented by academia and hyper-news cycles and supported by vacuous virtue signaling and luxury beliefs. I've come to the belief that the most significant shortcomings we may have passed along are those of comfort and abundance.
Hard to argue with the voting record. I can't. The piece wasn't a defence — just an attempt to name what happened without looking away. The verdict you've outlined isn't wrong, Kim.
This is why the Boomers are a despised generation. Sure they worked hard - but you didn't have to become an international entrepreneur just to own a home - basic stuff.
I'm 40 - I've basically spent my life paying rent to low IQ boomers who - if they were born in my generation - would be living with their parents or in their car.
Instead they have 5 homes and quite literally live off the backs of the young.
I think this happened when everything became a commodity and everyone fell for the lie that as long as we continue to produce and consume then nothing could take away the bright future.
So we all bought into private pensions and sunk savings into gambling on house price rises forever. We stopped looking at the roots of a strong society and were dazzled by the bright shining things the market dangled before us.
Exactly right. The dazzling things worked — that's the honest answer. And by the time anyone looked up from the shining things, the roots had quietly gone. Well put.
I’m not in the UK, but your list of failing institutions in which we once placed faith struck a cord. I am beyond 67 (let’s leave it at that) and have no defense except that old tired metaphor about the frog in water that eventually boils.
The voices that actually explained the consequences of our actions were few and far between. In our country, it is about getting reelected. After the first term, the politician belongs to the highest bidder and the upstarts have no chance against the money machine that keeps things the same or gradually sells them out to their pet interests.
I’m not making excuses; I’m trying to actually think it through. It’s only in the last decade of my life that I have come to understand economic policies or cultural foundations with a wide enough perspective to see where it began to go wrong. I frankly did not have the wherewithal to find out what was really happening in any depth when I was much younger. I was working, raising children - all while in the pot of water that was slowly getting hotter and hotter. I honestly wish I had paid more attention. That would have resulted in a better outcome for my children.
This article is humble and wise and honest, and I appreciate it.
That's actually what I miss most in that generation. Celebrating yourself for your achievements is one thing. But have you tried accountability for your actions?... for your decades of voting for parties that only catered to this generation as if there is no tomorrow. You feel like this wasn't within your power? Well you had the power to vote. And you voted for something because YOUR pension is save, the economy was ok back then, the houses where affordable...
I have a vote in the same way I have a bucket of water for watering a field of farmland. I don't get to actually spread the water. All I can do is select the representative who claims he or she will spread the water on the crops I want to support. The idea is that the representative will put the reservoir of water - collected bucket by bucket from constituents - to the use he or she claimed they would if the voters would just trust them to do so.
This is the point of failure. With the representation, not with the voters. It's a violation of trust that isn't immediately obvious in the way someone might borrow your car then sell it out from under you. We voted then returned to putting our shoulders to the wheel, paying our taxes and obeying the laws while trusting our representatives would water the crops we thought were important.
But they didn't do that. We wanted wheat, they planted marijuana. We wanted fiscal responsibility, they siphoned money to cronies and pet projects. We wanted accountability, they engineered obscurity, obfuscation, and corruption.
So here we are. Now fully aware of the violation of trust and yet incapable of comprehending the depth and breadth of the violation. Each of us with our allotted bucket of water and wondering which representative is most likely to toss it onto the biggest wildfire.
That's a genuinely good metaphor. The gap between what you think you're voting for and what actually gets planted is the whole story. Wheat, marijuana, and a steadily shrinking bucket.
Indeed, some people's buckets are bigger than others. Or rather, some people can afford to *purchase* bigger buckets than other people.
You're not wrong. And I guess in the UK, with a 2 party System it's like in the US a vote between the better of 2 evils. Should people have started to protest or riot? To demand more while they are doing fine? I can't say. As someone from a younger generation, all I'm asking for is to stay humble before judging the struggles of other generations. You've did you fair share of good things, but own up to your shortcomings. Because your shortcomings are our burden.
"As someone from a younger generation, all I'm asking for is to stay humble before judging the struggles of other generations. You've did you fair share of good things, but own up to your shortcomings. Because your shortcomings are our burden."
The human condition.
As someone from an older generation, all I'm asking for is the same thing. It's a planet filled with flawed human beings, each in their own way and for their own reasons clambering for status and power. That's over 8 billion flawed human beings passing along their shortcomings to the next generation to deal with - a process that's probably been in play for 3 million years. Acknowledging this as a tenet of human nature goes a long way to building resilience when faced with adversity, regardless the origins.
As shortcomings go, the burden my generation passed along to younger generations pales in comparison to the burden passed along to us - 85 million dead after 6 years of world war and mass famine born from idiotic diplomacy, delusional quests for centralized control, and utter disregard for human agency. As a result, I grew up under the very real threat of nuclear holocaust. The Berlin wall, backyard bomb shelters, Cuban missile crisis - it's a long list of extensional threats. Perhaps we worked through this because of another tenet of human nature - each side believed the other side loved their children too.
Tribal hate is once again on the rise, fomented by academia and hyper-news cycles and supported by vacuous virtue signaling and luxury beliefs. I've come to the belief that the most significant shortcomings we may have passed along are those of comfort and abundance.
Hard to argue with the voting record. I can't. The piece wasn't a defence — just an attempt to name what happened without looking away. The verdict you've outlined isn't wrong, Kim.
Lost me Kim- thats my point we had it and voted it away.
This is why the Boomers are a despised generation. Sure they worked hard - but you didn't have to become an international entrepreneur just to own a home - basic stuff.
I'm 40 - I've basically spent my life paying rent to low IQ boomers who - if they were born in my generation - would be living with their parents or in their car.
Instead they have 5 homes and quite literally live off the backs of the young.