Well, perhaps you should. Because the assumption that everyone from age 57 to 79 thinks and acts in the same way is, frankly, insulting, as well as simplistic. All the people in that article are white, too. Are we supposed to read something into that?
You're far too easily insulted then. Or in this instance insulted on behalf of Mrs K. Simply put, it's the age groups over 45 where a majority voted Brexit - https://www.statista.com/statistics/520954/brexit-votes-by-age/. So basically everyone in their early/mid-50s upwards 8 years on. And yeah, for me, that's an age bracket in this context. But I fully expect at least some in the article voted remain - the Barcelona lady at least.
I hear you brother - BUT tying ages to the vote is iffy because we don't collect large amounts of data on voting ages. But saying that, those figures really mask something deeply terrifying data about our population: the mismatch between the sizes of the demographic groups (and this in a week that one of Japan's major manufacturers of 'sanitary wear' is ceasing production of its products for infants, focussing instead on the 'senior' market).
What I find surprising is how low the ‘pro-Brexit’ proportion is amongst the 2 older age groups…doesn’t quite fit in with ‘the wrinklies done it’ narrative often put out.
I just find it hard to fathom that a person 22 years younger than another can be regarded as in the same “age bracket”. After all, you would never say that of two people who, respectively, had their tenth and thirty-second birthdays today. Still, generalisers gotta generalise.
I am caught by it and I’ve always been anti-Brexit. But I’m not insulted by it. It’s not supposed to be universal. It’s indicative. If you were asked what age is Michael Buble’s fanbase, it would be odd to say you couldn’t answer because many old people loathe him. But he’s clearly not going to be listened to by teenagers.
I don’t agree with the universal/indicative thing: or, at least, I don’t think it is used in that way. I think people do, precisely, attribute particular views to a certain age range. I have a serious problem with that, just as I would if it was gender or ethnicity. People are individuals, the fact that they have been born within 15 years of each other doesn’t make them all the same. Saying Michael Buble’s fanbase is drawn mainly from older people is fine. Saying all older people like Michael Buble is not. People slip far too easily from the former into the latter. But in any event, my main gripe here was that individuals who are 22 years older than other individuals are in the same age bracket. I just think that is a preposterous overgeneralisation.
You're coming over rather defensively. Brexit wasn't *just* an age thing, of course it wasn't. But, older people were way more in favour than younger people. I get it, you're not a knee-jerking reactionary who longs for they days when you could get a bottle of cream from the dairy and a bag of sweets and still have change for a copy of the Daily Mail! However, the fact is, older people enabled Brexit and voted in large numbers for it. That doesn't mean you did, or your wife did, or every person aged over 50 did. It also doesn't mean every person under 50 voted Remain. It's not defaming an entire generation, it's just how it shook down.
Anyway, the latest Tory / Brexit win is that the Oxford boat race crew got sick training on the Thames. To be offensively flippant for a moment, you’d have thought years of having their heads shoved down the toilet at public school by Sir and their prefects would have built up some sort of immunity. But no, seriously, it's awful. Sickness from E Coli is no laughing matter. The situation with our rivers is a national shame and until we clean up our act faux patriots draping themselves in the flags and wetting their undergarments at anyone who doesn't claim Britain / England is the greatest can do one! We are a joke country, sadly.
So did people of particular educational attainment. But we don’t think it’s acceptable to say they “enabled” it, do we? Generalisations slip very easily into stereotypes. You yourself said “people of a certain age “.
Oh come on, Mr K! I've got a lot of time for you and your points but this is real snowflake stuff now. Man up, dude! Old people voted for Brexit and they absolutely loved it. They couldn't get enough of that sweet, sweet sovrinty. And stupid people who didn't understand issues voted for it too. They're just the facts! It's not my fault that older people voted in favour of Brexit. It's fine to just embrace the facts and not get hurty feelings all the time. Maybe your back's hurting or your knee aches in the cold weather or something, I don't know!
You’re right about Brexit (although clearly the blame lies with politicians), but I find the demographic thing ridiculous. It is simply untrue that people born in 1945 think and act identically to those born in 1964. You might as well say that they think and act the same because they all share the same star sign. And it’s Professor, btw. Young whippersnapper.
I think you're taking it way too literally Prof. No one is saying someone born in 1945 thinks identically to someone born in 1964, not even me. I don't get why someone so smart would think that's the point being made. Demographics are not ridiculous, though. There's a heck of a lot to be learned from all sorts of trends that relate to age, level of education, income, where people live, etc. Marketing, media and politics are founded on being able to understand what people think and how certain beliefs are connected. That doesn't mean it's absolutely foolproof but you're kidding yourself if you don't think that we can tell a lot (not everything) about people by their age. You're in danger of sounding like my dear old Mum who said that advertising never influenced her, except her kitchen cupboards were packed with the most-advertised brands! Anyway, old people voted for Brexit. The end! Even just anecdotally I remember getting to the polling booth that day and seeing the huge queue of greys doddering their way to the front of the queue and I said to my youthful other half, "Uh-oh, we're in trouble here, they've all woken up."
