Summary
With Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, young Gen Z voters like Kate, Holly, and Rachel are grappling with deepening divides with their Trump-supporting parents.
For many, these conflicts go beyond policy disagreements, touching on core values and morality. Parents once focused on fiscal conservatism have, in some cases, embraced conspiracy theories, creating painful rifts.
Studies suggest political divisions are increasingly seen as moral judgments, fostering a “mega-identity” where political views signify personal decency.
For these young adults, maintaining family connections amidst such ideological fractures has become challenging.
This is what we’re going through with my in laws right now.
Same here
This unfortunately, for real
Relatable
Parents? My friend volunteered as a poll worker on the University campus here. At his location, 25% of the students voted for the orange fascist.
I am not entirely sure tour campus changes what this article is stating.
I say this, as a parent, to people who worry about cutting off their parents if their parents are toxic people:
You owe your parents nothing. You did not ask to be born. They owe you everything. That’s their duty.
Not too strange of a phenomenon if one considers what populism focuses on, the fabrication of divides in order to drive tribal responses from it’s followers.Trump’s rhetoric is only one variety of it that happens to be very effective at creating that divide, those that are swayed shouldn’t really be seen as people that support all of his nastiest views, but as people that have been taken in by that sense of tribalism.
The loss of community is increasingly problematic for individuals in this day in age. There exists too many groups vying for our attention, many of which being communities that span across the globe. And with all these options, local communities may not always seem preferential to these global ones due to comparative size or accessibility. However, they still generally offer much more, and can prevent people from feeling isolated in their lives. Populist campaigns seek to take these people that are divorced from a community, often socially isolated people, and give them a group that seemingly supports them. So long as it’s welcoming, it doesn’t really matter who’s at the head of it, nor it’s beliefs.
I feel the fact that older people that aren’t quite retirement age and younger men being the people that are most likely to vote for Trump kinda speaks to this theory. I feel like these groups are the most at risk when it comes to developing rewarding communities, so a group like MAGA could be appealing to them.
According to everything I’ve read, Trump was voted in by every demographic in swing states and even non-swing states.
I know that it’s a instinctive flex to dump on boomers (with good reason) but this calls for a bit more of a deeper analysis.
Fuentes, Gaetz, MTG, Miller, Boebert, Lake – none of these people are boomers. GenX at most and a lot of millennials. A quick glance through the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Leaders of the Radical Right show a lot in their 30s and 40s. Boomers vote and spend money, but they’re largely too old to be activists in the traditional sense.
The far right recruited young people online in the ‘00s and ‘10s. Gamer gate was when it broke containment. That was men my age (30) and a bit older and younger
Girls say they won’t let guys smash like they used to also. Fuck it. Pour on the punishments at this point. The more the better. Boomers can pay, young bros can pay. We’re all going to suffer once those tariffs start. Let’s channel that frustration.
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Dump your family. If this is how they’re gonna behave they don’t deserve you.
Also get them the shitty nursing home.
Nursing home? They can figure that out on their own or they can eat shit. I’m not doing anything for those fucking Nazis anymore.
First make sure you’re not in one of the 30 states with Filial Responsibility laws. From that site: ”Filial responsibility laws impose a legal obligation on adult children to take care of their parents’ basic needs and medical care.”
Every state’s laws are different and some states have never enforced them, but it’s definitely something to be aware of. It also might be a good idea to start keeping records/documentation of fights in case you need to argue such a law some day.
They ain’t gonna have any social security to pay for it. Guess they will have to be old street bums.
Yeah, they need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. If they wanted to retire, they should have saved enough dollars to afford dignity in old age.
Also get them the shitty nursing home.
Most nursing homes are shitty, tbf. Just leave them there and don’t come back for visits
Don’t put them in a home, that just burns money. Let them live out their fully self sufficient dream and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
There’s plenty of really nice nursing homes in the USA … they’re just charge thousands of dollars a month and kick you out if you can’t pay.
I’m skipping Thanksgiving
Same. And Christmas. And I feel no guilt.
Same. With my in-laws at least. Christmas is up in the air.
I’m not young anymore but I would say that I’ll never forgive my parents for their blind support of this shit.
