Last week I took annual Harassment policy training at work because that was assigned for July.

I would say the first amendment is already in trouble here in the USA. Things like:

"Do I need to stop talking about outside of work topics?"
"Absolutely not.But some things may be considered harassment. Saying you don't approve of same sex marriage may be viewed as harassment even if not directed at an individual and expressed as an opinion. Such behavior would likely be viewed as a policy violation and possibly illegal harassment."

I probably didn't get it exactly right, but that is close to quote.

I am sticking to topics directly relevant to work and the weather.

It's been my observation that millennials are not consistent in what constitutes hate speech. Non-whites, for instance, are right and justified in spewing all manner of hatred against whites...because we're just so awful, you know.

However, the reverse should be criminalized.

It is very consistent Patrick. Heads I win tails you lose. It is very consistently self serving. Everything else is rationalizing.

It's been my observation that millennials are not consistent in what constitutes hate speech. ~ Patrick at July 10, 2019 12:11 AM

The Millennial generation, the leading edge of which is turning 40, should be more worldly than it is.

That someone could turn "hate speech" restrictions into speech restrictions in a bid to impose authoritarianism escapes them. Feelings in the moment are what matter, not potential long-term unintended consequences.

"Europeans know these companies are quite unlikely to surgically remove content for individual countries."

Yes, they will say that it's "technically impossible" to have freer standards for the United States. Even though they will have no problems developing the technology for stricter censorship in China (as long as the Chicomms are paying Google and Facebook and Cisco billions to do it).

Behold the latest incarnation of the citizen-of-the-world "multinational" corporation. They may be headquartered in the United States, but they are in no way, shape or form American. We didn't see this coming when the first, industrial wave of multinationals arrived, and all they were doing was exporting jobs. Now the second wave is importing tyranny.

I'm not sure why y'all are so worried about the Euros, as annoying as they are. You really should worry about what Google, Facebook, et al. are up to with the Chinese Communist Party.

Those in power have often tried sticking a sock into the mouth of free speech. I give you the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/alien.html

These acts increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to fourteen years, authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" and restricted speech critical of the government. These laws were designed to silence and weaken the Democratic-Republican Party.

That was passed when most of the people attending the recent Constitutional Convention were alive and should have understood what they meant when they wrote Congress shall pass no law. Lincoln wasn't exactly easy on the press, either.

https://www.historynet.com/stop-the-presses-lincoln-suppresses-journalism.htm

Nor was Woodrow Wilson.

Seems like Antifa wants in on the action.

https://twitter.com/Julio_Rosas11/status/1147530669083570176

> illennials are not consistent
> in what constitutes hate speech.

Nobody else is, either… For there is no such thing.

Nowhere, nothing, NADIA, Commenich.

> The Millennial generation, the
> leading edge of which is turning
> 40, should be more worldly than
> it is.

Well, most of them in weren't even in High School when Hillary described her mundane rhetorical opponents (Limbaugh) as "hate radio."

We've been building to this moment.

We've been building to this moment.

Yep. The way I like to frame this discussion with people who think hate speech should be outlawed is this: you can write the law, I get to define hate speech. Shut up, hater!

We've been building to this moment. ~ Crid at July 10, 2019 7:24 AM

Sadly, we have. The Boomers - parents, teachers, etc. - who should have been teaching them were, instead, coddling them and protecting them, not just from harm but from offense, which the Millennials then equated with actual harm.

"That someone could turn "hate speech" restrictions into speech restrictions in a bid to impose authoritarianism escapes them."

It doesn't escape them Conan. The millenial generation was heavily taught if you aren't far left then you shouldn't speak out or there will be consequences. Hence the only millenials you hear are very far left and they have no issue with authoritarian regimes. As you've repeatedly noted far leftists think they will be in charge. A foolish sentiment but one that is often seen through history.

This issue with conservative millenials not talking hits several places with the generation. One notable one is polling. Very few conservative millenials believe it is safe to talk to a telephone poller. The person calling has your personal phone number. They should be able to identify your home, business, and even likely shopping areas given how phones track people these days. Losing your job or getting harassed in public isn't unheard of anymore. So as millenials come more of age I expect polling to get less and less accurate.

