6 ms·

I wanted to hate this piece, but I can't. This idea of "post-emotional" is ridiculous, and probably overestimates how passionate previous generations were. Ther

by neilk 15y ago

I wanted to hate this piece, but I can't. This idea of "post-emotional" is ridiculous, and probably overestimates how passionate previous generations were. There were a lot of half-hearted hippies and punks too. But I think he's right about a few things: - the ideal personality is now someone gentle, who gets along with everyone - the ideal social form is now to start a business or non-profit, or at least be an independent professional - to this end, and due to social media and blogging, many of us are always selling ourselves, however subtly.

pnathan 15y ago
He has put his finger on some vital characteristics of the 2010 era. I think we could have some absolutely lovely flamewars about the causes and effects of those characteristics, but I really, really can't argue with his observations. I've observed that too, but not verbalized it.
- guylhem 15y ago
  Same thing here. I have felt this new "moral order" but this is the first time I've seen it linked to a salesman persona and used as a token to describe this generation.
zerostar07 15y ago
Calling our generation "sellers" has negative connotations, as if we 're super-conformists or sth. If you follow his descriptions, we are the most mature and responsible generation ever: we don't overtly express a futile belief in utopias, we lived the end of communism, we don't reject business, but instead try to infiltrate it with less greed, we don't manipulate people with emotional bullshit (love did not feed the world), we understand that you can change society by not being confrontational (hence we are "selling" ideas rather than screaming them). We don't have a dominant mass culture, which means we are open to micro-cultures, frowning upon the childishness of current-day blockbusters. I don't think Steve Jobs is an idol for us, we don't really have idols and myths, except maybe google.org or wikipedia. It's a good generation.
- wpietri 15y ago
  I'm much older than the generation he's talking about, and I think you're entirely right. I shouldn't expect too much understanding of grubby commerce from a former English professor, but I think the affect of a salesman and of an entrepreneur are worlds apart. An entrepreneur is up to a whole thing, and deals with mainly closed feedback loops. A salesman is at best a fragment of a real enterprise, but is often, as in the case of a snake-oil salesmen, backed up by little or nothing. The feedback loops for a salesman are frequently open, allowing all manner of bullshit. Further, even if he were right about entrepreneurship being more common, it still wouldn't be the dominant experience, so using it to explain a generation's affect is suspicious. Instead, I think it's much more reasonable to look at the rise of electronic communication (cheap phone calls, texts, email, chat, Twitter, Facebook). It means, in effect, that each of us lives in our own virtual small town. People end up being pleasant to each other because when they aren't, the consequences are more likely to be felt and harder to dodge.
- saucerful 15y ago
  ...we are the most mature and responsible generation ever Just because the hipster ideal is more "mature and responsible" than related social movements which preceded it, does not make our generation more mature and responsible than those which preceded it. Calling our generation "sellers" has negative connotations, as if we 're super-conformists or sth. Are those negative connotations necessarily unwarranted? For example, is everyone starting their own business and doing their own PR really the most effective way for us to organize ourselves? We understand that you can change society by not being confrontational Really? I count OWS, WikiLeaks, Anonymous, etc. among the biggest contributions of our generation. Certainly these are confrontational? We don't have a dominant mass culture, which means we are open to micro-cultures Agreed. This is what I admire most about our generation.
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    - Our generation is not all about hipsters. It happens to be much more fragmented than previous generations, u hear about hipsters because it's the most pervasive (and loud) pattern. I meant that as a generation we haven't created a fake utopia just for ourselves, we yearn for what is possible not just what is ideal (or i believe so, i dont know my generation that good) - I think it will be, it is possible now to overthrow corporatism for a more ethical model where corporations will be socially responsible. Things like "PR" are slowly fading. - Compared to May '68, or the Red Army Faction, it is.
notatoad 15y ago
i think i've found a way to hate it. the author is spot on, but entirely misses the point by labeling us "generation sell". it's not about the selling, it's about working for ourselves. the band as a self-promoting, self-managing independent entity isn't doing it to make money, they're doing their own sales so that their music remains their own. small-time independent entrepreneurs are very specifically not selling themselves. they're selling a product so they don't have to sell themselves to an employer. being a small business owner isn't about selling something, it's about not selling out.
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. The part describing starting a business as "selling out" was infuriating.
  - danssig 15y ago
    wtf? Having a business is "selling out"? IMO, having your own business is about the only thing that isn't "selling out".
- trevelyan 15y ago
  I suspect most people still want the comfort of a stable job or career. Problem is that for the last ten years it has been hard to find good ones in the general economy, outside a few growth areas of questionable sustainability (housing, finance, health care). So the opportunity cost for 20-30 somethings to doing their own thing has fallen, even if people don't want to admit it. The other difference is that startups and small businesses give people a more comfortable narrative of how their life is going. It is a lot more comforting to tell yourself, "I'm doing badly now so I will do better in the future," than "I'll never get a job that pays as well as my parents." If this was not the case, there would be much less romanticization of venture capital and angel investment on these boards, more startups would be focused on revenue-generating than traction-generating products, and lifestyle businesses would not be perceived as failures of boldness for "not swinging for the fences".
  - deleted 15y ago
Alex3917 15y ago
"to this end, and due to social media and blogging, many of us are always selling ourselves, however subtly." I think the dominant belief of our generation is basically that you shouldn't talk unless you're selling something. I don't think that this is because the people doing the 'selling' are superficial, but rather because the general public is becoming less well-educated and capable of independent thought. So the burden of thought is essentially now placed almost entirely in the hands of third parties. It's an extremely troubling trend.

