Covid-19 is not a ‘generation war’
We need intergenerational solidarity more than ever.* The Covid-19 pandemic will have huge consequences: for human life and health, for the global economy, for people’s livelihoods. Coping with these consequences largely depends on developing a strong sense of social solidarity: drawing on the ties that bind us to our communities, friends, and families, and setting […]
Stop Mugging Grandma: news and reviews
Review by Toni Calasanti of Virginia Tech: ‘Ageism, Generational Rhetoric, and the Rhetoric of “Generation”’, Contemporary Sociology (2021) 50(6), 453-459. https://doi.org/10.1177/00943061211050045a Review by Laura Isobel Paddon of Southampton University in Ageing and Society (40:4), April 2020, pp.921-922. Interview for BBC Radio 4 programme ‘OK, Boomer!’, 2 March 2020. Quoted in article by Melanie Wiseman in The Beacon Senior […]
Good things to watch and listen to during the Covid-19 crisis
I am using this page to collect together recommendations from friends about online lectures, podcasts and activities – the stuff you never had time to watch or listen to, and some for exercise or fun. It is mainly a way of keeping track of recommendations and quite random so far, but please feel free to […]
Debate: Do baby boomers owe millennials an apology?
Debate broadcast on the Ideas from the Trenches series on CBC Radio, Canada, 8 November 2019. Bruce Cannon Gibney and Jennie Bristow are on opposite sides of the ‘Boomer-blaming’ debate. They are both aware of each other’s work, but had never spoken directly until IDEAS brought them together for this episode. Jennie Bristow says the Boomer […]
‘OK Boomer’
Over the past few weeks, the ‘OK Boomer’ meme has gone viral, leading to an offline epidemic of earnest commentary. The whippersnappers of ‘Generation Z’ have taken to TikTok – a social-media platform that seems to be about sharing chill-ironic lip-synching video-selfies – with a flurry of music, artwork, and follow-on merch responding to criticisms […]
Ageism is putting all our retirements at risk
Pensioner poverty, we are often led to believe, is a thing of the past. Apparently, the Baby Boomer generation has been so successful at defending its interests that the greedy old buggers are raking it in. It is claimed that we live in a ‘retirement aristocracy’. Pensioners spend their days jetting off on holiday or […]
The futility of generation wars
From the early years of the 21st century, the idea that old people have screwed up the world has become the received wisdom. From economic crisis to environmental catastrophe, from the Brexit vote to the election of Donald Trump, from the lack of affordable housing to the persistence of ‘unaffordable’ pensions, blame for a whole […]
The toddlers have taken over
As the parliamentary pantomime over Brexit carries on procrastinating, the audience is united on one thing: utter embarrassment about the behaviour of MPs. Almost three years on from the EU referendum – the referendum they voted to hold, the decision they voted to deliver, the commitment they made in the last General Election – they […]
Everyone’s a loser in today’s fabricated generation wars
According to doomsayers in policy and media circles, the young have never had it so bad, and the fault lies with their greedy elders. The allegedly enormous, voracious baby boomer generation, living it up on the golf course with the ill-gotten gains from gold-plated pensions and over-valued houses, is in the firing line for […]
Buying off young people
As adults, we have some major obligations to our children. We nourish their bodies, helping them through the chaos of toddlerhood and the hormonal hell of their teenage years, so that they grow into physically healthy adults. We nourish their minds, helping them to access the cultural heritage that our society has built up over […]