Which is one of the reasons I was surprised by that Pew analysis Arty put forwards. The ratio of 2 to 1 is far too low for what I would have expected.

One of the reasons the Left is so sure of their hate speech views is that they have defined hate categorically and absolutely in terms of their world view. It is like defining hate speech as denying that the earth is round or denying that up is up. To them, racism or sexism or criticism of a person are by definition wrong. They have no interest in the fact that sometimes someone may have a valid criticism of some party or group or person and that preventing such speech prevents you from accessing reality. In the 1930s the Germans really were getting ready to wage war, but it was considered bias in England to view them that way. It might actually be the case that almost all the terrorism around the world is Islamist but you can't say it. It might actually be that the Arab nations around Israel would commit genocide if given a chance, but you can't say it. It might be true that men who say they are women are going to (are) destroy women's sports.

Which is one of the reasons I was surprised by that Pew analysis Arty put forwards. The ratio of 2 to 1 is far too low for what I would have expected. ~ Ben at July 10, 2019 7:47 AM

Yes, conservative and moderate Millennials did not, in the past, tend to be as open about their views as their more left-leaning peers. As they're getting older, however, they are expressing those views more openly.

That is one more thing telling me that the leftist enthusiasm exhibited by this generational cohort when it was younger is waning. Life is gobsmacking a spoiled generation and teaching it a few lesson - exactly what I tried to tell Artie.

Notice that the Democrats ran to the middle in the 2018 midterms, running candidates who, almost in robotic lockstep, promised to "put country ahead of party" and "work with members of both parties" - many of them highlighting their military service while doing so (e.g., Dan McReady of the NC-9 race).

Sadly, we have. The Boomers - parents, teachers, etc. - who should have been teaching them were, instead, coddling them and protecting them, not just from harm but from offense, which the Millennials then equated with actual harm.

I have a theory, Millennials are like that because Boomers -who did not foresaw that fucking like bunnies had consequences- were shitty parents towards the GenXers, and the latter swore to never be like their parents, thus whenever I hear about helicopter parents, it's always the GenXers who are doing it.

offense, which the Millennials then equated with actual harm.

This is the key, and I don't think it's just Millennials. A great many people seem to believe that offensive words inflict harm which is equivalent to the harm inflicted by physical violence. If you believe that, the rest follows logically. Just as your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, your right to speak insulting words ends at my ear.

Six, generations come about every 15 years. As such, Boomers were parents to Millennials. Xers are parents to Gen Z.

Rex, it is an attempt to justify horrible behavior. In this case you take things that are clearly different and pretend they are the same. I.e. words I don't want to hear are the same as physical violence. It is obvious this isn't true. But obvious doesn't matter. Just repeat the justification enough times and act on it. So if someone is being violent to you (saying stuff you don't want said) then you are justified using self defense to stop them (punch them in the face).

It is the same philosophy as critical race/gender theory. I.e. if we assume racism/sexism/whateverism is a constant and pervasive then you are morally justified in fighting back against it. An eye for an eye. They hurt you and you are morally permitted to hurt them back. Can't find evidence of them hurting you, doesn't matter. You assume your target has done so, no proof required. Other people complain they can't see the injury, microagressions. You can't see it but it is there. Boil off the goblty gook and you end up with a moral philosophy that permits any evil act you so desire and paints a facade of righteousness over it.

As Patrick likes to point out the solution to such sophistry is to just not accept it.

Conan, the baby boom officially lasted from 1945 to 1964 (give or take a year), and one source says that Gen X lasted from 1965 to 1980.

So it's easy to see that many older boomers were, in fact, parents to Gen Xers. (My mother was a boomer. My father is barely older.)

Besides, when people think of boomers, they don't tend to think of those born in the last third or so of the boom. (That reminds me of what I told someone - that those born from 1958 to 1964 are sometimes called "the Blank Generation." Or, to put it another way, they are the ones who, 10 years from now, will be shaking their canes at their grandchildren and yelling: "What's the matter with kids today? When WE were proper little teenagers, the worst things WE ever did were pogo-dancing to the Sex Pistols and shooting smack!"