by neilk 15y ago

pnathan 15y ago

He has put his finger on some vital characteristics of the 2010 era. I think we could have some absolutely lovely flamewars about the causes and effects of those characteristics, but I really, really can't argue with his observations. I've observed that too, but not verbalized it.

guylhem 15y ago
Same thing here. I have felt this new "moral order" but this is the first time I've seen it linked to a salesman persona and used as a token to describe this generation.

zerostar07 15y ago

Calling our generation "sellers" has negative connotations, as if we 're super-conformists or sth. If you follow his descriptions, we are the most mature and responsible generation ever: we don't overtly express a futile belief in utopias, we lived the end of communism, we don't reject business, but instead try to infiltrate it with less greed, we don't manipulate people with emotional bullshit (love did not feed the world), we understand that you can change society by not being confrontational (hence we are "selling" ideas rather than screaming them). We don't have a dominant mass culture, which means we are open to micro-cultures, frowning upon the childishness of current-day blockbusters. I don't think Steve Jobs is an idol for us, we don't really have idols and myths, except maybe google.org or wikipedia. It's a good generation.

wpietri 15y ago
I'm much older than the generation he's talking about, and I think you're entirely right. I shouldn't expect too much understanding of grubby commerce from a former English professor, but I think the affect of a salesman and of an entrepreneur are worlds apart. An entrepreneur is up to a whole thing, and deals with mainly closed feedback loops. A salesman is at best a fragment of a real enterprise, but is often, as in the case of a snake-oil salesmen, backed up by little or nothing. The feedback loops for a salesman are frequently open, allowing all manner of bullshit. Further, even if he were right about entrepreneurship being more common, it still wouldn't be the dominant experience, so using it to explain a generation's affect is suspicious. Instead, I think it's much more reasonable to look at the rise of electronic communication (cheap phone calls, texts, email, chat, Twitter, Facebook). It means, in effect, that each of us lives in our own virtual small town. People end up being pleasant to each other because when they aren't, the consequences are more likely to be felt and harder to dodge.
saucerful 15y ago
...we are the most mature and responsible generation ever Just because the hipster ideal is more "mature and responsible" than related social movements which preceded it, does not make our generation more mature and responsible than those which preceded it. Calling our generation "sellers" has negative connotations, as if we 're super-conformists or sth. Are those negative connotations necessarily unwarranted? For example, is everyone starting their own business and doing their own PR really the most effective way for us to organize ourselves? We understand that you can change society by not being confrontational Really? I count OWS, WikiLeaks, Anonymous, etc. among the biggest contributions of our generation. Certainly these are confrontational? We don't have a dominant mass culture, which means we are open to micro-cultures Agreed. This is what I admire most about our generation.
- zerostar07 15y ago
  - Our generation is not all about hipsters. It happens to be much more fragmented than previous generations, u hear about hipsters because it's the most pervasive (and loud) pattern. I meant that as a generation we haven't created a fake utopia just for ourselves, we yearn for what is possible not just what is ideal (or i believe so, i dont know my generation that good) - I think it will be, it is possible now to overthrow corporatism for a more ethical model where corporations will be socially responsible. Things like "PR" are slowly fading. - Compared to May '68, or the Red Army Faction, it is.

notatoad 15y ago

i think i've found a way to hate it. the author is spot on, but entirely misses the point by labeling us "generation sell". it's not about the selling, it's about working for ourselves. the band as a self-promoting, self-managing independent entity isn't doing it to make money, they're doing their own sales so that their music remains their own. small-time independent entrepreneurs are very specifically not selling themselves. they're selling a product so they don't have to sell themselves to an employer. being a small business owner isn't about selling something, it's about not selling out.

bluedanieru 15y ago
Thanks for pointing this out. The part describing starting a business as "selling out" was infuriating.
- danssig 15y ago
  wtf? Having a business is "selling out"? IMO, having your own business is about the only thing that isn't "selling out".
trevelyan 15y ago
I suspect most people still want the comfort of a stable job or career. Problem is that for the last ten years it has been hard to find good ones in the general economy, outside a few growth areas of questionable sustainability (housing, finance, health care). So the opportunity cost for 20-30 somethings to doing their own thing has fallen, even if people don't want to admit it. The other difference is that startups and small businesses give people a more comfortable narrative of how their life is going. It is a lot more comforting to tell yourself, "I'm doing badly now so I will do better in the future," than "I'll never get a job that pays as well as my parents." If this was not the case, there would be much less romanticization of venture capital and angel investment on these boards, more startups would be focused on revenue-generating than traction-generating products, and lifestyle businesses would not be perceived as failures of boldness for "not swinging for the fences".
- deleted 15y ago

Alex3917 15y ago

"to this end, and due to social media and blogging, many of us are always selling ourselves, however subtly." I think the dominant belief of our generation is basically that you shouldn't talk unless you're selling something. I don't think that this is because the people doing the 'selling' are superficial, but rather because the general public is becoming less well-educated and capable of independent thought. So the burden of thought is essentially now placed almost entirely in the hands of third parties. It's an extremely troubling trend.