The same people who have the nerve to tell you (fakely) they’re proud of you and think you’re really smart. But somehow I’m wrong about every single thing I’ve told them about trump for 9 years now
Same. It’s like you give them a situation, a fact, and how it applies. You ask for understanding and it’s " maaaa maaaa MAGA! SHE TURNED BLACK SHE SLEPT HER WAY TO THE TOP"
But yeah, MY sources are wrong, and biased.
Right. I think my dad especially has the attitude that it’s a) not really important enough to talk about and b) he gave up on the concept of him being wrong decades ago. He just couldn’t be, so yes my sources are obviously all wrong. Any implication that he is wrong is unacceptable to his fragile ego. So fucking weak.
Wait, your shitty, morally decrepit parents told you they were proud of you?
I only got the shitty, morally decrepit part and didn’t get the supportive part. Mine just wanted me to be their clone.
I mean same here. Just because every couple years they pretend to be proud for a moment doesn’t mean I ever believed them.
Guess they saw somebody on TV say it to a kid once or something.
I guess. Or maybe their parents literally never told them, so they think just saying it very occasionally is a great parenting move, despite never backing it with any action or attitude
In our family, we just don’t talk about politics or any subject that could remotely be interpreted as political (yes, the subjects we actually talk about are very limited). The alternative is that we can’t spend time together and they wouldn’t see their grandkids. Not ideal, but it works for the time being.
Don’t expose your kids to toxic hate, it is your duty to protect them.
Which is why any political talk or anything resembling politics is banned. I won’t hesitate to block access if it happens.
“conspiracy theories” like White People are The Genetic Master Race , Black People Haven’t Ever Invented Anything As Far As I know, Political Disagreements Of Any Kind Only Began After We Let Women Vote , Racial Equality is a Communist Plot Maybe, Lets Not Have It, If a Single Italian Is In Heaven, I’ll Throw Myself Into Hell , and I Drove By a School and Saw a Mexican Kid, This Country Is Already Lost, And I Bet The Jews Did It
This reads like a Kidz Bop ad
Top 10 bangers
Damn, that’s one hell of a long name for a book
Racial equality is a communist plot and that’s why communists are good actually
This headline is stupid.
Maga is the taliban, they’re the feeling of disgust made into a group, and they’re driving their friends and family away, and then dipshit news articles like this one pretend that it’s the normal people’s issue.
This headline is stupid.
Tbf the article is from Teen Vogue. It’s a publication meant for teenagers and is probably trying to relate to them more than the MAGA parents
Why are they still claiming “fiscal conservatism” is anything more than racism and class warfare by a different name? Why are conservatives “stronger on economy?” Of course this is causing divides about morals; a vote for the GOP is a vote for oppression and hate.
This bullshit dog-whistling by the media has to stop or we’re just letting 70+ million American voters off the hook by letting them claim “but I’m just worried about the economy.”
edit: I can’t find the source right now, but there’s a quote about this. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like “historians have a term they use for a person who voted for Hitler because they liked his economic policies. That term is ‘Nazi’”
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?
—A.R. Moxon
🏆
That’s the one, thank you.
“fiscal conservatism”
I remember when i thought they wanted balanced budgets.
Me too. And then Bill Clinton gave them balanced budgets and they still hated him and his economic policies, and I never really understood why until I realized it was because he wasn’t “hurting the right people”
Trumps “platform” was by any measure or definition less fiscally conservative than kamala. Pretty sure the reps left fiscal conservatism in the wasteland with Romney.
The new bullshit dogma for the right wing is “growth”. But I don’t think the Trump parade really even tried to explain that was the goal, or really any coherent economic policy.
Edit: the article seems to make the same point. That previously at least outwardly normal people have gone off the deep end.
You’re missing my point, at least partially. Even going back all the way to Reagan years (and certainly for Romney) “fiscal conservatism” was not actually about the economy or saving money; it was always about cutting social safety net programs that help minorities while enriching the elites (especially defense contractors and banks).
It’s a convenient piece of fiction that allows people to vote for conservatives who pass hateful legislation while claiming to be “not a racist,” but fiscal conservatism in the US is and always has been racist. If we want to see any change, we need to start forcing the media outlets and “fiscal conservatives” to say the quiet part out loud instead of getting away with claiming they are “not racist but…”
Agreed, de facto, budget cuts have been and would be racist.