"Conan, the baby boom officially lasted from 1945 to 1964 (give or take a year), and one source says that Gen X lasted from 1965 to 1980."

I find it more useful to define generations in terms of cultural experiences. I was born in 1959, so a lot of demographers would put me in the Boomer generation. But I share almost none of the cultural experiences of the Boomers. I don't remember the assassination of JFK. I was six years old during the Summer of Love; I was 11 when the draft ended; I was 13 when Nixon resigned. I remember when all of those things happened, but my memories of them are those of a child. My formative experiences were the Carter malaise, OPEC, Reagan, Thatcher, punk and New Wave, the Space Shuttle, the Intel 8080, the DEC PDP-11, the beginnings of ESPN, MTV, Star Wars (both the movie and the missile defense system), big hair, shoulder pads, and the specter of AIDS (back when little was known about it, and some experts thought it was decimate the heterosexual population). Few of these were things that Boomers really experienced on the ground floor, or cared that much about.

Similarly, some demographers categories people born in the late 1970s and early 1980s as X'ers. But most of them weren't born when "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" was released, and if they'e ever heard it, it probably mystifies them. They don't remember MTV. They don't remember the Datsun 280Z. They remember Rainbow Brite, not Pee Wee Herman. They never saw a minicomputer; most of them have never heard of such. They grew up with PCs and Windows, long after my generation invented them. They never had measles or mumps or chicken pox because they were the first generation to be vaccinated against those diseases.

Most of my age cohort seems to have not ever had children. Of the ones who have, my observation is that they have tried very hard to give their children a traditional, suburban upbringing -- the upbringing that we, with our multiply-divorced parents and ever-shifting blended families, didn't have. (Which plays to Sixclaws' theory, to an extent.) However, although they may have spoiled their children some, I don't know any who helicopter-parented the way some of the later ones did.

So it's easy to see that many older boomers were, in fact, parents to Gen Xers. (My mother was a boomer. My father is barely older.) ~ lenona at July 11, 2019 6:32 AM

Depends on how you define the generational breaks.

A parent born in 1946 (generally accepted as the first year of the Baby Boom) would be 22 in 1968 - well into Generation X. So, any Xer children of Boomers were children born to young parents.

Of course, how you define the generations plays into this. Strauss & Howe, the ones who got this whole generational cohort labelling and breakdown started, break down the generations as such:

• GI Generation ("Greatest"): 1901-1924
• Silent Generation: 1925-1942
• Baby Boom: 1943-1960
• Generation X ("13th Generation"): 1961-1981
• Generation Y ("Millennials"): 1982-2004
• Generation Z: 2005-presesnt

Strauss & Howe based their generational breakdown on zeitgeist turnings and cultural triggering points - e.g., the Protestant Reformation, the Kennedy Assassination, the Challenger explosion.

Strauss and Howe break history into four-generation saecula with distinct historical experiences exhibited by the repeating four generational turns - a High, an Awakening, an Unraveling, and a Crisis - with each generation being shaped by those experiences into four archetypes: Prophet (Idealist), Nomad (Reactive), Hero (Civic), and Artist (Adaptive).

Unlike S&H, most modern psychologists and anthropologists prefer this breakdown:

• Baby Boom: 1946-1964
• Gen X:1965-1981
• Millennials: 1982-1996
• Gen Z: 1997-present

To your point, and S&H's, most late Boomers in that standard breakdown don't consider themselves Boomers at all. They have no cultural touchstones with the Woodstock generation.

I include myself in that group. Born after Kennedy's assassination, I have nothing in common with the generation for whom The Graduate encapsulated the zeitgeist.

When I got out of college, jobs were scarce, not so abundant that, like Benjamin Braddock, I could casually dismiss the career advice of older adults. Both parents worked while I was in high school, so instead of an "Ozzie and Harriet" childhood with Mom waiting with cookies for me in a nice warm home, I was a latchkey kid (another defining characteristic of Generation X) coming home to an empty house. As a result, I developed a higher level of self-reliance (Reactive) and, hence, little patience for "Civic" generations like Millennials.

