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“Stupidity is a lack of intelligence. Ignorance is the decision to ignore certain facts and realities. (James Mulholland from his article on racism)”
Generationism: “…belief
that a specific generation has inherent traits that make it inferior or
superior to another generation. The term is usually applied to claims of
superiority in the expressed values, valuations, lifestyles and general beliefs
of one generation compared to those of another, where objectively verifiable
criteria substantiating the claim of superiority in themselves are lacking.
I have been seeing many posts, especially in the Facebook lately, a trend somewhat, by some folks who hangs on to old traditions and ancient practices the way vultures circle rotting corpses.
Look, I am an old guy, and come September this year I'd be stepping into my fifth decade, and I was whining about “kids nowadays” since I was in my twenties. I had always been an old fart. Even my beloved aunty Saro who is several decades older than me, calls me, not old fashioned guy, but “old era guy” (pazhaya kalattu manushan).
Yet as I aged ungracefully (hair loss, alcoholism, liking some contemporary actresses and swearing allegiance to cats) I am beginning to realise the follies of the way of my thinking...
I mean, look, every other goddamned generation is always sneering at the next generation, saying that they got it easy. "Kids these days," some geezer would say, "I used to walk 20 kilometer to school". Exaggeration is the side effects of aging and memory loss. Hell, some of these "honest" men are leading corporations and running the government
Being unenforced ritualistic endeavours, generationism oftentimes rears its snapping turtle head in many other departments.
Let’s take the fashion, for example, especially men. The now septuagenarian former wearers of baggy pants hated bell bottoms when the later, err, swept across the nations. Just about the time they caught up with the flaring trousers (with flaring nostrils of hesitance) with progression of time, these new embracers of bell bottoms rang their bells (re: Anita Ward) angrily when the goddamned straight cut that they left behind hastily to peruse the disco floor burner….wait for it… made a comeback in 80s. Arrrr! They cried like peg legged pirates waving their unsheathed swords towards the youths wearing the very goddamned baggies they had long re-stitched into sailing masts.
Aside: The slim cut of late sixties early 70s is back now, sigh. If women’s fashion is like football, men’s fashion is table tennis. End of aside
Now, let’s look at pop culture...that’s even harder hitting, I tell ya. When Chuck Berry and gang burst open the door to unleash the foot tapping, hip swaying rock n roll into the scene, the previous title holders, the Jazz aficionados (or hepcats, whatever they mean)....raised hell. Yet, when rock n roll went psychedelic, insolent Elvis fans refused shaved their respective pair of sideburns.
Soon enough, disco ruled the stage (or dancefloor), the rockers cringed and went full tight leotards, torn jeans hairblown hair, and makeup that made women err… blush?. Though I am not a fan of hip hop/rap… but I thank them to putting some of these glam Rock sonsofbitches back to the sidewalk. That genre hasn’t recovered if one were to judge by the number of “best of” or “greatest hits” compilations they churn up more than the number of actual albums they did.
But I digress.
In the social media, often, I saw the resurgence of “traditional is the best” schtick where, especially the Indians, have traditional cure for every goddamned thing including riots at movie theatres screening Tamil films.
When Poet Laureate Kannadhasan wrote munnorgal moodargal alla (the ancients are not dumbasses)… he didn’t say that they were genius and did shit and stuff and were ahead of us. If so, they would have cured dumbassery among the community long time ago. What he meant was, the folks of that sub-continent survived during their era of extreme difficulties with very little man-made resources with acquired wisdom amassed over time. They were survivors, not whiners that happened to be the very generations now looking back and selling blended leaves to cure piles.
Anyway, my grouse is how this mentality is affecting the way they/we are looking at the younger generations, specifically the millennials. Millennials are lazy, the older generations complain. Millennials got everything handed out to them, and they are needy...it seems.
Well, f*** off, geezers. Let’s look at these facts. Yeah, facts. If you can call old decrepit piece of dung products and practices as facts and sell them on radio stations, I don’t mind calling the following facts myself.
Top Ten Old is gold, but not all that glitters are gold facts .
1. Mobile phone is bad? Mobile phone reunited many lost family members, friends, acquaintances. If it’s splitting the family members at the dinner table, regulate the usage – have better attitude. Stop whining about it.
2. The better transportation system made world smaller, it also able to make the Meeks murderers on road - most of whom are not millennials. Let’s not forget the traffic offences and inconveniences. Check out the driver’s gray hair.
3. Most technology we have now comes from the innovation in the defense industry started by older farts. That industry is behind the death of millions if you didn’t know.
4. Stop bugging the younger generation for their cluelessness or for not being as smart as your generation. We were pulling spider legs that age, remember?
5. Who invented wrestling, where skimpily dressed sweaty men do extremely physical things to each other? Millennials?
6. Don’t sneer at the millennials for not keeping a tab on what’s happening around the world. The ones who do are running the country or, have been voting in all the wrong goddamned geezers in the first place.
7. Old farts are the worst offenders in the social media , sharing unverified b.s., malicious panic creating rumours, thrusting their favourite football team onto unsuspecting open beaks of the young'uns, ditto political parties, favourite old fart actors (and Thalaivars), and worse personal faiths.
Aside: Which means kids will never buy that James Cagney is the patron saint of awesomeness, so shut up Rakesh. End of aside.
8. All the great traditions, cultures, faiths, ideologies, from past have either evolved or failed! Values? Yeah, sure. There are still theft, corruption, rape, abuse of the underage and animals, murder on every goddamned civilisation at any given time. Let the kids now change all that – help them, don’t discourage them if they are sincere, not just merely being woke.
9. Current movies sucks, music went down to drain? Well boo-effing-hoo, the executives greenlighting them are… you guessed it – old farts.
