I don’t really get the concept of a “greatest generation”, but I do find these generalisations interesting in what they reveal about what older generations are willing to accept from life, which shapes how they expect younger people to behave.

It’s interesting that, considering how we measure success in most of our societies, that these stereotypes seem to recurrently crystallise around the idea that younger people are somehow “slackers” or “useless” – see similar tropes about the various generations that are supposedly uniquely lazy, entitled, obsessed with phones, etc etc.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we measure so much of an incoming generation’s worth in terms of how willing they are to accept exploitative and unfair economic/social arrangements. By complaining and “slacking” in the face of these sub-par systems, younger people remind us of the beliefs that have been beaten/bribed out of us over the years. What we hear in these generational shifts isn’t necessarily just an incoming generation’s angst, it’s also an echo of our former selves, voicing contempt at what we’ve become.