Matthew Elmslie's Blog, page 2

Review: Generations (Jean M. Twenge)

Last week, thanks to the good offices of the Ottawa Public Library, I read Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge.

As longtime readers will know, and as others will not know, I am into the generational-cycle theory set forth by writers William Strauss and Neil Howe in their books. So I wasn’t coming to this book fresh and unspoiled; I definitely went into it with an already-existing perspective.

Twenge’s main argument is that one generation is different from another because of the available technology in their respective formative years. I don’t think that’s a dumb thing to say, but there are a couple of reasons why I think it could be improved upon.

Twenge cites Strauss and Howe, but disagrees with them; she characterizes their argument as saying that generational personality is formed by the generation’s reaction to a major event in their younger years. That’s close, but really S&H say that generational personality is formed by the generation’s reaction to the whole era of the generation’s younger years. So, Strauss and Howe do consider the available technology as part of what helps shape emerging generations… along with the available culture, parenting styles, older generations, social problems, and everything else they might meet in the world.

Still, if Twenge wants to say it’s just the technology, not the other stuff, that’s fine, it’s her book. The problem I have with it is this: technology isn’t a force. It’s something people make. And those people are doing things for their own reasons. So, when she says that rising generations are influenced by the available technology, she’s really saying that they’re influenced by previous generations. Which isn’t that different from what Strauss and Howe were saying.

Plus… I have a hard time with the idea that technology actively influences anybody. Technology has no agenda of its own; it just allows people to extend human nature further in directions it was already going. The most I’d be willing to say is that the emergence of a new technology may allow a rising generation to express its priorities in ways that weren’t available to previous generations… but it doesn’t do anything to set those priorities.

Most of the book is Twenge’s exploration of a collection of research datasets that she digs deep into to describe today’s living generations. This part of the book is worthwhile and thorough, in that she gives us a picture of six generations that we might not be able to get anywhere else. If I ever buy my own copy of the book, which I might, it will be because of this part. The trouble is, Twenge’s argument about technology is not further developed in these sections. The generational descriptions are strictly factual and don’t say anything one way or the other about whether people grew how they grew or did what they did because of new technology. Or not much, anyway; maybe I missed it.

So I have my differences with Generations: TRDBGZMGXB&S-AWTM4AF. I think its argument is too limited and not presented forcefully enough, but it has worth anyway.

Just a couple more items for the Strauss-and-Howe-heads who may be reading this:

like everyone else, Twenge doesn’t use the S&H birthyears for the generations. She’s got the Boom running from ’46-’64 of course, she puts the Millennial-Zoom boundary earlier in the ’90s than I’ve seen before, and she’s got the Polar generation starting I think in 2013 or 2014she cites S&H’s Generations and Millennials Rising, but in the GenX chapter she discusses 13th GEN briefly without noting that it was written by Strauss and Howe. Why? Did she forget? Not notice? It’s strange

Update

My writing life is somewhat in disarray at the moment, for undisclosed reasons. I will get back to it, but I don’t know when I’ll next be on a regular schedule for writing, or if I will want to reorganize how, how often, and when I do things. But you’ll hear from me.

Summer 25: elbows

My beloved Zann,

I had been to the laur before, though not in a long time. I remembered grassy hillsides and plashing brooks and leafy groves. This wasn’t like that.

We stepped out onto a rocky hilltop. There were other such hills and large rocks all around us. The sky, instead of its usual pale blue, was dark pink with a brown sun. Nothing grew. There was no sign of Wande or Jhus.

“What is this?” I asked Ellewen. “Is this a part of the laur that I just never saw? Or did something happen?”

“Something happened,” he said.

“What was it?” I looked around. On a plain beyond the bare hills was a tall red fortress, a tall tower surrounded by great earthworks. High blue fires burned in a ring all around it.

“You know,” he told me gently.

“I do? Did… did we do this to you? With our snowballs?” It didn’t seem likely, but…

“I think we should go back,” he said. “Soon.”

The air smelled of smoke and metal. “I have to find Wande and Jhusdhe. If they’re here, I can’t leave them here.”

“I know you came here for a purpose. But we don’t know that purpose. Let us achieve what we can quickly, and depart. And I doubt your leman and her heir are here.”

I didn’t see anything but the fortress that looked like it ought to be looked at, so I started in its direction. “You do? Why?”

“Why would they be here?”

“It’s a good question.” The hill was steep, and I jumped and skidded to the bottom. Behind me, Ellewen stepped lightly and easily.

“Your wizard’s augury, I mind, was about what you should do next, not about what you should do next to find Goodwife Wande. Unless I misremember?”

