Removed by mod
Let’s stop being ageist.
Removed by modThe assumption that old people are inherently right wing and young people are inherently left wing is just wrong. Correlating age with political beliefs is a fucking pseudoscience, and so is the whole concept of generations like boomers and zoomers. Their marketing terms, the baby boom was a uniquely United States thing and to apply that term to 20 odd years of people from across the world is just factually wrong. We got to stop self identifying with these terms because they are ageist and they divide us and they allow for shitty excuses like “it’s just their generation” to excuse shitty behavior.
What’s the point of this? Stop dunking on old people. Old people aren’t inherently reactionary.
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the treatment of older adults in the United States is... I have no other word but sin. I don't mean how we talk about the elderly, I mean how once you're past your use as a laboring employee, you're expected to just exist - day after day, week after week - in a glorified motel, run by overworked nurses, for a private company that only sees you for your social security check. It's horrific. It's bleak. It's a sin. No nation worthy of respect would see this as an acceptable 'solution'.
Utah Phillips has some good songs about this: All Used Up and Too Old to Work, Too Young to Die
Boomers are the generation born right after WW2 in the US. That's exactly what Chairman Hampton was.
The diagram of the airplane above is the classic image of survivorship bias. The Br*tish were trying to figure out how to make their bombers slightly less deadly to their crews, so they analyzed the bombers that came back and found they'd been shot in the places you see red dots. The insight was realizing that the bombers that didn't come back had been shot in the places you don't see red dots. The dataset (bombers that had seen action over Europe) was biased by only including the bombers that had survived and come back.
Similarly, if you only look at the boomers who made it to the present day, you will get a biased and inaccurate picture of the generation. The best and most revolutionary boomers were murdered by the US government through its cops and FBI (And also with AIDS).
Fred Hampton is a perfect example of the kind of boomer that i was thinking of when i posted the pic. if he and probably millions of other boomers weren't murdered before we were even born, boomers wouldn't seem so reactionary now. but they were.
The pic is about suviorvorship bias, so Fred Hampton being a boomer is exactly what they are trying to say. Many of the good died young
Remove the boomer vote and Jeremy Corbyn is the prime minister of the Uk and Sanders is president in the US, that is a fact
Remove boomers and younger people will take their place in society and become vicious reactionaries, as some already have.
Also, Bernie would have lost because he's getting ratfucked or murdered no matter how many supporters he has in a Presidential election.
Correlating age with political beliefs is a fucking pseudoscience
I stopped reading here. No it’s not, it’s call statistical trends that have held up and gotten more right wing over decades. Yes, not all old people deserve the wall, but until a majority of them stop being selfish class traitors they deserve no sympathy or compassion. They, as a whole, are reactionaries who have had a “got mine, fuck everyone else” attitude their entire political lives. They have raped the earth and the global south and left their children and grandchildren with a lower standard of living and honestly only grim outlook for the coming decades. And overwhelmingly they still continue to show no remorse, no understanding of the death and destruction they are wreaking on the world, and so they deserve no compassion and should be treated as enemies just as any reactionary.
the "got mine, fuck everyone else" attitude is the result of a society overrun by market relations, not the cause of it. It's a behaviorally successful - not good, just successful (enough) - the context we live in selects for it (among others). Expecting the bulk people to see the flaw in that outlook without first changing the context is silly. Change the context and you change the behavior being selected for.
And... most boomers aren't capitalists or politicians. Most are no closer to the levers of power than you or I. Most of them work or worked for a living. People don't choose the context they are born into.
We are all the result of our material conditions. Which is why as marxists we should assess groups of people that are useful for propagandizing and radicalizing to our cause. And “old people” are the last group I would be focusing on and that I would expect to have success with. Yeah, most boomers aren’t capitalists but most of them support capitalist interests even when it goes against their own interests. They are too far gone and shouldn’t be trusted as a group to support the cause. If that hurts some boomers’ feelings, then honestly, shut the fuck up and go talk to your peers and convince them to quit fucking over the planet.