There’s value in the age thing to a limited extent (say, on something like familiarity with technology) but I think it has become abused. There’s loads of “Boomers did this/ think this” stuff out there. The fact is that someone born into poverty in a one parent family in 1945 will have a completely different world view from someone privileged born into a “nuclear family” in 1964. And vice versa. Etc etc. But the crucial point is the one in your second paragraph. The way people think and act is a product of multiple influences. Reducing it to age alone is simply that: reductionist.
It's not in the case of Brexit, though. Without the greys getting their way we'd still be a normal, functioning country. What interests me is that you're really hung up on this generational stuff, and I can't quite get a handle on why. Is it because you're a Baby Boomer and the phrase Boomer really triggers you? Getting bent out of shape about all this just makes you sound like a massive, massive Boomer! (Kidding, of course). Seriously, though, take it up with the people who define and date the generations because it's really not my definition. It's not precision analysis, of course, but it is instructive to a degree. No one seems to defend the younger generation against accusations that they're not property owning property barons because they like avocado on toast and chai latte! Again, kidding. I love you guys really.
I just find generalisations highly problematic because they can so easily tilt into stereotypes - and then worse, and this one seems stupider than most for the reasons I have already outlined. Plus, it seems to be a recent phenomenon. I don’t recall anyone talking about Boomers twenty years ago. At least with class, there is decades and decades of respectable academic research into it.
You are still taking this way too literally. There is no implication that people within that span don’t have widely different views. It would include, for example, Ann Widdecombe and Jeremy Corbyn, whose age and class proximity you suggest provides more affinity than with those much younger. It’s simply a shorthand. I’d expect those least offended by the summary of that (wide) age group’s politics would be those who disagree with it and are frustrated with the willingness of their peers to go along with nationalistic politics that raises the drawbridge on social benefits.
Shorthand for what? If views are so disparate (I agree), why refer to age at all? How is it relevant?
Do you really need a debate about why it’s sometimes helpful to talk about human aggregations? If you can only talk about individuals you can’t really say very much about politics.
They are sometimes valid, but very easily abused. Anyway, my original beef was with the claim that people born almost a quarter of a century apart are within the same ‘age bracket’. I stand by that comment.
"The first recorded use of "baby boomer" is in a January 1963 Daily Press article by Leslie J. Nason describing a massive surge of college enrolments approaching as the oldest boomers were coming of age." Whether that's a recent phenomenon or not, I don't know, but you old guys do tend to think the 1960s was only yesterday so perhaps it is! *wink*
Tee hee. Of course the first recorded instance and extensive use in public discourse are entirely different things.
Old people ? Young people ? Idiots if you don't understand Poor people Red wall poor people voted in their numbers to leave If you don't understand that then you are the problem Out of touch and a few Bob in the bank
Cos there is nothing worse than affluent people telling poor people that they voted wrong when voting for change . Is that you ? Askin for a poor person Change that poor persons mind
Ach, no. I can remember the phrase 'baby boomers' being well known in the 80s and definitely in the early 90s when there was a wave of nostalgia for the music, movies and fashion of the 1960s. Admittedly, using the term 'Boomer' in a pejorative sense is a relatively recent thing, which is probably why all the Brians and Sheilas get so irritated by it!
Indeed, my point was really trying to get at when the full generational nomenclature caboodle became commonplace. I suspect it’s a social media phenomenon.
Nope, not at all. 'Baby Boomers' have been a thing for decades. The high post-war birthrate influenced a huge number of things. Housing policy, education, the health service and the baby boom generation gave way to Generation X, Millenials, Gen Z. I can remember the baby boomers being discussed in a general studies class at school in the 1980s. The generation that lived in fear of the bomb, through the Cold War, then the summer of love, the Beatles and all that. Anyway, we're going round in circles so I'll duck out of this one here but, surprising as this may seem, things don't become real only when individual people have heard of them!
I’m not talking about Baby Boomers alone. I’m well aware of that term from my youth as well. You will note I didn’t use that term in my post. I’m talking about the concept of classifying and naming all generations. I’m apparently Generation X but I don’t recall being “aware” of that until quite recently.
The latest episode of the Oh God What Now Podcast is worth a listen. Ignore the first half about the Royals – the second half is about Boomers. And – just for @Keighley – includes liberal use of the phrase 'Not all Boomers' to avoid accusations of unfairly maligning the luckiest generation in human history! The episode is called Turn That Crown Upside Down and the talking point is a reaction to an article in The Economist. And, just to equalise things out in the generalisation stakes, Rafael Behr describes Gen X as 'the absolute waster generation' without even adding the disclaimer 'not all Gen Xers,' which, as a Gen Xer I feel duty-bound to repeatedly describe as hurtful and unfair. Meanwhile, in other wonderful Brexit news, higher food prices are on the way. "The UK government has revealed that importers of animal products from the EU will pay £29 per type of item – such as an individual pack of cheese or sausage. The charges will be capped at £145 per shipment, and will start on 30 April, with additional checks in October." Who needs foreign food anyway. Surely we can just start converting all the grass verges into little turnip patches. It's a luxury of the bourgeoisie to want nice things to eat at affordable prices anyway. Our sovereignty gives us the proper British right to pay more for less. In the expensive poor country Britain has become in double-quick time there's a lot of it about.
