Generation Jones

[sKePTiKal]

This is something recent I've run across. Between the Baby Boomer and GenX, exist this cohort of people born between 1954-1965. We're Generation Jones. We have attributes of BOTH adjacent generations... and some distinctively our own.

We overlap with Boomers culturally, in that many of us remember the signal events of the 60s, but we were a bit too young for Woodstock. With GenX, we share some music preferences, distrust of the gov't and other institutions, and fierce independence. GenX is forged in fire; we created the path.

The popular mythology goes, that Jones people have a craving to "keep up with the Jonese"... altho' personally, that wasnt on my priority radar. Surviving was. Our cultural events include the first gas crisis, Nixon/Watergate, closing the gold window, and the moon landing. Oh yeah, and DISCO.

Decent explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-X01D2oIcY


Professor hat removed: whomever picked the name "jones" for this generational cohort, should be roundly rediculed! It's beyond silly; it's absurd. Personally, I began to critique some of the boomer's ideas long before anyone would take me seriously and I've mostly only gotten more critical since. But not all people embody the whole "stereotype" definition neatly. In boomers, jones & X, I see a thread of individualism running - X being the most empathetic to others who are different from themselves, for instance. But, there are the surface appearances - and more personal level differences in all 3.

So, is this evolutionary?? or just dressing the pig in a different colored tutu and lipstick?

Fodder for pondering. Observing. Maybe finding a conclusion or two in the process.

[sKePTiKal]

Here's another one. This one deals with some shared social psychology attributes of the generation. It's about 20 mins long - and the video is all AI - but it is a real human speaking. I think - these days it's getting harder and harder to tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvU7N6C7yfY&t=5s

[Hopalong]

Viet Nam was a cauldron for me (born 1950) and so was the Civil Rights movement.
My brother was a medic in Nam and a boyfriend, a helicopter pilot in Nam and got shot down. Landed into a tree in his parachute, hung there helpless for three days, broken like a bag of sticks. When we went to visit at a kind of "plantation" home his family owned in Florida, I'll never forget his father dragging this handsome, broken track star down the hall to deposit him in an armchair so we could talk. It was hard then and ever after to understand his speech from the head injuries, but he married and lived a real life. Pre-internet, we all watched that war close up on our televisions every night and it was absolutely horrifying. Gave rise to some of the most amazing peace demonstrations ever. We all lived during those years with the fear of the draft....some male friends got drafted and never came back. It hung over us all four years and beyond.

In HS, Civil Rights snapped me out of my naievete when I heard a TEACHER berating black students with the N-word, so I joined their walkout from school, threatened with expulsion. I was one of 5 white kids with 200 black students. It was a big drama in the town and ever after, I followed the civil rights movement passionately. When I lived in Baltimore I took part in some strategy workshops with people who had marched in Selma and with Dr. King, my hero. I could feel their knowledge of suffering and their grace. Baltimore, with its urban deserts and lack of resources for poor populations, was another wake-up call. (I taught poetry in some of these neglected schools in "ghetto" areas and the skinny, desperate kids broke my heart often. Their creativity and musicality in poetry blew my mind.)

I hope people of upcoming generations will really study the 60s -- we were more than Woodstock (though the creativity and music explosion hasn't been matched since.) I'm so senile I've probably told these stories here before...thanks.

hugs
Hops