Fiscal conservatism actually does mean something though. Like you could imagine a left leaning fiscally conservative government that maintained a balanced budget by raising taxes on corps and the wealthy. That would be basically fine (though I think on balance not as good as running a modest deficit to fund nice policy). If you just go, yeah no those words are henceforth no-bueno, aren’t you just buying into their doublespeak?
I’ll tell you what; when I see the term used by an elected official or GOP voter to mean something besides a dog-whistle, I’ll be on your side here.
Until then, when someone uses “fiscal conservatism” to tell me they’re voting Republican, I’m going to continue to believe that they’re ok with the rest of the GOP’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic platform, too.
When people tell you who they are, believe them. And don’t let them off the hook when they claim they’re “fiscally conservative”
Don’t deal with them. Walk away. You’re allowed to be mad at your parents for electing a felon dictator. You’re allowed to hate them and not talk to them again. That’s their loss, and you don’t need such toxic people in your life.
Here is where I am at and why. I believe that the next administration is a significant risk for the country, the envionment, and will likely have global geopolitical implications on what happens to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Gaza. The immigration policy and rehetoric is unbelievably hateful, not based on reality, and will likely be an unmitigated disaster. The promises to eliminate the ACA and governmental regulatory bodies/oversight in the EPA, FDA, and NOAA make all our our lives more risky and worse. Specifically though, they my MY KIDS LIVES MORE RISKY. If you are going to actively vote against MY KIDS, YOUR GRANDKIDS lives/futures in such a fundamental way, you don’t get to be a part of my life.
I’m in hard agreement with you, EuroTrip Yoda (had to).
My in-laws definitely voted Harris, my dad passed 4 years ago (Vietnam vet - not a trump fan), and my mom went down an idiotic rabbit hole. I haven’t talked to my mom in weeks, and I’m sure she knows why.
She also doesn’t know that we are planning to leave the country. I can’t stay in a place that will reduce my daughter to a second class citizen without bodily autonomy. Yet that’s what the nitwit I called “Mom” voted for.
Yup. I haven’t spoken to my father since the election, but I know he voted Trump.
The next time he calls, the conversation will go like this:
Me: Before we go act further, I need to know who you voted for.
Him: will probably say Trump
Me: Alright, then this is the last time we will ever speak, and here is why…
I’ll start with the fact that the party that he voted for wants to make my wife not a person, then keep going for as long as I’m able.
Me, disabled and home-bound (with the folks): that’s great and all buttttttttt
So ur encouraging people to hate and never speak to the people who literally raised them over an idea? For what having an opinion you dont like? I cant possibly see why politics is so polarised nowdays.
Why would I want to continue associating with someone that voted to endanger people I care about?
Because the alternative to communication is violence.
Not communicating is violence now?
Apparently it is. Otherwise we wouldn’t have popular comments such as “if you didn’t vote, you’re complicit” or “silence is acquiescence of fascism”. So no communication = violence, because if you run away from them, then you’re giving them free reign to implement their views.
…
…you act like you had control over their views at any time in the past, which is hilarious. Staying is simply suffering for no benefit. Now I’m not going to kinkshame, but damn man, you should really find another way to cum; anguish is going way too far.
Dear solitary person, who is separate from the world, uninfluenced by anyone or anything, a true beacon of independent thought, you seriously believe your views are pure and untainted? That nothing and no one can change them at any point? Or were you so defeated by your past that you no longer believe a mind can be changed?
From you who is already beaten and wallows within the bitter taste of their tragedy, all i have gained is sadness. I am sorry you suffered and i am sorry you were unable to regain your loved ones, if they ever were such, but please, do not drag others into your suffering and instead allow them to drag you out of it.
Minds can be changed, views can be altered. Hope exists whether we can see it or not. And in this vein, I hope you will find your happiness once more and spread that joy instead of this current unpalatable sorrow.
Be well.
I can’t possibly see why politics is so polarised
Spoken like a true well-off middle-aged+ white cishet. ‘I don’t have any problems, so I don’t see what the big deal is!’
