The Generation Gap on DU is real

[TygrBright]

32. Only partly guilty as charged...

Yup, as an old boomer, I do bring my long years of experience to my participation. I'm trying to provide some perspective, I guess. And yeah, honestly, I DO remember how much it used to grate on me when the "old Lefties" of my youth did the same thing. People still alive who'd sat in a cold plant in Detroit to win rights for auto workers. People who still had their IWW cards. People who'd been actually blacklisted in the 1950s, or were married to, or knew people who had.

Their perspectives were the perspectives of a generation before mine. How relevant could they be? (Spoiler - a lot, actually, but I didn't know that at the time.) They did not understand my generation's existential crisis of civil rights for people other than male caucasians, and keeping from being sent to be blown to hell in a fetid jungle for the benefit of... whatever. Their refusal to act in solidarity with us led, in my mind, to the disasters of the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968, that started the downhill slide that led to Nixon.

I do actually see things somewhat differently now. What I'd tell my younger self, had I the chance, would be "It's more complicated than that. Experience does matter because yes, history rhymes. So be patient with them. They're not always right but they're not necessarily wrong. And they're hella better than what we're ALL trying to oppose."

BUT - I do also actually appreciate, even like, sometimes love learning about the new slang, the new tech, the new perspectives that shape younger generations' reality.

And I do absolutely agree with you that the existential crises of the younger generations - climate change, massive economic inequities that threaten democracy, the fast-receding "American Dream" that puts the prosperity of earlier generations further and further out of reach - are the issues of our time. The issues that will shape the future of our children, our grandchildren, and our planet.

Each generation has to learn the hard way what does, and does not, work to both achieve change and make it into a new and lasting reality. My generation brought both the moral power of nonviolence and the political power of violence to the streets in pursuit of justice and equality and survival. Some of the changes we fought for lasted. Some did not. Some turned out to be dragons teeth we'd sown to our regret. Some still make me proud to have been a participant in bringing them forth.

We DO have your backs. You are our children, our grandchildren, the future of all we fight for and care about, then and now.

Keep demanding the respect owed you, both for who you are and for what you are doing. That's part of the process, too. You have it, in measure you may not always perceive, from all of us who know we're leaving you with this horrid mess and we didn't do nearly enough to prevent it.

But also, please remember we're cranky old farts with aches and pains and an awareness different than yours, and extend us a measure of patience in return.

Above all, you see... we love you.

Never forget that.

You are our hope.

And you are a better legacy that we deserve.

respectfully,
Bright