Y parents cross from later boomers into early X'ers

Many Y's were raised with a set of beliefs that became prominent in popular culture as early X's moved into adulthood and I think it's apparent these influenced the way they raised Y's.

1. Self love conquers all - most bad behavior and personal outcomes can be attributed to a lack of confidence and self actualization. Similarly the lack of self actualization (now wokeness) produces fear, phobia, and 'hate'.

2. Bad experiences stay inside you like a disease - hence many Y's believe that conflict and contradiction are physically harmful. You saw these beliefs popularized with recovered memory syndrome, childhood sexual abuse hysteria, and a lot of the new agey pop psych in the earlyier 90's.

3. Victims are wiser and more moral than other people, only they 'see the truth' - again prominent in the character narratives of that period, especially towards blacks, gay men and single mothers. This is also the start of the white man is bad man arc, where any seemingly respectable and successful adult white male turned out to be a villain.

At the time, these themes were well intended if a bit mawkish. But what people didn't foresee is that they produce a very morbid, vindictive and self centered worldview, which we now see i 'snow flakes' and 'cry bullies'.

What I wonder is, where did the name Generation X come from - and was it just laziness on the part of trendsetters that the names Gen Y and Gen Z followed? Or was that supposed to be ominous - as in, "The End is Near"?

A few possible answers to the first question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X_(disambiguation)

I didn't know about the first two.

I DO have the following book:

"13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?" (1993)
by Neil Howe and William Strauss.

Synopsis:

"In commentary and quotations, computer dumps and cartoons, 13TH GEN is a multimedia anthem to the American post-boomer generation,our country's thirteenth generation since the founding fathers."

Reviews:

"Both Howe and Strauss are Boomers, but their work marks a sea-change in perception among intellectuals. The 13ers...may just prove an American salvation."--The Daily Telegraph (London)

"[A] valuable primer...a distressing portrait of a generation that has been systematically screwed by their elders...an honest, empathetic, and good-humoured effort to bridge the bitter gap between the twentysomethings and fortysomethings."--The Globe and Mail

Here's reader Kris Darlington's review (from 2006):

"This book was written over 10 years ago, when Gen X bashing was a cottage industry for Fortysomething Baby Boomers, who seemed to be grumpy that they could in NO WAY be considered "Young and Hip" anymore, and had to take it out on those who WERE. While the book's authors are fairer than most, they still insist on depicting my generation in stereotypical terms. And if they're better than most of their peers, it is ONLY because they attempt to explain what motivates these stereotypes. Pity they don't ever feel compelled to question why THEIR generation feels the need to be SO critical of every other generation under the sun, be it their parents, us, and/or their precious little Gen Y brats. THERE's a book I'd pay $13.95 or whatever to read. Then again, I understand from friends who've read it, that their book on Gen Y is nothing but overly optimistic wishful thinking, so maybe they're just idiots. Here's a little free advice to any Boomers reading this reveiw: Wanna know what's up with younger generations? Quit assuming you know ANYTHING about us, put away that critical eye of yours, and talk with us, NOT at us... Then you might actually learn something. Then again, maybe not."

In this case you take things that are clearly different and pretend they are the same.

They're clearly different to you and me, but I'm convinced that the people who think they're the same are NOT pretending. A few years ago I got into a discussion with some folks on a left-wing blog during which I opined that the best reaction to online taunts and insults is embodied in the old saying which begins "Sticks and stones. . .". From the horrified reactions I got, you'd think I'd advocated killing kittens and serving them for lunch.

...you'd think I'd advocated killing kittens and serving them for lunch. ~ Rex Little at July 11, 2019 6:11 PM

What?! You should never serve kittens for lunch. They're much more of a breakfast meat, like sausage or bacon.

You should never serve kittens for lunch

Bob Rivers would beg to differ.

