"Moral Narcissism and the Least-Great Generation"

[Faroth]

Refusing to accept the results of studies because they disagree with your misinformed presumptions is a fundamentally irrational position.

You're just straight-up wrong on facts.

Is there a chart comparing the median household to cost of living by chance? I'd be curious to see it.

Making $9k average more today than in the 60s doesn't mean as much if college costs have gone up tenfold, housing costs have quadrupled, cars are 15x more expensive than in 1960.

A loaf of bread cost 22 cents in the 60s where it's about $2 today.


I'm also a bit amused seeing people talk about the article being off comparing WWII and Great Depression to today. Did you guys read the article? He states he's in a mid-step generation between those who saw WWII and the Baby Boomers. "The Least Great Generation" he's talking about his his own.

Some of what he says is spot on, particularly about the "what I say is more important than what I do" and the attention seeking of today. How can it not be? We've built the Internet around "lookit me, lookit me, lookit me" where anyone can be their own star on YouTube. And "words more important than actions"? That's practically the daily approach of Trump's campaign.

[Endus]

Is there a chart comparing the median household to cost of living by chance? I'd be curious to see it.

Making $9k average more today than in the 60s doesn't mean as much if college costs have gone up tenfold, housing costs have quadrupled, cars are 15x more expensive than in 1960.

A loaf of bread cost 22 cents in the 60s where it's about $2 today.

You're conflating cost of living with inflation; the chart for median income was controlled for inflation.

[Faroth]

You're conflating cost of living with inflation; the chart for median income was controlled for inflation.

Chart didn't say anything about doing so, thus thanks for clarifying! Or at least, I overlooked "real median".

Though from what I'm seeing on an inflation calculator, 1960 $40,000 has the same buying power as $320,000 today. :/
That's according to the Beauru of labor statistics. /shrug

[primalmatter]

Production hasn't been "destroyed".

You keep stating things that are just straight-up false.



Oh no, you claimed they were worse. While providing nothing to back that up. You don't get to play this game, now, and not get called out on it.

Lol alright. You caught me. On something you can't prove scientifically one way or the other I could be wrong...

As for production what exactly are you talking about? I am speaking of internal trade and external trade of goods. Are you talking about simply mass gross income?

[Mistame]

Meh. Narcissism makes life so much simpler.

[Endus]

Chart didn't say anything about doing so, thus thanks for clarifying! Or at least, I overlooked "real median".

Though from what I'm seeing on an inflation calculator, 1960 $40,000 has the same buying power as $320,000 today. :/
That's according to the Beauru of labor statistics. /shrug

See the part in the title that says "In 2009 dollars"? That's where it says it's controlled for inflation.

Lol alright. You caught me. On something you can't prove scientifically one way or the other I could be wrong...

As for production what exactly are you talking about? I am speaking of internal trade and external trade of goods. Are you talking about simply mass gross income?

There's no measure that I'm aware of that shows a decline in productivity, in the USA.



GDP per capita is a pretty standard measure, because the per-capita means that population growth doesn't skew it at all. It's been increasing pretty steadily since your supposed "golden age". Beyond that blip around 2010, due to the recession, when it's continued upwards from that point.

If you mean a loss of manufacturing jobs, specifically, that's not a negative. The USA (and the entire Western world, really) is shifting from a service-based economy into a knowledge-based economy, currently. A manufacturing-based economy is a stage they have all evolved past, because it's just a stepping stone to more productive economic systems. You may as well complain that there aren't enough people working in the agricultural sector.

[hydrium]

It's also called virtue signalling.

[Garnier Fructis]

A giant mess of nostalgia, hand-waving and buzzwords. Our standards for 'insightful' have really dropped.

[Faroth]

A giant mess of nostalgia, hand-waving and buzzwords. Our standards for 'insightful' have really dropped.

"My generation was stupid and screwed things up" = nostalgia and hand-waving now?

Like half the article he's talking smack on his own generation and the things he/they did.

[Garnier Fructis]

"My generation was stupid and screwed things up" = nostalgia and hand-waving now?

Like half the article he's talking smack on his own generation and the things he/they did.

No, the hand-waving is that he never goes into any real specifics, and the nostalgia is the 'look at how great the past generations were.'

[primalmatter]

No, the hand-waving is that he never goes into any real specifics, and the nostalgia is the 'look at how great the past generations were.'

Who is saying that?

[Garnier Fructis]

Who is saying that?

Nostalgia is basically the punchline of the whole first two paragraphs, for example.

[primalmatter]

See the part in the title that says "In 2009 dollars"? That's where it says it's controlled for inflation.



There's no measure that I'm aware of that shows a decline in productivity, in the USA.



GDP per capita is a pretty standard measure, because the per-capita means that population growth doesn't skew it at all. It's been increasing pretty steadily since your supposed "golden age". Beyond that blip around 2010, due to the recession, when it's continued upwards from that point.

