Sliding scale

[mmcirvin]

The strange thing is, though I'm clearly the precise age described in "YOU'RE LOST BETWEEN A BABY BOOMER AND A GEN X'ER IF...", I also remember when I was supposed to be "Generation X". Further evidence that the designation somehow applied to younger people every year for about a decade.

By the way, Yahmdallah's weblog is pretty entertaining. I hope he considers me one of the non-bullying atheists. (I suspect that we aren't actually a minority of atheists; we just don't make a lot of noise about it unless prodded.)

Comments

[bram.livejournal.com]

Yes, we were supposed to be Generation X. Wasn't Douglas Copeland, author of the book of that title, born in 1960? And yes, the age of the group kept going down.

I imagine the central historical forces for my generation (which I consider to be Generation X) to be: growing up we feared nuclear war, but thought as adults we'd party all the time (like there was no tomorrow) in the discos. But when we came into our majority, the cold war ended, while AIDS changed the social scene. So we had a readjustment from expecting short-term fun but no hope long-term, to vice-versa. I think that caused some bitterness in my cohort.

Probably it was easier for the media to understand the trend in terms of fashion. Younger kids emulated the look of their older, embittered peers.

I haven't kept up with recent science fiction. I have no problem with alternate genders in sf or with dystopias--Stapledon would present interesting possibilities in a paragraph or so--but has it gotten to the point where the politics drives the story so much that the story is purely a vehicle?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It depends on the author and the author's mood, actually. The hip stuff was very politicized in the 1960s and '70s; since then things are more varied. I suspect he was reading an anthology with a very political editor.

[jwgh]

This is probably not particularly the time or place to launch into some sort of bizarre atheist rant, but anyway.

My basic take on the issue is that I wasn't raised to believe in God and I don't see any reason why I should, but I don't object if other people do. I mean, I don't think God exists, but I don't insist that I'm right about everything, either, and I recognize that other people probably feel the same way about my nonbelief for similar sorts of reasons.

The only reason why I would at all be tempted to be a really strident atheist is that so many religious people can be so friggin' offensive without apparently any awareness that what they're doing could possibly be considered offensive. But I assume that they are probably a small minority and try to suspend judgment as much as I can. I suspect there are similar web pages out there on the futility of arguing with religious folks, though.

I wondered why Yahmdallah would be arguing with atheists so much, but I see that [gender-neutral pronoun] has a certain amount of information on [gender-neutral possessive pronoun] faith on [gender-neutral possessive pronoun] website, so presumably atheists are sending email to dissent. (I was going to say 'atheists with too much time on their hands', but if this sort of discussion is welcomed then that's not really warrented.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The problem is that there are atheists who seem to go to great lengths to prove that they can be just as annoying as a believer (i think this is the main fuel to the "is atheism a religion" flamewar). I used to be like that when i was in college, but i was generally a punk. There's still a part of me that wants to be a punk, and i have to keep it down because that's not who i am anymore.

I find i can talk to anyone who believes in God if i use "god" as a metaphor for Everything, but only if i keep it "general". If i start getting into details, things break down and start getting nit-picky. I don't find religious people like the ones you describe often, but i'm in California, so i'm guessing that helps a lot.

[jwgh]

Well, keep in mind that I am a bitter little man.

The kind of things I'm thinking about are like the Alabama justice who put up the monument to the Ten Commandments in the state judiciary building. Then, when people objected to this, his supporters explained that it was they who were being offensive, not him. The nerve of those people!

Or, on a smaller level, people (including relatives of mine) who send around religious flong indicating that anyone holding beliefs that I happen to hold must be stupid and misguided. I think, perhaps incorrectly, that these are sent around with the idea that everyone will enjoy reading them because they are so clearly right/funny/touching/inspiring/whatever.

There are certainly obnoxious atheists out there. I think they are probably more self-aware about their obnoxiousness than their religious counterpoints, though. (Not that that makes it better -- in fact, arguably it makes it worse. Which I suppose raises the question of what my point is, but I'm not sure I have one, so I'll have to let that pass.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

THE WEE BITTER MEN, starring you and me!

Religious flong is pretty annoying, but i get it very seldom, and usually it's from my younger cousins, so i set `em straight.

I've been meaning to make an entry about my own spiritual position in metaphysical space, so i should get to that.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

Um, I thought Generation X began in 1960 or 1964 or somewhere around there depending on which hip author or sociologist you spoke to. So how come I'm between the two (as many things on the list I can, like, sooo relate to) when I was born in 1975? YAY! I may be a Baby Boomer! I hear we control the world and always will until we're dead!

I think "they" have finally stopped classifying everyone under 25 (or 30, or 20, or whatever) for whatever the current year is as "Generation X", as I've heard plenty of references to "Generation Y" (HAW HAW... YOU KIDS DON'T GET AN ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED NAME BY THE STUPID MEDIA) or "Millenials" (HAW HAW... YOU KIDS ARE NAMED BY THE TIME YOU WERE RAISED AND NOT ANY ATTRIBUTES OF YOUR GENERATION). I wish people would title these lists more appropriately, like, "I Think I'm Between Generation X and a Baby Boomer Because I Remember All This Crap and Hope Others Do Too So I Can Identify and Feel Validated Dammit!"

You honestly remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON

No-one said that. They may have thought the effects were really swell, but not the BEST EVAR. And besides, everyone knows that we hit the peak of special effects technology with "Jurassic Park". OH NO! I'M IN GENERATION Y NOW! I'M LOST BETWEEN GENERATIONS... SOMEONE GIVE ME A MAP!

You remember running around outside, pointing up in the sky, yelling "Da plane, da plane!!"

Totally. We did that for hours on end instead of playing Little League like those older farts.

-- Schwa ---

And when I'm forty, I'll be lost between a Generation Y'ER and Clone Service Sector Breed #446 because I played "Grand Theft Auto III" and worried when downloading illegal songs and regularly ran around outside, pointing up at the sky, and yelling, "We need Megazord power now!"