You didn’t get to choose your parents. And there’s no reason to force anyone to continue associating with toxic shitheads with no capacity for critical thought.
If you want to change the world, you can’t escape the confrontation.
No one has any responsibility to change the world.
Agreed. But there’s a lot of blame going around that says otherwise.
What confrontation? The confrontation was deciding to cut them out of their lives. The only other confrontation to deal with there may or may not involve a baseball bat.
People won’t magically disappear just because one no longer interacts with them. They’ll still exist, live their life and interact within the society we’re all a part of. One can set them aside for the majority of the time, but eventually those connections do come back to haunt and annoy.
I think people’s values and actions are perfectly fine things to judge them on.
We’re not talking about favorite colors here. We’re talking about people actively enabling terrorists to attack minorities without fear of consequence and voting fascists who have openly expressed their intentions to destroy our democracy into power.
If you voted for Trump, then your “idea” is that there shouldn’t be any work or medical safety standards, no food safety laws, no environmental protection to keep companies from dumping waste wherever they want, no national parks, and no schools. And that’s just the government departments that are planned to be axed. We can talk about Operation Wetback 3 next, if you want.
Precisely. People have had 8+ years of Trump showing and telling everyone exactly who is and what he will do. Anyone who voted for him knew – or should have known – who and what they were voting for. You’d have to be willfully ignorant not to know who Trump and MAGA are by now.
I know of no valid excuses this time. Ignorance is not an excuse. People knew trump is a monster when they voted for him; they don’t care. But many have so little understanding of how badly a second Trump admin will hurt everyone and everything. The “now concerned” trump voters just wanted change, but they voted for fascism.
Yep. These are people who looked at the fascism and bigotry on open display and said, “This isn’t a bridge too far for me. I am perfectly okay with this.”
Believing that women and other marginalized people aren’t people isn’t a difference of opinion. Dismantling all regulatory protections isn’t an opinion. Supporting a person who is blatantly trying to dismantle our democracy isn’t an opinion.
It’s a cult ideology, and no one has to tolerate intolerance.
No one has any onus to maintain contact with a person who only believes in hate, regardless of their relation to you.
These people made the choice to support a monster, and they deserve consequences for their actions.
I didn’t choose to be born. I didn’t choose to be adopted into a dysfunctional family. I didn’t choose to be raised as a little bigot. I did choose to walk away when I grew up and started seeing how people like me and my family were hurting others. This goes far beyond mere opinion, and perhaps you ought to spend some time reasoning about why these things aren’t that important to you.
Edit to add a word.
Damn. As someone who also was adopted by psycho evangelicals and has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on therapy to unpack all the shit they left me with, I get it. ❤️
Narrator: They didn’t.
Eh, I get the cynicism, because it’s hard not to feel it myself. But if I can change, so can they 🤟
My mom and dad literally raised me to recognize that the people they have become are shit that would hurt their own children and grandchildren in the name of their hate. So maybe they should try to get back to being decent human beings before they whine about their kids not recognizing them as such.
And you’re encouraging people to expose themselves to toxicity that is very unhealthy for them.
The toxicity won’t disappear on its own. It has to be cleaned up.
Time has a way of dealing with that
Yes, we’re seeing it live. Most people here don’t seem very much pleased with how time decided to deal with it though.
I’m referring to people with horrible views dying.
Death doesn’t care about one’s political views.
Socially ostracizing them is dealing with it. People aren’t sticking their heads in the sand here. They’re telling these people that their actions have consequences, and one of those consequences is exile. Cutting people out of your life is just one part of dealing with these people.
Let me ask you this, if your kid ends up in a way not acceptable to you, will you “socially ostracize” them? Simply say “there’s nothing i can do” and cut them out of your life?
If so, then I am sad for you. Not pity, just sadness.
If not, then why not feel the same for your parents? Because they’re old or something like that?
I don’t know. It’s just… eh, can’t even use ‘weird’ anymore… maybe ‘lame’ works. It’s lame to be so decisive in giving up, yet still flower it up as some sort of moral punishment.
