Like Liam and many other commenters, I tend to think that generationalism is mostly bollocks. I once taught a course on the Sociology of Youth and Deviance and gave three lectures on the sociology of generations. Now there’s no doubt that there are real social cleavages between generations – as the Australian sociologist Bryan Turner (now departed for Cambridge) writes, there are intra-familial conflicts, public conflicts over resources and power, and cultural clashes. One of my favourite sociological writers, the late Norbert Elias, explored the generational origins of Nazism brilliantly in The Germans. The problem with most of what is written about generations is that it’s based purely on anecdote or personal experience, or its origins lie in marketing discourse – thus mainly being about tracking consumption patterns and inferring things about lifestyle from them. Now this is not to say that good research on generational attitudes, as pointed to by cs isn’t important and valuable. It is to say that we need to avoid the too easy appropriation of stereotypes about Generation X or Y or whatever. Or the Baby Boomers – for all that we hear about the 60s, a majority of University students then were conservative – and most generational stereotypes are massively classed. Do we ever hear about the attitudes of working class Baby Boomers? For instance, I recently wrote a consultancy report for a corporation on generational diferences in attitudes to work. Much of this was concerned with clearing up misconceptions – including the obvious one that behaviours and attitudes to work won’t change as people age. That should be a trite point, but unfortunately, although it’s true sociologically that common generational attitudes are formed when people are young, it’s obviously untrue that experience and life don’t shift those attitudes.
Speaking of consumption, let’s take a look at some assertions about Generation Y and “affluenza” made by Daniel Donahoo.
In Online Opinion, Donahoo makes this argument:
More recently, a report released by the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme, Sustainable Consumption: Young People as agents of change, gives us a broader view of the ideas and habits of young Australians. The report demonstrates that young people are engaged with our world in a complex way. While we are interested in acting as “change agents” to improve our communities, we are not prepared to fight older generations for that opportunity. We see that as a waste of energy, and are quietly waiting our turn.
Young people continue to assert we are more interested in happiness than money. But for all our passion and ideas, we are not immune from the clutches of consumerism – far from it. Young Australians represent a large slice of consumption expenditure, as we do in most affluent societies. In 2003, combined youth spending power in 11 major economies, including Australia, exceeded $US750 billion.
However, the Sustainable Consumption report identifies a growing trend of young Australians trying to minimise our environmental impact through the pursuit of non-materialist lifestyles. Depending on our interests, young people are embracing parenthood, water and energy conservation, flexible and more relaxed working hours and refusing to succumb to the stress of the hyper-competitive job market.
But, how frequently does concern translate into personal action? Young Australians are just as likely to struggle with their individual responsibility for sustainable consumption. Moody noted in his paper that, “the consumption patterns of young people in Australia do not always reflect their concern”.
The report [link to .pdf] itself notes that consumption is “crucial to human survival”. The problem I have with the report is first that its hypotheses are themselves shaped by stereotypical views (“young people are very concerned about the environment”) – for which there is some counter-evidence – and doesn’t seek seriously to compare either longitudinally or across age groups whether this is the case, or largely the case. The second is that the survey instrument is terrible – with questions like “I think young people in general buy too much stuff” and morally loaded. I once had to do a survey about my recycling habits and felt rather ashamed about how crap they were because the survey seemed designed to blame me for Global Warming.
Another issue is the degree to which it’s desirable and/or feasible (for the government) to “empower young people as sustainable consumption change agents”. Feasibility might be questioned when the report suggests marketing strategies like “sustainability is cool”. Like whatever.
