My feeling is that a whole generation can reject the advice of medical experts to wear a mask and socially distance as long as anyone within that generation who fails to follow these minimal expectations for being part of a society never again demands anyone's respect on anything
If you're saying it's your right as an American not to wear a mask or socially distance—when 143,000 Americans have died in 120 days because people didn't do that—it's equally my right as an American to whatever your age have no respect for you or any interest in anything you say
By the way I would say the same damn thing to those individual Boomers who spent decades denying climate science or what they were doing to the economy for the generation coming up or what they did to our criminal justice system by fecklessly allowing Republicans to demagogue it
I'm never going to be that guy who assumes a whole generation does this or does that—as my initial tweet indicates we can look at quantitative and qualitative data regarding tendencies within generations and then condemn the individuals within those generations acting in that way
Study after study confirms there's a tendency in the generation coming up not to follow the news, not to be engaged in electoral politics, and not to take seriously certain threats like COVID-19, but then *also* certain tendencies among other generations that are equally angering
What we can't do is ignore the fact that young people in large numbers have decided the global pandemic has nothing to do with them and have become the nation's chief virus super-spreaders, even as that generational tendency should only lead to us calling out individual violators
Like I don't know why it'd be correct for young folks to call out boomers for f****** up the planet—and it's 100% correct for young folks to call out boomers for f****** up the planet—but then not OK to note quantitative/qualitative data showing young people are ignoring COVID-19
The bigger issue is that in the eyes of history we're all messing up on everything, inasmuch as (say) many Boomers voted for Gore's environmental advocacy, but future historians will wonder why as a country we didn't give Gore 60% or 70% of the vote given the clear climate crisis
PS/ For what it's worth I'm Gen X and can easily itemize the quantitative and qualitative data underscoring the ways in which we as a generation have sucked and deserve on an individual basis to be called out when we act in ways the quantitative and qualitative data suggest we do