Yeh, people are dumb. Yeh, people can be evil. And yeh, some people are irremediable with too much wrongdoing to be forgiven. But it’s important to know the difference between these aspects and treat them accordingly. Otherwise, it’s just being lazy about it.
Do you not understand the concept of compounding events or something?
This isn’t coming from nowhere and it’s not the first action people are taking.
This is coming from 10-20 years of dealing with these people. The drunk uncle going on about “the darkies” every Thanksgiving since Reagan was in office. The in-laws making comments about how they respect you as a person, they just can’t support your “gay lifestyle.” The mother or father asking why you can’t just be a feminine gay man instead of trans. People who have had years of their cognitive dissonance pointed out to them as they repeatedly vote for politicians who want to hurt their friends and family.
And now, as the thugs are donning their jackboots and people are saying, “Enough is enough, you’re a danger to my life and right to freedom,” you’re wondering why the abuser doesn’t deserve to be in their victims’ lives?
The path of least resistance.
We often walk it without even realizing it.
The drunk uncle. Alcohol is called liquid courage for a reason. Has anyone tried since Reagan to teach him throughout the year he’s got nothing to fear or was he left to stew with only a propaganda channel as company and then only rebuked at Thanksgiving?
In-laws. Nosy relatives are a staple of large family gatherings. They usually don’t really care about your “gay lifestyle”, they just want to nag, nitpick and compare. “Look at me and my kids! We’re all proper and shit! Nyeh nyeh nyeh!” Even if you shut them down on one thing, they just move on to something else. The cunts. But that’s just how some social contracts work.
Parents. The biological urge to reproduce is often times a contest of wills that the urge tends to win. Parents want biological grandchildren. When the possibility of getting one drops to zero, it’s a shock to the system. Does not compute. “Feminine gay man” is a fucking win in the face of that.
You want people to make difficult decisions because they’re the right thing to do, but you don’t care to understand how or why these type of decisions are difficult to them. Because it harms you, it harms others. Well guess what, harm comes in different shapes and forms, often unnoticed and unchallenged.
If you’re unwilling to understand the difficulty in changing who you are, who you’ve been for a large part of your life without a constant impetus to push forward that change, then do you really deserve that type of understanding from others? To clarify further, you’re the impetus. Without you there to push them towards acceptance, who exactly are you expecting to do that for them? Fox news?
It’s hard, very hard, so hard that many just pack up and run. And that’s fine. It’s completely fine. But it ain’t the right thing to do, it’s the left one.
This account is just a bad take factory. Great day for a blockin’
Block away. Build ur little echo chamber
Can you explain how cutting abusive people out of your life is an act of hate?
This is the issue u are purposely neglecting the possibility that u cqn disagree about ideas without being abusive. If they are actually abusive sure cut them out of ur life sure. Disagreeing about ideas isnt abuse its the human condition.
We’re at the “round them up into camps” stage. Have you read a history book before?
A disagreement of ideas is something like “should we fund government services through the sale of bonds or require upfront funding from property taxes?”
Also, the way you are drunkenly taking this personally tells me that you have been recently ostracized by people you care about. Are you willing to share what relationships you have recently lost and how they went sour?
P.S.: Congratulations! I think you may actually be the first author of a comment to receive more than 100 downvotes on Lemmy!
There isn’t going to be camps, stop bloody stressin.
I havnt been ostracised by anyone recently, actually. I think u may be projecting a little i hope u can work through that to be more civil to those u disagree with.
Ill take the downvotes as a compliment ive always liked pushing the boundary of thought crimes.
He literally promised camps on day one, less than a few days ago. Is he lying?
I’m late 50’s and so is my wife. My parents are gone but hers are all MAGA all the time. She hasn’t talked to them much in years. It’s not just younger adults but older ones as well. I still have trouble comprehending what has happened.
I’m in my 40s and I always wonder “am I still young people?” When these articles come up. Middle age and modern society be weird.
Late 30s here, everyone is getting considered young people until the boomers and Silents die
poor gen x. they’re either boomers or millenials. Gen X doesn’t exist.
(/mild sarcasm)
42 here. I don’t feel old yet, that’s all that matters. I’m still doing the same shit I did in my twenties more or less. Except for needing a bit more caffeine nowadays to get going.
