OK BOOMER. WHO'S NEXT?

Every generation blames the one before.
And all of their frustrations come beating at your door…

Mike Rutherford wrote The Living Years in 1988. I first heard it in the early 90s. I was in my impressionable teens and it stuck with me. It’s a story of the challenge of intergenerational wisdom.

‘They’ just don’t get it, right?

That’s why #OKBoomer makes so much sense to so many people. It’s a war cry. An expression of frustration. A 15-year old girl asking “how dare you?” and a stack of students skipping school to protest for the planet. Yet, every time their voices are heard, a privileged and patronising Boomer talks down at them. That’s why it works. But is it really working?

So we open up the quarrel between the present and the past.
We only sacrifice the future. It’s only bitterness that lasts.

Fighting the past is a sure-fire way to forge a better future. We recognise the failings of those who went before and fix stuff for the next generation. It’s what we do. History reflects this in moments of revolution, while sociology sees it more as evolution. Either way, inter-generational conflict is an important part of growing up. But who are we fighting?

Cohort theory talks to the similarities in age groups based on when people are born. But for all the generational similarities, every cohort is just as diverse as society at large.

All that to say, some Boomers are wankers. Privileged, usually white, usually men, who fail to see the impact of their privilege on their success. But they’re not alone. Some Millennials are wankers too, ferociously protesting the next big cause while completely unaware that their freedom to do so was hard fought and hard won. Everyone has privilege. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

All that to say, some people are wankers. But most people aren’t. And that’s my problem with #OKBoomer. It’s ageist. And ironic. How can it be that the most ‘woke’ of our younger generation will march against anyone discriminating on gender, sexuality, race or religion and seem quite happy to collectively label all older people as the enemy. It’s just silly.

And, of course #OKBoomer isn’t a protest against people. It’s a protest against an attitude of entitlement and lack of energy in the fight for tomorrow. #itsnotallboomers. But the clumsiness of social burn makes it a much blunter instrument. And it’s the privilege of the young to miss that contradiction.

Just like always, it’s young people who will drive the change we need in the world. This is, indeed, ‘our nuclear free moment’. But I wonder how many have stopped to consider who campaigned for the first one. We’re all on the same page, we’re just reading from different ends of the book.

Say it loud. Say it clear. You can listen as well as you hear.
It’s too late when we die to admit we don’t see eye to eye.

And that’s the point. It’s easy to see why millennials take a pop at boomers. And it’s easy to see why the Boomers fight back. And, mostly, I agree with both. But I’m also pretty sure that the best progress is made when people get past their envy of otherness and start to have a decent conversation.

That’s what I reckon, what do you think.