I have too many words for this and all the levels of ironies and will try not to go ham. A generation that defunded public libraries- who’s spending habits all but destroyed independent book stores, replaced them with mega book chains, and then destroyed most of those too- would have the nerve to make such a joke? A generation that created the technology- and who’s greed and must for better, faster, cheaper created an ever “cloud based” and DRM laced world would say that kids- the same kids they mock for trying to bring back small business, cottage industry, preserving and recovering technologies and skills that were literally destroyed by the generations before them and replaced by mass consumerism- can’t read a book?
When you speak ill of the children and the young you speak ill of yourself. You who raised them in a world created by you and your values. You who’s habits and philosophies shaped their perceptions of the world. Yes- the young must be responsible for THEIR behavior and decisions- but so too must we all. You can’t pin everything on the “elders” but the elders can’t wash their hands of their part in creating the future they are now living in.
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· 4 years ago
As a Boomer I can confirm that among us there are way to many functional illiterates who feel overwhelmed when they have to read more than 50 words in a row and feel generally threatened by books and people who read them. The POTUS is pre-millennial and couldn't read a fucking McDonalds menue. And let's not forget: millennials are what boomers made them, either directly by being their (sometimes) oblivious parents and/or by being part of a society that has been taking away funding and resources they still had themselves. Basically I usually sympathize more often with millennials dissing boomers than the other way round. Otoh there's definitely less people reading books, and literature has lost part of it's relevance and influence in society, but it's not like 30, 40 years ago a majority of people were interested in literature. And it's definitely not that millenials can't read books, they choose no to do it. Many computer-illiterate boomers don't have that choice in the first place.
It's often the same people who will comment irl "oooh you read, it's so rare to see young people reading, glad it's not lost!" (and sometimes even try and snap a pic of you like wtf), and go back to their phones.
"They terrify lest they should fear"