I couldn’t remember for sure. “No?”

“Then let us act with speed. There is great danger here.”

“But to do what? If Wande’s not here.”

“I don’t know. We will have to be alert. I was hoping the crossroads would provide a different answer for our quest. I don’t know why you needed to come here.”

We walked on, dodging the elbows of the barren hills around us.

Love,

Ybel

Summer 24: fourth

Most beloved Zann,

Ellewen and I walked down a long country road, side-by-side. We hadn’t seen much other traffic, wagons or riders or trudgers. I had lost track of time. How many times had we stopped to eat or sleep or make love? How many nights had there been, or afternoons when the mist stood away from us? I couldn’t tell. I thought Ellewen seemed gloomy, though.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He smiled, but it didn’t reassure me. I thought he seemed more resigned than content.

“You can tell me, you know. Maybe I can help.”

“We’re here,” he said, and stopped.

I looked around. There was a lane stretching away from our road to the left, but only scrubby woods to the right. “No, we’re not.”

“We are,” Ellewen said, peering down the lane. “This is the crossroads in your drawing.”

I tried to remember what I had drawn. It didn’t seem like this at all.

“Stand over there,” Ellewen advised, “and don’t worry about the fourth road.”

I crossed the lane and turned back to regard the scene. I tried to fit what I saw into my memory of my drawing. If this road was the one that I drew up-to-down, and the lane branched off this way, yes, there was the tree with the overhanging branch, and there was a rotted post where I had put a sign… I had drawn that rut… “It is the same!” I said. Had I been here before? Or someone else in my family?

“Yes.”

“But what about the fourth road?”

“Look again.”

I looked again at the tangle of bushes, to see if there was anything there that looked like a road. There wasn’t. It was just scrub. And then a slight breeze fluttered through, and I saw it. The leaves and twigs of the trees and bushes, in their motion they described the lines of a road matching the one in my mind, one that led out of this world into another world that we knew.

“Can we go?” I said, stepping toward it. I knew I could walk that road.

Ellewen didn’t move.

“Ellewen?”

He started to say something, stopped, tried again, stopped again. Obviously he didn’t want to. But why?

“Ellewen, Wande and Jhus may be in there. You don’t have to go, but I do, and I will.”

He sighed, and followed me. “It isn’t that I don’t want to go,” he said.

I took his hand, closed my eyes, and stepped onto the fourth road of the crossroads. I could feel the leaves under my feet, and we entered the laur.

Love,

Ybel

Summer 23: secrets

Beloved Zann,

I didn’t pay close attention to my surroundings as Ellewen and I hiked to the crossroads. I wasn’t even sure where we were going; Ellewen was vague about the details. North of Marifall, or south, or, somehow, both.

Mostly I was just enjoying Ellewen’s company. I’m cautious about using the word “love”, but… was I falling in love with him? Such a long time since I last had that feeling. Probably the last time was when Acea and I had started keeping company. I had been so young, and was so different now. Acea had loved me for my fury. I didn’t have that fury anymore; just a lot of schemes. But Ellewen certainly liked me well enough anyway.

“Ellewen?”

He glanced at me questioningly.

“Do you know all my secrets?”

Ellewen grinned, but didn’t say anything.

Silly of me, of course; how was he supposed to answer that? But I needed to know and I couldn’t find a way to ask him. Did he know that I was after the Sauce? What would he think about it if he did? Would he care, would he kill me? Were his feelings for me deep enough to make a difference in that? To say nothing of my other secrets, which were… well, I cared about them, even if he probably didn’t.

And the other problem was Wande. I didn’t know if she’d feel betrayed by my lovemaking with Ellewen. There was a culture in Crideon that men could have male lovers and it didn’t reflect on their bonds with their women. Very different from back home in the Boltmarch. And a lot of women didn’t care for the custom anyway. But that was only part of it: Wande herself had had a greenfolk lover, Jhus’s father, and refused to talk about it. What would it mean to her that I had done the same?

My pairing with Wande was… we cared for each other deeply. Her more than me, I think. But I don’t think we loved each other, exactly. It had always seemed to me like we had agreed that we liked each other so much that we could make our lives a lot better by sharing them. We were being emotionally practical. But now where was she, and what was I doing? Poor Wande and Jhus.

I owed her a lot. When I arrived in Crideon I didn’t know what I was doing. Oh, I could have found my way well enough, living in the big city, finding enough money to eat and sleep, eventually working my way closer to the Palace. But meeting her, living with her, gave me time and space to learn more about who I was now that I was awake and not at war. Ybel had changed a lot while I was taking the Great Nap and I had never learned who he was. I still haven’t!