But I really want to take issue with the stereotype about the increasing non-materialism of young people, that isn’t actually in the report, but is Donahoo’s own personal view. In fact it’s contradicted by the report’s conclusions (and those of most other research cited) that consumption is key to the construction of personal identity. And that’s not just for the yoof. Think of 40 somethings and SUVs. And I’m sorry – but I don’t see anything massively wrong with this. The puritan “I am not what I consume” and happiness is downshifting thing, so characteristic of the sloppy research by Clive Hamilton that Andrew Norton rightly cricitises, is just another sort of preaching about what should and shouldn’t be consumed. And what really riles me about this is its political and social complicity. Donahoo says that Generation Y is relaxed about waiting its turn, not that interested in money or “the stresses of the hyper-competitive job market”. Well, I’m sorry, Daniel, but these attitudes (which I very much doubt are general anyway) are only possible because of the current economic situation. Many people of my generation who entered the labour market in the early 90s – from different class backgrounds to Donahoo’s and mine – still have an insecure attachment to the labour market because of the huge unemployment and trashing of low skilled jobs in the last recession. Many are behind the eight ball in terms of super, home ownership and some are the long term unemployed. To say “money doesn’t bring you happiness” might be true in some senses, but it’s usually only said by those who have it, or have access to it, and wilfully obscures the real problems caused by income inequality in this country.
I’m not questioning the virtues of sustainable consumption. I do point out that it’s another way of individualising responsibility for the environment, and thus occluding the much greater damage done by those with power. And I don’t see the necessity of the link between it and the sort of non-materialist neo-hippiedom Donahoo advocates.
And I’m sorry. I like having money. And I like buying stuff. And that doesn’t make me right wing. But then, I guess, I’m Generation X and couldn’t possibly understand the cool anti-materialism of Yers.
Cripes, don’t admit you are Gen X, the worst generation only after every other one.
Actually, there’s nothing wrong with buying stuff. As someone said to me, it’s the superficial stuff that makes one happy.
For a generation supposedly anti-materialistic they certainly have a lot of bling and i-pods and stuff. Maybe they aren’t worrying so much about stuff like houses and superannuation and so on, but (I think) the bulk of Gen Y is still early 20′s or younger, and most of us weren’t concerned about houses and superannuation at that age. We were more concerned about having girlfriends or boyfriends and going clubbing.
One should take ones lead in these things, like all things, from Randy Newman.
They say that money
Can’t buy love in this world
But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine
And a sixteen-year old girl
And a great big long limousine
On a hot September night
Now that may not be love
But it is all right
You know what, people who consume rub elbows too!
I thought Generation X was supposed to be anti-materialistic, or was that just the younger members of ‘it’?
Agree with your remarks about working class Baby Boomers, though the same could be said for any generation.
Don’t disagree with that, dj – the stereotypes of every generation are middle class ones.
It was particularly evident to me when doing this consultancy – as the organisation employs a large blue collar workforce. Thus most of the org psych literature on generation Y and work proved totally inapplicable.
Maybe it’s that Gen Yers are cynically materialistic?
Like, we know our iPods aren’t going to keep us warm at night when we contemplate life, the universe and everything… bu we like them anyway?
Good points about class of course.
One of the biggest problems I had with academia was just how ‘middle-class’ it was and how it could afford to be because most members had either never had, or never would have to, stand in a queue in Centerlink. The way the NTEU operates is also highly filtered through class – it often seemed to me that the General staff were presented as this unwelcome add-on who are there just to support the priorities of the academics, rather than having genuine concerns of their own.
In a sense, Kate, that’s what Donahoo is also missing – the ironic nature of consumption and reflexive sense of identity.
The causes of a loss of of a sense of meaning are not primarily related to consumption but to broader forces of modernisation – in particular the heterogenous nature of values and secularisation.
Mark, I guess I personally see consumption as mildly symptomatic and not causal of ‘lost meaning’. Buying stuff is fun but it’s only a diversion really.
Yes, Kate, but I’m just not sure about Donahoo’s implication that we’re somehow more authentic or whatever if we restrict our consumption. I’m not knocking that if that’s his choice, but I don’t like the sort of preachy tone that the advocates of “downshifting” adopt. And my big concern is the political issues I mentioned in the post.
I am a cautious consumer partly because of environmental concerns, but also because I really don’t want to hand over any more control of my life to either my employer or a credit-lending organization than I have to.
