In defense of my idiot generation
Young people are dumb. We have been judged as such by the oh-so-in-love-with-themselves-boomers because we are reading Twilight over the erotic diaries of Anais Nin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030501541.html
If you had choose between my thirteen year old niece’s favorite book or a woman who writes about getting it on with everything and kind-of looks like Hillary Clinton, who are you going with? I’ll take the Buffy knock-off. As Jane Austen once said: it is a truth universally acknowledged that no one wants to read about ugly people doing it. She may not have been a Beatnik, but Jane sure had good things to say.
Saying young people are dumb is reverse-ageism. Anyone with half a brain would just come right out and say people are dumb and not limit it to an age bracket. Boomers are all the people in charge or working for the (inept) Federal government. They are corrupt and irritating and don’t understand why we Gen-Yers need 500 friends on Facebook (for the record, I don’t understand this either). You are dumb, Boomers. We’re rubber and you’re glue.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “God forbid we should ever be twenty years without a rebellion.” It is natural for each succeeding generation to take for granted or outright reject “the good old days.” In TJ’s twilight years, he lamented the loss of the sprirt of 1776. Young people just couldn’t comprehend how he and his buddies changed the world. Mr. Charles in turn is lamenting the lost fervour over devouring bizzare sexual memoirs. This is progress.
Despite TJ’s whines, the early 19th century brought prosperity on the whole, a growing abolition movement and an end to the slave trade. Flash forward to 2009,our juvenille literature tastes notwithstanding, and we are continuing to get better. Gum acutally fights cavities. We live longer, eat better, and can still rally around a cause like the best of the boomers (it just helps if Beyonce and Jay-Z are there or if you get a free T-shirt). There are young crazy liberals out there doing crazy liberal things like fighting “the establishment”. It’s just harder to pick them out now that chunky glasses are mainstream.
Slowly but surely, we trudge forward. In a way. Of sorts. But we’re not dumb. I object. Anyone who picks up Harry and Hermoine over Germaine Greer isn’t an idiot. Our tastes have evolved, and in the literary match-up of of Ms. Granger and Ms. Greer, for the better.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030501541.html
If you had choose between my thirteen year old niece’s favorite book or a woman who writes about getting it on with everything and kind-of looks like Hillary Clinton, who are you going with? I’ll take the Buffy knock-off. As Jane Austen once said: it is a truth universally acknowledged that no one wants to read about ugly people doing it. She may not have been a Beatnik, but Jane sure had good things to say.
Saying young people are dumb is reverse-ageism. Anyone with half a brain would just come right out and say people are dumb and not limit it to an age bracket. Boomers are all the people in charge or working for the (inept) Federal government. They are corrupt and irritating and don’t understand why we Gen-Yers need 500 friends on Facebook (for the record, I don’t understand this either). You are dumb, Boomers. We’re rubber and you’re glue.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “God forbid we should ever be twenty years without a rebellion.” It is natural for each succeeding generation to take for granted or outright reject “the good old days.” In TJ’s twilight years, he lamented the loss of the sprirt of 1776. Young people just couldn’t comprehend how he and his buddies changed the world. Mr. Charles in turn is lamenting the lost fervour over devouring bizzare sexual memoirs. This is progress.
Despite TJ’s whines, the early 19th century brought prosperity on the whole, a growing abolition movement and an end to the slave trade. Flash forward to 2009,our juvenille literature tastes notwithstanding, and we are continuing to get better. Gum acutally fights cavities. We live longer, eat better, and can still rally around a cause like the best of the boomers (it just helps if Beyonce and Jay-Z are there or if you get a free T-shirt). There are young crazy liberals out there doing crazy liberal things like fighting “the establishment”. It’s just harder to pick them out now that chunky glasses are mainstream.
Slowly but surely, we trudge forward. In a way. Of sorts. But we’re not dumb. I object. Anyone who picks up Harry and Hermoine over Germaine Greer isn’t an idiot. Our tastes have evolved, and in the literary match-up of of Ms. Granger and Ms. Greer, for the better.
Comments
As a whole, the Boomers are the wealthiest, most comfortable generation in modern history, but all you hear from them is "ME ME ME, I'm more important than you, my 401(k) is down, wahhhhhh!"
Personally, I have no doubt that "Twilight" is junk. But the books Ron Charles chooses to canonize are mostly junk, too. Most books read by most people are mostly junk; it's just a fact of life. But if "Twilight" is getting teenie-boppers to read instead of screw around on Facebook, it's OK in MY book.
And if "Twilight" had some left-wing political tinge to it, Ron Charles would be singing its praises.