The people 20 years younger than me do seem to be getting weirder and weirder though. I also noticed the old cliques are gone (skaters, emos, ‘gangstas’, jocks, etc.) and everyone just kinda does their own thing now.
Same. What made me feel old as fuck in this article was one of the young women mentioning voting for Obama in her elementary school mock election.
My wife and I are not going to her side of family’s Thanksgiving this year since they are full Trumpers. Not worth seeing them since we don’t like them that much anyhow and they will be insufferable this year. We are in our mid 30s.
It’s not the only reason (they’re just truly terrible people across the board), but no one in my family has talked with my grandparents on my dad’s side in many, many years because of this. Rightwing nutjobs with no grip on reality and no idea how shitty they are. I’m pretty sure they don’t even know that they are great grandparents now (technically, anyway).
Rightwing nutjobs with no grip on reality and no idea how shitty they are.
I was trying to explain to someone in a forum once - this was someone that was always trying to normalize everything the wingers did. I was trying to explain to him just how often maga people are left out of gatherings and so on. I mean, this is even sometimes other Republicans. It’s like one wife whispers to another wife - “well, we should not invite so and so because their husband is nuts for Trump”, or, “so and so is a complete Karen that’s all in for the conspiracy theory stuff and has Faux on all the time”.
People just don’t want to be around this stuff as a general rule. Maybe a handful of other magas do, but normal Americans do not.
Anyway, this guy thought I was just making this up and asked how do you know you aren’t being cut out of social things for being an “extremist” (everyone not for donvict is an “extremist” in their view), etc…what can you do with these people?
In my 40s and parents are full support of Trump and Cruz (live in Texas). They were always on the conservative side, but since moving there they really went full into being “Texans” and yee-haw America!
I didn’t talk to them for over a year for something else, but totally in line with the politics/evangelical feelings. My grandma died and I went to the funeral where I finally spoke to them. I will text occasionally to say thanks for something they sent, but ultimately I have still pretty much cut them out everywhere else.
Studies suggest political divisions are increasingly seen as moral judgments, fostering a “mega-identity” where political views signify personal decency.
I think this is important information that doesn’t get enough attention. The divisions that exist in the US today are often portrayed in the media as mostly superficial, as though we only disagree on the minor details of public policy choices, but generally agree on the core principles. I don’t think that’s true. I think there are significant ideological, philosophical, and moral disagreements among Americans. We have fundamentally different ideals, and we have differing visions of how America should be, and for how people should act and behave.
There are not only two different visions. I don’t think it is a strict dichotomy. I think there are several different, visions for the US. Some left, some right; some that want to focus on religious, social, cultural, or ethnic issues, some that want to focus on economic or material issues. There are multiple different ideals competing for supremacy, since the US is a de facto two party system, the winners are which ever groups can form the largest coalition of voters.
There is only 2 basic core values.
The right: some people are better than others, and the betters should rule. They differ on what makes someone “better”, but that’s about it. The left: Everyone is equal, some people need more help than others. They differ on who needs the help.
The thing that really gets me about that quote is that of course your politics are a reflection of your morals. If you’re willing to vote for the bigots, it’s because, at best, you’re ignorant of what they’ve been saying that they’re going to do for a decade now, none of their bigotry is a bridge too far for you, or you actually agree with the bigotry. There are no other possibilities.
Aren’t tons of young adults also MAGA now
Boomers were drawn in to MAGA to protect their wealth. Gen Z kids were attracted by the promise of lifting them out of poverty and change of the status quo on this. Fascists are really good at convincing people on all parts of the economic spectrum.
If they were actually serious about having a fair shot at having some money, they’d be progressives. Don’t change the subject. It’s not that they’re poor, it’s that they’re hateful.
Yeah, the generational divisions aren’t clean any longer. Young men voted for Trump, thanks to social media “alpha” male influencers and recommendation algorithms.
Now? I didn’t see a single person over 40 carrying one of those fucking tiki torches in 2016
Truth.
Also true
Yes. I wonder if they might turn out worse than boomers, Gen X and Gen Y.
