like most people, a significant part of my childhood consisted of old senile farts telling me i have to toughen up cause life is harsh. however, now that i look at it, i dont understand what the fuck they were talking about and i think our generation has it way harder than the previous ones.
most old farts lived either in the USA cold war bloc where they had:
- social democracy (with resources from the global south of course) where you could afford a home on one income with several kids
- post WW2 rebound woke
- post civil rights rebound woke
- sexual liberation (first in their entire bloodline to have an actually enjoyable orgasm)
- easy job market
- easy to find a spouse
- socializing was easy
- abundance of consumer products
old farts in the communist bloc had:
- socialist system with secure housing, free health care, free education
- low misogyny
- got rewarded by the state to have kids in many cases
- easy to get married
- socializing was easy, society was warm and high trust
- generally woke and discouraged antisocial behaviours and fascism
our generation has:
- WORST job market ever seen
- healthcare super expensive
- late stage capitalism pushes for extreme gender division, women and men hate each other so no marriage for most of us
- no sex for most of us either
- everything expensive
- loneliness epidemic
- far right sentiment at its peak
- we are constantly recorded and posted online without our consent
(to be fair most old people lived through sort of war/drafting situation but i will die before i respect the military)
our generation has it way harder because we live in end stage capitalism… what exactly were they warning us about?
I wrote a long thing about it, but I think what I wrote is too much biased by the misleading generational view even with caveats. Instead, I’d say we need to examine the contradictions and the tension that forms from them. One example might be how in the US, more people are living with their parents for longer / later into their life, but this is not well accommodated for culturally, creating a lot of distress and confusion about how to handle it, as well as a certain amount of finger-pointing.