The funniest thing about privilege relative to everyone else is how angry you get when it is pointed out.
When you consider the ocean of contempt visited upon snowflake Millennials by Boomers (most of which is completely justified), ‘Ok Boomer’ is a pretty mil and bland insult, (especially when you consider the far nastier things Gen Xers like me say about them) but the rage and anger by many Boomers feeling pinched by privilege has been as surprising as it has been amusing.
Like white heteronormative cis males, Boomers didn’t appreciate how much everyone else hated and despised them, this shock realisation has Boomers sitting up right in shock and I genuinely wonder how this newly insulted and aggrieved generation might now respond to the Euthanasia Bill.
It would seem extreme that an entire Generation would feel so uptight over a simple insult that they would now eye Euthanasia as less an individuals choice for sweet release from terminal pain and more a means for the lower generations to push them off a cliff but that is the knee jerk response everyone has when their own image of how wonderful they are is challenged and dismantled by the next generation gutting all their sacred cows.
As societal entropy fuelled by subjective rage social media and environmental collapse divides solidarity in favour of ‘fuck you survivalism’, each tribe will start seeing the other in the worst terms with the cruellest agendas.
Expect Euthanasia to abruptly fall out of favour with Boomers.
I’m actually a pre-boomer. Entirely unfazed by Chloe’s comment.
Drawing a long bow to think this will have any influence on the euthanasia legislation.
Expect Euthanasia to remain in favour with Boomers
Nah! “OK Boomer” won’t turn the majority against euthanasia in the least. Boomers have seen too much suffering. And in this one issue, Boomers, Gen X and Millenials are united: they all hate cruelty. And the state that enforces it. They want to live in a kinder world.
Hitherto I have supported End of Life Choice, and have been fairly dismissive of the argument that greedy offspring will push their elderly kin to delete themselves.
Chloe Swarbrick’s hostility, contempt and arrogance towards mine and my forbears’ generations brought home to me that there are younger people who not only see us as having no worth, but are dismissive of everything about us.
Swarbrick’s talk at Victoria University, as recorded in the Dom-Post 15/11/18 is shocking, and is as profoundly ignorant as ignorance ever gets.
Like so many run of the mill politicians, Swarbrick appears to be just another cheap shotter. She is recorded as denigrating a senior opposition MP four times in 20 mins, commenting, “She is seriously deluded, ” to ‘rapturous applause.’ Swarbrick is free to be as inane as she likes, but making statements containing zilch substance is a waste of time- and again it is her prerogative to do so – but it contributes nothing even vaguely constructive to the issues at hand, nor does it answer them.
Then she appears to be jumping on the Harry/Meghan Markle band wagon of sanctifying millennials. I can think of better, and more edifying role models. Telling her VU audience that “Life experience doesn’t count,” is offensive, and, in my opinion, untrue. How dare she.
Members of mine, and my parents’, and grandparents’, generation achieved things well beyond what Swarbrick may ever accomplish, and sometimes beyond what they themselves may have ever wanted to experience, but they responded to the call of the times, and to the necessity of the times.
To dismiss life experience as something which doesn’t count and is therefore worthless, is dumb, self-amputating, and socially amputating. Chloe may need to remember that she is no longer carries the novelty of being a young voice popping up in the political fruit salad if she is now embracing the meaningless sound bite game like any other jaded pollie.
And we boomers now know that yep, there’s a politician in the NZ Parliament dismissing our lived lives
as not counting. It is not a nice thought, and I would suggest that Chloe take her hands out of her pockets if I thought it would help.
Comments are closed.