Whoever he is, he likes Ellewen a lot. And he loves Zann.

Ybel

Let It Not Be Said That I Remained Silent

(feel free to pass this around anywhere, if you find it of value)

They say that if you’re wondering what you would have done in World War II, or in the Civil War, or in relation to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, just look at what you’re doing now. I’m looking, and I’m not satisfied. I’m not doing nothing, but I could be doing more, and I will try. But in the meantime, let me say what I believe, as starkly as possible, so as to leave no doubt about where I stand. Post your own somewhere! Your opinion is at least as noteworthy as mine.

Climate change will kill us all if we don’t stop it. Lots of people are doing lots of things to help, and that’s great. Governments and corporations are not doing enough, and many powerful individuals are using their considerable resources to prevent any efforts to save us. These individuals are the enemies of humanity.

Fossil fuels should be left in the ground. All of them. Starting now, or as close to now as possible. This will be tough for us, but this is an emergency and we’ll figure out how to cope eventually.

Eat less beef. Ah, I miss it. But I’m told it makes a difference.

Most of our problems, we could eventually figure them out. The trouble is we’re on the clock with climate change. We have to solve that now, and all this other stuff is getting in the way. So we have to fix everything now, urgently, and instead everything’s getting worse. That’s whatcha call “suboptimal”.

Don’t be mean. That’s the main rule. If your beliefs work their way around to where you’re telling yourself you have to be mean, they’re wrong and you should change them.

War may be the worst thing people can do, but you can’t just let Putin have his way in Ukraine, because if you reward him for attacking Ukraine he’ll understand correctly that he can just keep attacking countries.

We shouldn’t have surrendered to Covid. We could have beaten it. Still, wear your masks, ventilate your rooms, and stay up to date on your vaccines, because it’s still nasty and we can still save lives. Not to mention practice for the next pandemic!

A faction in Israel is trying to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza. I don’t care if they’re Jewish or what; they’re guilty of genocide and are the enemies of humanity. Some people are taking this opportunity to express anti-Semitism, which is not only a type of bigotry as bad as any other, but is also a good sign that the anti-Semite is evil in other ways, and, again, is an enemy of humanity.

There are students and other protestors speaking up for the Palestinians. I think they’re great and I support them. Leave them alone.

Fascism is rising around the world and needs to be fought harder, by more people, and by what remains of our institutions. Those who kind of agree with this but who respond by nodding soberly and saying, “yes, but you don’t understand, and what about, and…,” and do nothing, are part of the problem. The fascists, and those who intentionally support them and their variants, the racists and misogynists and homophobes and transphobes and Christian dominionists, are enemies of humanity.

The fascists aren’t quite in charge yet everywhere. But they’re having an effect: they’re turning up the level of fascism in our society. If you’ve ever had the reaction of, “well, the only option left to us in this situation is to get a gun. Revolution,” that’s a sign of fascism. They want people thinking like that, like people have to work things out with guns and no other way.

“Both sides” are not the same. Maybe at one time they were, but now one side is normal, with all the benefits and problems that implies, and the other side is rolling downhill into fascism and nihilism, and gaining speed. You don’t have to like it that this is the case, but it’s a problem if you don’t accept it.

If, for whatever reason, you’re on the side of the fascists, and you happen to be reading this, this paragraph is for you. I won’t take up my time by trying to refute your beliefs or talking points; you’re smart enough to do that yourself, if you want to. The information’s out there. I’ll just say this: you don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to keep hating everybody, you don’t have to view the world as a bloody power struggle, you can find meaning for yourself not in the degradation of others. It’s much nicer for you if you change your ways.

Conservatism is fake. It’s hatred, greed, and the lust for power, wearing one overcoat made of high-minded rhetoric that nobody actually believes.

Borders are fake. Let immigrants in. They’re people! You know, people?

Abolish the police. I’m not being as “extreme” as I could be by saying that; there are harsher verbs than “abolish”.

Trans people are basically harmless (know how I know? Because if one was harmful, we would never have heard the end of it) and just want to be left alone. But, currently, they also need protection from their self-appointed enemies. Do what you can to help.

There are things that can be said in favour of both socialism and capitalism. There are also ways in which both can be abused. I have doubts that we will ever find an economic system that works perfectly for humans, but I think any system will do which preserves the ability of ordinary people to have control over their lives, and no system will do that does not.

Institutions are weak these days. Nothing good will happen unless individuals team up to make it happen; nothing bad will be prevented unless individuals team up to prevent it.

