And this is why it’s, in my opinion, correct to call it a slur. When you refer to a certain part of the population, in the context of calling them the enemy, not based on their beliefs or actions but their age, that sounds questionable. Just as it would be if you said the same thing about a racial group, a sexual preference, a religious group, etc.
I would take issue with you saying the word only refers to a specific age group. In my experience it is describing people with a specific set of beliefs about the world. It just so happens the most common factor in whether or not you have those beliefs is how old you are. Not all boomers are “boomers” just as not all Gen Z are progressive or whatever else the stereotype is, but in order to talk about large groups of people you have to make generalized statements. We’re talking about trends not absolute definitions.
This feels a lot like saying “when I say the n-word I don’t mean all black people, just the bad ones” (and yes that word is of course a different level of bad but the principle is the same)
You can make those arguments without the blatant generalization and denigrating language.
Language is like that. You can read into it what you want to in many cases. If you don’t want to accept what I’m telling you I mean when I say something then that’s fine. Just know at that point you’re giving more weight to your own assumptions than you are to what the speaker intended to convey and that’s the opposite of how listening is supposed to work.
Language is like that, careless use makes your point unclear and may lead people to think you’re a bigot when that’s not your intention. You can blame others for not understanding your inner thinking when you’re make sweeping generalizations but in the end it’s not their responsibility to dig into your psyche.
It’s not careless use you’re just trying to be the gatekeeper of which uses are acceptable and which aren’t. Your interpretation isn’t automatically right just because it’s yours.
Besides, you’re trying to cast boomers as some marginalized group of people when they’re the wealthiest generation in the richest nation in the history of the world. That’s objectively a dumb position to take.
In summary, and in the clearest language I can muster, there is no award for being offended on behalf of the most people so quit being such a whiny little bitch about everything.
I don’t think you understand that words have a meaning, defined in a dictionary. You can just decide that your kind of discriminatory language somehow doesn’t count and we should all just magically know what you really mean, but that also echoes the typical defenses that racists and gender bigots use.
Bigotry on the basis of race, religion, gender and yes even age is wrong no matter how you try to defend it.
And this is why it’s, in my opinion, correct to call it a slur. When you refer to a certain part of the population, in the context of calling them the enemy, not based on their beliefs or actions but their age, that sounds questionable. Just as it would be if you said the same thing about a racial group, a sexual preference, a religious group, etc.
I would take issue with you saying the word only refers to a specific age group. In my experience it is describing people with a specific set of beliefs about the world. It just so happens the most common factor in whether or not you have those beliefs is how old you are. Not all boomers are “boomers” just as not all Gen Z are progressive or whatever else the stereotype is, but in order to talk about large groups of people you have to make generalized statements. We’re talking about trends not absolute definitions.
This feels a lot like saying “when I say the n-word I don’t mean all black people, just the bad ones” (and yes that word is of course a different level of bad but the principle is the same)
You can make those arguments without the blatant generalization and denigrating language.
Language is like that. You can read into it what you want to in many cases. If you don’t want to accept what I’m telling you I mean when I say something then that’s fine. Just know at that point you’re giving more weight to your own assumptions than you are to what the speaker intended to convey and that’s the opposite of how listening is supposed to work.
Language is like that, careless use makes your point unclear and may lead people to think you’re a bigot when that’s not your intention. You can blame others for not understanding your inner thinking when you’re make sweeping generalizations but in the end it’s not their responsibility to dig into your psyche.
It’s not careless use you’re just trying to be the gatekeeper of which uses are acceptable and which aren’t. Your interpretation isn’t automatically right just because it’s yours.
Besides, you’re trying to cast boomers as some marginalized group of people when they’re the wealthiest generation in the richest nation in the history of the world. That’s objectively a dumb position to take.
In summary, and in the clearest language I can muster, there is no award for being offended on behalf of the most people so quit being such a whiny little bitch about everything.
I don’t think you understand that words have a meaning, defined in a dictionary. You can just decide that your kind of discriminatory language somehow doesn’t count and we should all just magically know what you really mean, but that also echoes the typical defenses that racists and gender bigots use.
Bigotry on the basis of race, religion, gender and yes even age is wrong no matter how you try to defend it.
Hear hear!