I doubt critical thinking and media literacy education has gotten any better and certainly not enough to match the vast increase of propaganda combined with algorithms…
People - typically the usual cloistered beltway media and those that parrot them - tell me that, somehow, Gen Z and Gen alpha are somehow so much smarter, possibly even in some way magical, compared to prior generations.
Not buying it.
Yeah I’m not so sure anymore either. I used to buy into this thinking from personal experience, like nobody amongst any generations could have the nuanced detailed discussions about progressive subjects like race and gender and it’s depiction in media as your typical Gen-Z or millennial on Tumblr or Reddit and all those massively popular decent video essayists and science communicators on YouTube, heck even the right wingers used to make fun of millennials for “heckin’ science” and whatnot.
But now it’s like there’s been a change, now everything is so massively anti-intellectual, people unironically say that a paragraph is too long to read in comments they choose to browse, simplicity is glorified versus complexity/reality/nuance.
Perhaps Gen-Z is just far more polarized and radicalised in both directions. If I have to think of the most “lame” thing someone could say in my generation and the most easily attacked position it’s to be an establishment or status quo simp like a milquetoast republican or democrat.
I know every generation says it, but I really think there was a “peak” generation that grew up on the old web, and learned critical thinking the hard way. The Internet is a lie.
Those that never leave apps and their feeds? Not learning that lesson.
I’m gonna claim that is millennials really hit the sweet spot of technology advancement that, like you said, forced us to learn things and think critically. Working in IT, I now have to continue to help the older generation understand computers but also teach the younger generation how to use computers. It’s been tablets and mobile interfaces for a decade now, and nobody has learned how things work.
I do think the generation that’s about to reach adult hood seems to be more well adjusted emotionally that any other I’ve experienced. A lot of schools do include basic programming courses and all do common core math, so hopefully that will be the difference maker for critical thinking. I think the 20-30 year olds right now could be the most problematic politically going forward.
Schools being effective might become far more difficult in the next few years, especially if Betsy DeVos gets her claws into it again.
And isn’t that the real point, after all? Effective schools (especially if they don’t just treat it as a school-to-work program, but instead, teach actual critical thinking and give people the skills - and the will - to be autodidactics with an actual liberal education background) would probably mean less Republicans.
I do think the generation that’s about to reach adult hood seems to be more well adjusted emotionally that any other I’ve experienced. A lot of schools do include basic programming courses and all do common core math, so hopefully that will be the difference maker for critical thinking.
Well, I sure hope that’s true, but nothing about critical thinking requires any math or programming. I value both those things as well, but I don’t think those skills alone are going to help us.
I seem to remember that engineers actually tend toward being right wing, so it’s quite possible that a lot of them learned engineering almost as something more like a trade school and never broadened their minds at all in the process, and basically side-stepping both critical thinking and media literacy. It’s been my anecdotal experience as well: going to uni, I noticed many engineers who might have excelled in a very narrow area - math, programming, engineering but utterly incapable of grasping some rather basic critical thinking concepts and who tended to be rather reactionary. In fact, many of them would try to tell me how much they loved Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, as a for instance…
I would think this - I am old enough to have been on text Usenet newsgroups and dial up; but plenty of people my age seem to have collectively lost their mind.
Yes, this. I remember BBSes and USENET and unfortunately I can remember instances of people being stupid and spreading nonsense then, too. I guess what was different is that there was no monetization yet and no one trying to amplify “engagement” by making people absolutely enraged. No algorithms pushing content at you, nothing was being curated by any corporation at all at that point.
I think it was introduced more slowly and so maybe many people had some time to get inoculated - but others definitely were not successfully inoculated - I cannot tell you how many friends, relatives, co-workers that joined up later would start forwarding the absolutely dumbest emails and after I’d try to explain to them it was total bullshit, they’d learn nothing.
I just think now kids are handed a tablet and/or a phone at extremely early ages and it’s not like they are easing into it, and having more of a ballast in “the analog world” as far as the amount of time spent on it; they are thrown into the deep end, with corporate interests seeking to maximize their engagement, no matter what the cost is to kids, society, our country, any of it. Now, trying to seek UNcurated content is something that someone has to even know is a thing and then actively seek out and nearly all “internet” use constitutes traffic to a few corporations, and nearly all interaction between humans is mediated by corporations.