You are more than your job. You are more than your economic role. Luminous beings are we. The most important thing is that you exist and you can do what you want with that fact. Create, think, play, love, eat, swim. It’s your life.

This “enemies of humanity” stuff may make me sound intolerant, to some. To which I say: Oh, right, I’m the problem.

The people I’ve described as “enemies of humanity” have earned the very worst treatment we can conceive for them, right up to torment and execution. But just because they deserve it doesn’t mean we should do it. We don’t deserve to be torturers or murderers; nobody does. We need to find a way to beat them without killing them, and to find a way to persuade–or, even better, convince–them to join us. If we as humans have jobs that we are responsible for just because we live, these are them.

We, as humans, have been too tolerant of our own evil for too long. We need to stop accepting it, or listening to it, or compromising with it, and start fighting it harder, and to win. I think “civilization” is more of a goal to be achieved than an existing status to be defended. Are we civilized now? Are we civil? Maybe someday we will be.

Honestly, everybody, we can do this. We can. But the golden future won’t build itself. Help somebody today.

Summer 22: guard

Dearest Zann,

I lay with my head on Ellewen’s stomach. The lemon-coloured mists of the afternoon were all around us, but left a clearing of courtesy around Ellewen. “I still have to find Wande, you know,” I said.

“Of course,” he answered, playing with my hair. “It’s why we’re here.”

“But, I mean…”

“I know what you mean. It’s all right.”

Was it really all right? I was curst sure Wande wouldn’t think so. What Jhus would think didn’t even bear considering.

“We need food,” I announced. “Food, and some plan of where to go next.”

“I will get the food,” Ellewen said, snapping pieces off of a fallen willow twig. He handed it to me. “You, use this twig to draw a crossroads in the earth. Make it as delicate a drawing as you can.”

I sat up and took the twig. “Is it magic?”

Ellewen stretched and stood. “I’ll only be a short time,” he said, and by the time I finished listening to him, he had sidled into the trees and was gone.

There was a clear area of ground where we had been lying. I made some marks in it with the twig. A crossroads. Well, it could have a bridge here, and a tree on this side, I thought, and spent some minutes adding more details to the scene as best I could.

“That’s enough,” Ellewen said. “I recognize it.”

He had’t made a sound returning, and was now sitting under our tree. Next to him was somebody else’s hat, full of bread and cheese and honey and fruit. “You do?”

“I was hoping you would draw somewhere I knew. It’s not near here, but we should have no trouble finding our way.”

I looked down at my drawing. “I don’t know this place.”

“Some part of you must,” Ellewen said. “It may not be the crossroads we want, but I think it’s worth going to look at. Of course, we should be on our guard.”

“Why is that?”

He pointed. “Because of the murderer hiding behind the tree.”

There was a murderer hiding behind the tree in my drawing. When did I draw that?

Love,

Ybel

Summer 21: blade

Beloved Zann,

I woke slowly, midmorning, with sun on my face. Ellewen sat next to me, looking very much like he belonged among the trees and branches that surrounded us. “You slept well,” he said.

I had. It was the most peaceful sleep I could remember. I closed my eyes again and nodded.

“I wish you could see yourself as I see you,” he said.

“Nnn?”

“Nn,” he agreed, and tickled my chin with a blade of grass. “We of the green have more senses than your people do. I know things about you that you yourself don’t know.”

I rubbed my face and sat up. “I know you do.”

Ellewen smiled. “I mean, I can see things of you that you don’t have words for, that if I explained them you wouldn’t understand. Your people are fascinating, unknowable because you cannot know yourselves, and indomitable in spite of it. There’s a nobility in that, that most of my people don’t appreciate. Too many of us think that your folk can’t truly be people, persons, any more than butterflies or chipmunks can. But I think that it makes you persons more, because it is so difficult for you.” He shrugged, a flutter of his slim shoulders. “It’s easy to be a person for the greenkind. I think we often take it for granted.”

“Is this about Lord Clear?”

“It is about you, Ybel. The stripes of sound and the textures of scent that your waerd has flavoured you with. The wonderful past you are fleeing and the terrible future you are pursuing so avidly. And the virtue that you believe in less and less as you cling to it more and more. I don’t believe I can speak with authority about the best of humanity. But you are my favourite.”

I didn’t say anything, and he kissed my tears away, and I kissed him back, and we ended up not choosing a crossroads that day.

Love,

Ybel

Summer 20: glowed

Dearest Zann,

The growling noises became louder. They were accompanied by bursts of rustling branches, as though creatures in the trees were leaping closer to me. I skulked away from nearby trees, as quietly as I could. I don’t know if it helped. But the growling paused, and then receded, as I heard a new sound: soft footsteps.

