Honestly I see this post as a strong example of why generational labels are relevant. OP, the man OP’s talking about, and his mother are all from different generations, and they have wildly different perspectives of wealth because of that. We’ve grown up differently and have different expectations of life because of it creating generalities within generational groups.

Now, those generational differences have been politicized and spun to create divides between the generations, and I think that’s what you’re referring to here as “fake.” The whole boomer vs millennial “conflict” is totally manufactured, and the way OP and the man they reference interacts is a great example of why that kind of division between generations is stupid and harmful.

There are assholes everywhere; every generation, gender, race, country, etc. However, most people are not assholes, and assuming a person will be one because of the group they fall into? Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that will make you the asshole.

What’s with all the artifacts around the words!? Combined with the low-res for literal text makes it hard to read…

something manufactured of whole cloth and meant to divide us

I’m not so sure about that.

My parents grew up in London during WWII. My father told me that, on any given day, at least one or two of the kids in his school had recently received a letter from the government telling them that their father, uncle or brother had died in the war. Not to mention other deaths from bombings that happen on and off for years. For the most part, the rest of the kids in school never knew who had just had someone killed in the war, although I suppose it eventually came out to become public knowledge. The point being that you could be playing ball with some kid who had just lost a family member, and you wouldn’t necessarily know it. He said that this shaped his attitude that death is just a part of life, and something that (in true British fashion) you accepted and moved on with.

This came up when my sister-in-law lost her adult daughter some years back and she was (and is) still struggling with it. My father has a hard time understanding her feelings. The two of them are just 22 years apart in age.

WWII is something that casts a pretty big shadow. But when I was born, it was less than 20 years later and its influence on my attitudes is several orders of magnitude smaller than on my parents.

At the other end. It’s hard for anyone much less than 25 years old today to remember life before modern smart phones (if you assume the start of that as the iPhone in 2008). It’s hard to deny that the smart phone has radically changed the way that we interact with each other and the world. Yes, old farts like me have adapted to it, but young people today have these things hard-wired in from the beginning.

So far, in this century, it’s changing technology that casts the big shadow.

The point being that, while society changes in a continuum, big things that cast big shadows tend to define “eras” that shape the way that young people develop. And those big shadows are what cause “generations” to tend to clump together in attitudes and behaviours. And, no, I don’t think this is made up just to divide us.

whole concept of generations is something manufactured of whole cloth

huh? generational metrics are key for all kinds of analysis and are rooted in the fact that the cadence we call human reproduction is generational.

you want to call out those that throw a fancy name on one and market it for monetary gain? go for it… but that doesnt make the quantification behind it ‘fake’.

Reminds me that the whole concept of generations is something manufactured of whole cloth and meant to divide us, but more than that, that real people are compassionate and understanding. All that stuff is just fake.

It gives me hope for unity.

Indeed. While it is true that different generations express different views(like older generation being 63% in support of death penalty, while younger 60% against), often such division is artifitially created to create class infighting.

I really hope when people who were growing up with internet(and less intoxicated with lead) will come in power, political direction will change to improving quality of life and away for neofeudalism.

I feel like people put on rose colored glasses anytime they peer back at the past. It is almost always better for almost everyone the closer you get to modern day. Education, civil rights, standard of living, suicide rates, mental health, addiction(edit crime)…all are so much worse the further back you go. Living 50 to 100 years ago compared to today. There is no comparison.