If you mean a loss of manufacturing jobs, specifically, that's not a negative. The USA (and the entire Western world, really) is shifting from a service-based economy into a knowledge-based economy, currently. A manufacturing-based economy is a stage they have all evolved past, because it's just a stepping stone to more productive economic systems. You may as well complain that there aren't enough people working in the agricultural sector.

Yet that increase has not helped the average person but rather widened a already large divide. If we are to continue on that path we are in dire need of socialist changes to help support it. However any of the current leanings towards that are heavily inspired by Marxism and doomed to fail.

We are being forth two different points and trying to talk past each other.

[Sky High]

alright, I mean I'm not really going to take a baby boomers assessment of my generations entitlement with anything but a smirk and a scoff.

[Endus]

Yet that increase has not helped the average person but rather widened a already large divide.

You keep saying things that you have provided nothing to back up, and which fly in the face of all the data we have available.

If we are to continue on that path we are in dire need of socialist changes to help support it. However any of the current leanings towards that are heavily inspired by Marxism and doomed to fail.

And this is McCarthyist fearmongering, without any actual content to speak of.

[primalmatter]

You keep saying things that you have provided nothing to back up, and which fly in the face of all the data we have available.



And this is McCarthyist fearmongering, without any actual content to speak of.

Sure Endus why not? I am not really invested enough to write a essay with a half dozen sources in what I suspect would be a ultimately futile effort to convince you of anything outside of your belief structure.

There is a limit to what I am willing to invest in forum banter and honestly its not much.

[Endus]

Sure Endus why not? I am not really invested enough to write a essay with a half dozen sources in what I suspect would be a ultimately futile effort to convince you of anything outside of your belief structure.

What?

You've provided no sources. You've just bloviated about stuff that is easily demonstrated to be factually incorrect.

[SodiumChloride]

I agree with his assessment of the authoritarian (there is nothing liberal about them) left and their quest for social justice.

IMHO most of it is self-serving. So they can can feel good about themselves.

As religion (and the religious right) declines, the people who would normally get indoctrinated by said religions are now being indoctrinated by new age mumbo-jumbo. Possessing the same self-righteous attitudes that the religious devotees did.

Same car, different paint job.

[DeadmanWalking]

The greatest generation were the ones who fought in WWII, of which they are mostly dead or in old age homes removed from society. The Author is essentially a baby boomer.

For one, this article is a wonderfully worded opinion, and like assholes everyone has one and they all smell the same, even my own. Just because you agree with his opinion as it matches your own about his generation doesn't make it a universal truth.

That being said I think Millenials and Baby Boomers go for each others throats a little too much and too often over the dumbest blown out of porportion shit. I am Gen X, raised by Baby Boomers, Grandparented by the Greatest Generation and raising a kid who may be part of the millenial generation or something new. Had millenials been given the chance to work for a company for 45 years and get retirement paid for they would jump for the opportunity but they are not so they blame Boomers for being greedy. Millenials don't have the job opportunities that even Gen X had at a young age due to shipping out of the country and the Boomers call them entitled and lazy.

I understand why Millenials behave the way they do, most of the jobs above restaurant work are sent off to china, jobs with benefits and double min wage pay are gone. They have to live with parents to make it work and don't have the same responsibilities as 18 year olds from previous generations who moved out at 18 and got their own places. Less responsibilities means arrested development. My brother is a millenial and he at age 30 just got his first house and married, started a career. I had all that at 20, I have owned property for 20 years and I am 20 years ahead of him even though I am only 10 years older. It doesn't mean he is a shitty millenial, those are the opportunities that were open to him. He didn't have a family at 20 so he could party til 30.

the way of life has changed, Boomers are aging and have a hard time grasping that the world has changed. '30 is the new 20' is all too true, not because they refused to grow up but because Millenials didn't have the same opportunities at 18 that boomers had, namely production jobs with benefits. Use to be only teens worked in fast food, now the median age is 30 because that is what t he jobs for unskilled workers are besides road work.

Politicians now say 'We will make jobs that can't be shipped over seas', which means road construction and feeding the people who live here. Any politician who says they are bringing the jobs back are full of shit and blowing smoke up your ass, you should run from them as fast as possible. Companies dont want to pay american wages and benefits, in fact it is cheaper to make it in china and ship it back to the states across half the planet than it is to produce it here and sell it here. Those jobs are never coming back, ever.

[Powerogue]

This is a narcissism of political and social thought, a narcissism that evolved as religion declined, a narcissism of ideas and attitudes, a narcissism of “I know best,” of “I believe therefore I am.” It is our identity tied up inextricably to our belief system in a way that brooks no examination. It is a narcissism of groupthink that makes you assume you are better than you are because you have the same received and conventional ideas as your peers

--------------

Not only are we good. We are the best, and therefore we can do anything we wish. We have permission. Moral narcissism is the ultimate “Get out of jail free” card in a real-life Monopoly game. No matter what you do, if you have the right opinions, if you say the right things to the right people, you’re exempt from punishment. People will remember your pronouncements, not your actions."

In that sense it never really left. Religion is equally, if not more narcissistic, just tack "...because god says so" onto the end of all those statements.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, and we humans like to feel important.