Generational Note:
Jan. 8th, 2005 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyGenerations (written in 1991) predicted that when the Boomers come to power, money will shift away from Social Security (and other things created to help the elderly) and towards protecting children (or 'protecting' children, if you prefer). This is because Social Security has never been about helping the elderly -- it's been about rewarding the GI's. The GI's were willing to fight for their right to be taken care of in their old age because they knew that they deserved it. They're the 'Greatest Generation', after all. All Civic generations believe in themselves. GI's expect to be rewarded for their service. The Silent do not feel as though they deserve a reward, and Boomers never expected to get one. The Boomers tend to be too busy realizing their dreams, whatever those may be. And Gen X, the Thirteeners... it's very unlikely that they will fight for recreating something like SS for their own good, though they may fight for the next generation.
When Gen X started growing up, poverty shifted straight from the dying Lost to the young Gen Xers, never touching the GI's, the Silent, or the Boom. It went right from one Reactive generation to the next. The Reactive generation tends to have a violent youth and get labeled 'bad seeds'. The Reactive generations are the Cavaliers, the Liberty, the Gilded, and the Lost. They're the ignored children of the Idealist Awakenings, the ones that don't matter until they grow up and start acting out.Without a great deal of fighting as a team, they will likely remain the poorest age bracket until they die or another Reactive generation shows up. And history shows that the Reactives tend not to fight for themseleves, though they will fight for Idealist dreams, injecting some much needed reality into them.
When Gen X started growing up, poverty shifted straight from the dying Lost to the young Gen Xers, never touching the GI's, the Silent, or the Boom. It went right from one Reactive generation to the next. The Reactive generation tends to have a violent youth and get labeled 'bad seeds'. The Reactive generations are the Cavaliers, the Liberty, the Gilded, and the Lost. They're the ignored children of the Idealist Awakenings, the ones that don't matter until they grow up and start acting out.Without a great deal of fighting as a team, they will likely remain the poorest age bracket until they die or another Reactive generation shows up. And history shows that the Reactives tend not to fight for themseleves, though they will fight for Idealist dreams, injecting some much needed reality into them.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-08 09:25 pm (UTC)There's a rather large flaw in that logic. Social Security predates WWII by several years. It was created on August 14, 1935, by FDR as part of the New Deal.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-08 09:39 pm (UTC)Anyway (I'll continue to look for the right page, but I'll just write what I remember now), the GIs knew that they were special before WWII. WWII just confirmed it. They were treated as golden while still growing up. It's not having fought in WWII that made them worthy of being rewarded, it's being a Civic generation, the protected yet not stifled children of Idealists and Adaptives. WWII was just their big success -- if it hadn't been that, it likely would have been something else.