Right, climate change, the thing that boomers caused and definitely not these huge corporations perpetuating a system making humanity dependent on fossil fuels. It was a generation defined by generally common experiences and not some dickheads on the boards of fossil fuel corporations covering up and then spinning up a disinformation campaign against the overwhelming evidence of anthropogenic climate change. No war but class war; know your enemy.
It’s funny because the next generation conservatives have found hate against boomers to be a great populistic weapon to collect voters in some countries.
People who seriously buy into this generational thing (as if the 70’s wasn’t full of political activism, hippies etc) are as dense as the thing they blame for all their problems (the all-round bad boomer generation in their head in this case). Which really is the exact thing observable in both conservatives and right-wingers. Blaming a completely warped idea of some social group for everything, including the things they themselves are actively doing.
It really is just simplistic bullshit that seems to trip them up, isn’t it? As a passionate lover of philosophy, I’ve come to a pretty good understanding of the sheer magnitude of what it takes to be considered an “expert” in any subject. And, hoo boy, my radical commitment to what is true has only served to illustrate to myself how much I lack in understanding… pretty much anything. I’m not one of those jackholes who do that smarmy-ass “I know nothing”, so I’ll admit that I understand a hell of a lot more than the average person in political theory and general pragmatic governance. So it’s both infuriating and baffling to me how often the average ‘right-winger’ decisively demonstrates how little they understand any political subject they have no business holding such a strong and certain opinion on. And really, that also applies for most people willing to talk politics in America. Like, how the fuck are people’s opinions so fucking strong for how shallow their position is???
What you describe can be boiled down to lack of enlightenment. Like, the thing our ancestors fought really hard for in the past 500 years or so (historians please correct me), the very foundation on which things like a stable democracy are build upon.
The USA always had really weak education and overbearing religious tomfoolery, but now it blew up to a damn crusade against everything enlightenment stands for. For the foolish it’s “one-upping the libs”, for the uneducated or indoctrinated it’s “doing gods work”, the powerful see it as an opportunity to shift power to their own “rightful” rule. Meanwhile the only thing it actually is is a damn tragedy that leads to suffering and death.
Sorry if my english is somewhat clunky.
Oh, your English is great and legitimately feels natural, because I think you’ve communicated your point quite well. I can’t really dispute much of anything without sounding like I fundamentally agree with you, but I do have a seemingly small/semantic distinction that I think is important; I don’t think America’s primary core issue has been education or overbearing religious douchebaggery, but this weird extreme epistemological weight given to every individual’s opinion. It’s similar to the bullshit fuzzy philosophy the nazis would use to justify their ideology by insisting everyone should respect their deeply held beliefs. While I don’t think your assessment is perfectly accurate, I do very much believe it shows you’re paying way more attention than the average American.
How dare old people be concerned about the environment! Make fun of them!