How many boomers told you that you would become more conservative when you got older? I don’t know about you but I’ve only become more radicalized and I can see the same thing among my fellow millennials even the ones that don’t have class consciousness. And the zoomers are doing even better. We are all the result of our material conditions and boomers as a whole were given opportunities that they stripped from their children and future generations. Even now as we sit in the crumbling ashes of late stage capitalism they still support the same failed policies that got us here in the first place and are eagerly embracing fascism. Understand your enemy, and never underestimate their contempt for you.
Which is why as marxists we should assess groups of people that are useful for propagandizing and radicalizing to our cause. And “old people” are the last group I would be focusing on and that I would expect to have success with.
Yeah, I agree with this assessment. I... just worry sometimes when I see harsh language directed at a whole demographic, even one as butts as the yankee boomer. "At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love" and all that.
Thanks for the discussion and that quote is a good reminder that it is my love for the people that makes me a Marxist. Everyone that sees this thread and hasn’t seen The Motorcycle Diaries should put it on their list, it played an important part in my early radicalization.
There’s a lot more I could and want to say but probably shouldn’t. But I just want to finish by saying that we would be so lucky to be in our 60s or 70s and living in a world shaped in the image of our politics and to have the younger generations yelling at us to shut up because we are out of touch. I hope that we both see that day comrade.
but until a majority of them stop being selfish class traitors they deserve no sympathy or compassion. They, as a whole
they they they they. This is just self-satisfying tilting at windmills.
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/ep-167-the-attractive-anti-politics-of-gerontocracy-discourse
"Why Are We Still Governed by Baby Boomers and the Remarkably Old?," inquires The New York Times. "Why Do Such Elderly People Run America?," The Atlantic wonders. "Gerontocracy Is Hurting Democracy," insists New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. "Too old to run again? Biden faces questions about his age as crises mount," The Guardian reports.
Though these headlines are framed as exploratory questions, news media seem to have their minds made up: the problem with Washington is that it’s chock full of geezers. In recent years, we’ve often heard that U.S. policymaking, helmed at the federal level by seventy- and eighty-somethings like Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi, and at the state level by the similarly aged Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley and Pat Leahy, is simply growing too old and out of touch with the electorate.
There’s some credence to this, of course. It’s certainly true that those occupying the most powerful positions in U.S. government, on the whole, don’t legislate to the needs of the public – whether on healthcare, policing, education – the list goes on and on. But is that really because of legislators' age? Why does age have to be the focus in this analysis, rather than policy positions and, relatedly, class interests, which exist independent of age? Who does it serve to reduce the causes of U.S. austerity politics and violence to pat, Pepsi marketing-style "generation gap" discourse? On this episode show, we detail how "generations" analysis is ineffectual and, more often than not, misses the mark. We'll discuss how fears of a "gerontocracy" can – if not in intent, in effect – malign old age itself, stigmatize the elderly and, above all, distract from what could be a substantive critical analysis of real, more profound vectors of oppression such as class, racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQ currents.
Isn't this "not all old people" ?
Sure, we know that. It's the propagandised ones that bought into all the bullshit and the ones that own tonnes of property and succeeded in the system who expect you to as well. Does it really need every caveat ever all the time? I see it acknowledged really often.
The treatment of old people deserves more recognition under the term "ageist" rather than the criticism of boomer brained nonsense that's actually more attributable to class.
there are real concerns when it comes to elderly and older people to consider. But no one needs to stand up to defend "boomers" anymore than anyone needs to stand up and say "not all white people"
old people are cringe
kids are also cringe
you get at most like 20-30 years in the based zone, use your time wisely
counterpoint: dementia is cringe. we gotta figure out how to cure that shit
Correlating age with political beliefs is a fucking pseudoscience
No it’s not, it’s statistical analysis of demographic trends.
Show
If I meet an old person, it is fact that they are more likely to be more conservative than if I meet a young person. I think a lot of the cause is just survivorship bias - Poor people die younger. But the fact remains, any random old person I meet is more likely to hold homophobic, racist, misogynist, and classist views than a young person.
