Capitalism and Personality
Capitalism influences all. It’s so bad now, folks think what year you’re born in determines what kind of person you are. Like a car.
Folks have called me boomer, (even though according to the marketing jargon I’m a Gen X-Xennial sigh), and I see videos on YouTube about this generation or that generation. I blame Tom Brokaw.
“The Greatest Generation.”
Tom wrote about and talked about “the greatest generation.” Tom knew better. But also probably needed shit to do. What happened was a generational competition. But instead of anyone saying “hold my beer,” they said, “fuck those senior citizens.” “Fuck those kids.”
I just watched a video about “Why Gen X is the worst generation.” Not only do I not know what they’re talking about, I am not friends with anyone who I think would know. Why? Because they’re projecting one person they know on a whole range of folks born in the same timeframe. Much like Tom did, but negative, not positive.
Try not being lazy in your brain?
“The Greatest Generation” had your fair share of wife beaters, drunks, violence, greed. It had poverty like something awful. It had religious oppression and anti-intellectualism. It honestly wasn’t so great. Good at war, though.
“Gen X” has been an identity of folks who can largely entertain themselves. There’s fandom. Some good shows. But even though, for example, my brother and I are both Gen X, we are completely different folks. Our politics are different. Our music is different. Our outlook is different. Our diet is different. Style of clothing, on and on. To put us in the same category of human is lazy, sloppy, and projecting. Not my thing.
But about capitalism..
Back to capitalism, when Tom labeled a generation as “The Greatest,” he did more harm than good. He implied a worst generation. He even made it ok to think that. That’s where the trouble started in my life with this. Before Tom Brokaw, I wasn’t aware of a lot of talk about generations. Not saying there wasn’t, just saying Tom put it on my radar.
If one generation of folks is better than another, and you got goofy names for all of them, that’s a branding influence. We all know people aren’t like that. Does it make it easier? Maybe. But it does something else too. It makes us marketable.
A Boomer I know.
My father is a boomer model. He’s also very giving of time and energy to help people along. It’s pretty much the only thing he does when he’s able to. It makes him happy. You don’t get that side of him with the “boomer” description. He doesn’t fit the mold. But like me, if you see his old white face with white hair on a profile pic, you’re inclined to think one thing: boomer. Believe it or not, that’s not my dad or mine’s fault. That’s buying into the belief there’s brand names for humans.
Upgrades are enticing.
Everyone wants to trade the old one in for the new one. That’s not people. It’s not accurate. And it deletes experience that we all could use. I understand the tendency to label folks, but please understand that is bias. That’s bad. We don’t want that.
It’s all industries, not just humans.
Bias works okay for brand names in guitars. I don’t do it because there’s always more than one factory. But folks who play better than I do seem to do well with their brand.
Food is all over the map. Some brands make great food and shitty food at the same place! All brands are susceptible to a recall. And your quality or selection might depend on time of the year! You could be one brand during summer, one brand during winter. Confusing!
Cigarettes (when I smoked) were always funny to me. “What brand you smoke?” “Whatever’s on sale,” was my answer. Am I to actually believe one cigarette brand is “better” than the other? Really?
Don’t take the easy route. It hurts us all.
Unfortunately simpletons, people are even more varied and confusing than any product I can think of. It has to do with not being a product, but actually being a human. I think you already know, personally. It’s just easier to pretend you don’t.
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