I understand the reasoning behind the name the silent generation but I still cannot wrap my head around them being the silent generation because there is absolutely nothing silent about them.
Yeah, I was about to say that. Then, I thought about my rural family dynamics. My silent generation grandparents couldn't hold a candle to my loud, talkative, judgemental boomer parents. At least when they judged, they were "silent" about it. Our parents were like "nah, we'll judge them to their faces" haha. (I kid, but both of my parents have changed drastically the past two decades and are more empathic and kind overall. Everything is changing, and my theory is the boomers that resist that or "can't keep up" are the ones we eventually see videos of going off the rails).
The loser boomers, that wanted socialism when capitalism was ... Booming! And now they have diddly squat.
And actually lived when socialism and communism was well and alive, and learnt nothing about it.
Sometime, look up a list of countries where the quality of life is better, by any measures, than the US. People live longer, have more money on average, aren't in debt, have free medical care.
Socialism (in the Scandinavian sense) works.
It's only in the US, among a cadre of low-information voters that have been consistently lied to for the last 70 years by their priests and politicians, that socialism gets conflated with communism, and used as some sort of scare tactic.
Remember when a single income was enough to send a child to college, buy a house, and pay for family holidays?
It wasn't socialism that wrecked the American dream, mate.
I'm from Europe and Scandinavia is not socialist. Its a Social Democracy, which means they are a capitalist country, with advanced social welfare and high taxes as a means to help the less fortunate and promote health,education and equal opportunities for the greater population.
I actually have family that lived under a USSR allied country and the other side of my family lived in a successful western European country, and were able to amass a certain amount of wealth.
Boomers didnt have a straight highway to wealth, they went through multiple ups and downs especially in the US but they had millions of opportunities that 80% of the world at that time couldn't even dream of.
Thus my anger towards boomers that are socialists because they failed at capitalism.
Unlike the previous generation who had fought for "changing the system," the Silent Generation was about "working within the system." They did this by keeping their heads down and working hard, thus earning themselves the "silent" label. Their attitudes leaned toward not being risk-takers and playing it safe.
Having most of your adolescent and young adult life consist of the Depression and WW2 will do that to you. I think by the end of the war they were just happy to be alive and doing well for themselves.
The generational stuff is like horoscopes. You read it and it confirms your bias because think of people it fits. Overly broad generalizations. Example: George Carlin was a silent generation guy.
My parents were Silent Gen. The people in their generation were quiet AF. They're kind of like Gen x: "please get out of the way, we have work to do". Only, the previous generation died off at a reasonable rate, unlike the Boomers.
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u/Ok_Spell_4165 Aug 23 '24
I understand the reasoning behind the name the silent generation but I still cannot wrap my head around them being the silent generation because there is absolutely nothing silent about them.