But also older people grew up in a different world than exists now, and won’t be around to experience what’s to come. If you’re over the age of 65 you don’t have the same stake in something like climate change as I have, which is the main reason I don’t want anyone over that age in any elected office, as climate change is by far and away the most important issue at hand.
If you’re over the age of 65 you don’t have the same stake in something like climate change as I have
This is the part that's so dumb. You're just making enemies with random people for the heck of it. It's pointless finger pointing and othering for no reason.
it’s statistical analysis of demographic trends.
Where have I seen this before...
...uh oh.
You’re right, we should completely ignore that white people are also more likely to be wealthy and conservative. Demographic factors aren’t relevant to political beliefs. Silly me.
boomers are dead even in that graph.
the desire to prejudge and categorize people without having to speak to them or evaluate them properly is useful for the right but counterproductive for the left.
No.
The cool/class-conscious young people get fucking murdered and don't live to old age. Older folks trend rich because the rich survive. Rich people trend more reactionary. An entire generation of cool LGBTQ+ folks got wiped out from HIV. This is a fact of our society and it absolutely means the older you are, the greater percentage of reactionaries exist in your age group.
This doesn't mean that you should attack old people in the street or anything. I'm not even in my mid 20's and I'm already too old for this shit. After you get out of high school you're old. Your body starts falling apart and you may as well die.
After you get out of high school you're old.
I dunno, aside from some weird digestive issues and getting eye strain more easily, I feel like my body is fine in my early/mid 30's
Nah, you're old. You just don't have the life experience to understand that the body is deteriorating.
You don't just wake up one day with backpain or worse vision. It's a long slow process but it largely starts when you're 18-19. After that, your life has already been lived and you're old.
soul
Please define this word for me, because I don't think we think it is the same word.
I'm not even in my mid 20's and I'm already too old for this shit.
Smokes weed during philosophy class once:
You're saying this like it is some kind of truth but it is just entirely subjective, and frankly harmful sort of rhetoric. I would find it horribly discouraging if it wasn't so counter to my beliefs and understanding of physiology.
How about this hot take: We are about more than reproduction. Human society is enriched by having both young and old present, and adulthood doesn't kill your soul, capitalism does.
I can't tell if this is some mind body dualist idealism or vulgar materialism, but it's wrong either way.
Taking an example you made in a previous comment:
Think about it like this, mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungus. Their main job is to spread spores and once they do their"purpose" is fufilled. They still stick around for a bit but they are essentially useless.
This would at least make some sense if you were saying the "soul" becomes antagonistic to the body after someone has children, or if you are implying that most people reproduce by 20. It would still be wrong, but at least the analogy would work.
Going against your point more broadly, it hyperfocuses on the individual in evolution without considering the species more broadly. People contribute to society in such a way that increases the chance other people to successfully reproduce, regardless of whether or not one has personally reproduced.
It makes no sense to say that the body killing the "soul" would increase its evolutionary advantage.
So long as you are speaking in mystical terms of a "soul" and not understanding that what can be observed of that "soul" is the product of the very same body you disparage, this rhetoric is worthless for anything but reaction.
It is moronic to say someone about a quarter through their life has "already lived their life". Are you listening to yourself?
"Someone should have told Marx he was dead 40 years sooner; idk why we are reading the writings of someone who was long dead when he wrote them."
After you get out of high school you're old. Your body starts falling apart and you may as well die.
Uphold Marxism-Logan's Runism
Seriously though what the hell, I didn't expect "if you're older than 18 you should kys" to get upvoted here
Seriously though what the hell, I didn't expect "if you're older than 18 you should kys" to get upvoted here
60% of hexbear is still in high school to be fair. 18 to them is like 40 to a regular person.
That would be interesting, to do a "how old are you" demographics poll for the Hexbears
Being young and not a revolutionary defies even biology
-Salvador Allende
Sorry I dont make the rules
I’m 19 years old and I’ve already wasted my entire life