(And we have now executed a full-scale threadjack.)

The ability for the human mind to deceive itself is pretty infinite Rex. Claim to be a victim and make all your horrible actions moral by self defense. Of course that only works when the people around you agree to be deceived.

Lenona, the explanation I prefer for "Generation X" is this one: Around 1976, Billy Idol and bassist Tony James were looking for a new name for their proto-punk band. As it happened, they were at Idol's mom's house, and James found a copy of the 1965 book on her bookshelf. Idol and James decided to name the band after the book, and Generation X became one of the first bands to play in the style that we know as New Wave. I first heard of Generation X the band in 1979, and shortly after that, I began hearing the term used to refer to my age group. It was sort of a defining moment for me; it was the first time that I had any sense of "belonging" to a generation.

Wow… I think I'm the oldest here: Feb '59. With this assurance of seniority, you can trust me to lead your thinking in all matters personal, foreign and domestic.

> Boomers - parents, teachers,
> etc. - who should have been
> teaching them were, instead,
> coddling them

Haidt and Lukianoff very explicitly describe Igen/Gen Z as born after 1995, describing that year as a specific change in generational attitudes. Among other things, these are the first kids to have smartphones and mobile Facebook in their lives when they weren't ready… Hence, perhaps, the 70% rise in suicide for the cohort's teenage girls.

> To them, racism or sexism or
> criticism of a person are by
> definition wrong.

Emphasis by Uncle Cridmo

I first encountered that 'You mustn't criticize if she thinks she's right!' rhetoric from a classmate in 1972, which woulda been seventh grade. It was dumbfounding: Books and stories and mundane living had always warned about pressures of conformity, but the odor of political correctness was entirely new. In every year since, I've thought of reaching out to that kid (a child of divorce, and never entirely comfortable in her own skin) how fucked up that was. Sitting here now, it seems like a transparent extension of the frequent feminine (not feminist) presumption that everything wrong with our culture is from meanies with harsh social expectations.

She died ten years ago, and I'm in touch with only one classmate anyway. (But seriously, Sue— GFY.)

…to tell her how fuck up that was…

Etc. All these years later it still makes me distractingly angry. There's this nagging feeling that I, personally, could have nipped this in the bud before Nixon's re-election.

Not even close, Crid--I've got you by nearly ten years (July '49).

Conan,

I don't get the feeling you really understand how the millennial generation thinks.

If you were born in 1959 and most of your cohort never had children, exactly what kind of significant exposure would you have had to folks born after 1982?

Did you have a habit of having around 10 year olds when you were in your early 30s to have first hand experience with how they were being raised?

Were you or are you close friends with folks in their 30s now that you are ~60?

Nothing you say regarding that generation gives me significant faith that you actually understand what they are about... and the way you talk about that generation suggests that you didn't raise one yourself.

I don't get the feeling you really understand how the millennial generation thinks. ~ Artemis at July 13, 2019 11:48 AM

Artie, I don't really care what feeling you get or don't get.

...now that you are ~60? ~ Artemis at July 13, 2019 11:48 AM

Not even close.

Go home, Artie, the adults are talking.

Conan,

Adults deal with facts and figures... I've already shown you the polling data regarding millennial voters.

You keep having a "feeling" that things are going to have a wild shift in 2 years.

Where is the data to support this?

No generation has ever had a wild swing from progressive to conservative in the span of 2 years. Why would the millennial generation be any different?

I'm still waiting for you to provide a specific prediction by the way. The moment I asked for one you ran away from our previous conversation.

Conan,

One thing further because I find this to be especially funny:

"the adults are talking."

That isn't exactly what I see here. What I do see is extremely traditional behavior of an older generation telling folks of a younger generation to proverbially get off their lawn.

That isn't the behavior of "adults" persay. It is the behavior of a subset of adults who are persnickety, crotchety, and set in their ways.

There was a time when folks older than you were busy being extremely worried about the gyration of Elvis' hips.

There is nothing new under the sun and bashing entire generations younger than your own (all of whom happen to be adults by the way) is just a sign that you might be over the hill.