Someone was here in the woods.

Following me?

I listened.

“Ybel?” a voice said, in a normal speaking tone. “I suspect you’ve lost your path.”

It was Ellewen.

I breathed out.

“Ellewen?” I said, standing up. “What–How did you get here?”

There he was, with a cloak and walking stick, unhooded, calm. Some nearby branches glowed white, shining on our faces. “I hope you’re not in any distress,” Ellewen said. “It seemed to me that I might place myself here to forestall such.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you.”

“It’s not a hospitable copse, this. Shall we walk in this direction?” Some of the branches stopped glowing, and others glowed instead, lighting a path deep into the forested night.

“I’ll trust you,” I said as we started.

“As has been your habit.”

“I haven’t regretted it yet. Although I did wonder what you meant by telling me that I was safe with Lord Clear.”

“Yes. I was going to raise that topic. I’m sorry, Ybel. I didn’t understand Lord Clear. He had never revealed to me that side of his character, that is treating your city so unkindly.” He held a branch aside for me, and I stepped past it. “I was wrong, and you suffered. Like everyone else, I must strive to be less wrong in the future.”

“I accept your apology.” We now were on a forest path whose course was drawn on the earth in white light, and the branches were now dark around us.

“Thank you. What are you in quest of in these charming glades?”

“I’m not really sure. A wizard told me that I should find a crossroads that was significant to my family. I’m trying to find Wande and her daughter Jhusdhe.”

“And at the crossroads?” His fingers on my elbow guided me over a protruding tree root.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know which crossroads. I thought I’d try the Four Signs, but that’s just a guess.”

Ellewen nodded softly. “May I assist you, now that I am here with you? This errand is not a private one?”

“I would love it if you did. I feel like there’s been no-one I could count on. Except Ambe, but I only saw her for a minute.”

“The choice of a crossroads,” he continued, “is a delicate one, and best to be essayed in daylight. Many hours remain of the night. What saith you of the suggestion to get rest and sleep now, and search out family history in the morning?”

He had stopped and turned, and I met his gaze. “That makes sense.”

“Then this will do,” he said, and moved a couple of boughs aside, revealing a small hollow. “There is room here; if you will lie down beside me, I can assure that the night will pass safely and, in all other respects, contentedly.”

“I will,” I said.

Love,

Ybel

Summer 19: conditions

Most beloved Zann,

I didn’t know of a crossroads that had anything to do with my family.

I had begged the use of a room in the Wizards’ Hall building so that I could hide out until dark. Not only did I not want to walk the city in daylight without Sandavin’s charm, but that day’s mist was a black-streaked grey I had never seen before and I didn’t want it touching me.

The wizards didn’t have a map of the roads around Crideon. That might have been helpful. I could see if anything stirred my memory. Instead I rested and read a book someone had left lying around. Which family did they mean, anyway? Me, Wande, and Jhus? Or my parents and sisters, from up in the Boltmarch? Or…

Then I remembered that there was a famous crossroads to the east of the city, downstream, that they told folktales about. I couldn’t think of a connection to my family, but there might be one.

It’s called the Four Signs. Usually a crossroads will have one signpost with signs pointing where different places are, down this road or that one. But at this place, for whatever reason, two big roads crossed and each of the four different ways had its own sign. There was a song about a band of highwaymen being killed at Four Signs. “The Red Riders”. I had never been there, but it couldn’t be hard to find. Just follow the Mill Hill road.

The rest of the day was a series of almost doing things but then not doing them. I almost finished the book, but then I thought I should go down to the kitchen and see what was to eat. I had my hand on the kitchen door when there were some bangs and lightning cracks from above. A horrible smell seeped down. Not wanting to see what happened next, I left the building altogether.

Sunset had dispelled the grey mist, so that was good, but when I tried to follow the Mill Hill road out of the city, I ran into a battle between Lord Clear’s men and some other soldiers. I took the long way around to stay clear of the fires, and ended up leaving the city by some other road, anonymous in the night.

It couldn’t be too hard to find the Mill Hill road from here, I thought. Just take the first road north and I couldn’t miss it. Well, I tried that, after some hours walking, and the road took me into the middle of some woods, and by the time I realized it, I had lost the road in the dark.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t have bothered me very much. I might have been lost, but I wasn’t very lost, and I’ve slept outside in worse conditions than this. But something growled from up a nearby tree, and then some more things growled from some more trees.

Love,

Ybel