True Kate: When I moved overseas, bringing virtually nothing with me, I found I didnt miss any of my cool stuff at all.
Thr real revolution of the 60s was in the consumption patterns and decommunalisation of ordinary non-elite folk in the West. Set up the great 80s victories of the Right, and the success of “no such thing as society” agendas.
Which is great irony of 90s and 00s neo-cons whinging about the 60s. I guess they had to blame someone for the socio-economic chaos they wrought in the 80s.
Incidentally Mark, Bryan Turner is now at the National University of Singapore.
He gets around! I was going by the back cover of the Generations book which I think came out in 2002.
I hear he didnt dig the Oxbridge Don’s life at all. Not enough research time, too much teaching.
Ive been to NUS too – bloody good setup, fund a lot of research only positions. Noice.
Bit hot though.
What am I anyway? I’m 32. Does that make materialistic or non-materialistic? Generation X or Y? Rich or happy?
I hear they have good postdocs, and not a bad sociology dep’t, Lefty E. Might look into it. On the other hand, I hear the humidity’s worse than Brissie.
You are the internet intellectual hotness, Kim!
It is far worse Mark – and I went there in August….
Yikes!
Well, maybe they’ll do a bit of reverse imperialism and open a campus in Brissie. If that yankee mob can open one in Adelaide to “teach the best Southeast Asian students”, I see no reason why Nelson shouldn’t support it.
Plus I think you’re an X. (X marks the spot…)
At 37, Im definitely X, along with our host. Quinty X.
Quintex, Lefty?
Thank you Liam. Quintex.
Ready for tonite Swanboy? Hoo baby, its gonna be a match alrighty.
Am I ready—what kind of a question is that? I’ve been flat out raiding local nursing homes for blood pressure tablets all week.
Swans by 18. Hall to kick five. Bolton and Keneally to run riot through the midfield. Milne to look like the total arse-clown he is (since arses seem to be the topic del día). Riewoldt kick a few goals and to have a good sob.
Game on!
In my generation, Queenslanders didn’t take an interest in AFL. Just Union and League. Still, I guess Lefty E is an acculturated Mexican now.
Oh, and West Coast to crumble. Adelaide by 180.
Carn Swans! (Sorry.)
We’ll miss Hamill. I’ll give you that.
Even Saints fans hate Milne. I’ll throw that in for the same price.
But its St Kilda marchin’ in by 28 points come 10:30 Liamista.
Two words Swanboy.
Bring it.
Bloody Xers and Yers – no sense of common civility on threads – in the old days, we were all on topic I tell you youngsters!
Go Swannies!!!
On our slates and blackboards that is – the bulletin boards of an earlier generation.
Absolutely Mark – I honestly didnt have a clue what was going on in the sport when I arrived. Had never once seen a game.
But it slowly reels you in – the crowd, the hype, the community, the inter-subruban history of rivalry, so enmeshed with the class and religious history of Melbourne, now a national game, home grown – not to mention the raw tension and excitement of a close game at the G.
Its brilliant…. Just brilliant. I cant believe I didnt know about it for 33 years.
Four words: Bringity Bring Bring it.
Well, maybe if I ever move to Melb., I’ll get it. I gather it’s impossible to have a social life if you don’t.
Well, you cant really avoid the whole thing like you can codes in QLD. Too embedded in the city culture. Nonetheless, more than few remain agnostic.
However, it IS impossible to get down Punt Road when there’s a game on at the G.
Naomi’s saying good things about your team, izquierdista.
Just had a squiz Liam. Naomi’s right, but you know the fear…
It is true that we just bested the Minor Prems at theirs. A good sign. Even so, I was hoping for the Cats. Sydney are a formidable side. If it comes down to sheer grunt, it’ll be very close. Plus there’s injuries.
But still – form is with us.
Feverish,
LE
mark, is buying crap _all_ you are worried about? I assume not, otherwise you would’ve got a job doing something much more profitable than any you can get from doing your PhD. Why didn’t you do law or something? Was doing your PhD a mistake? Why not? Is there more to the way your live your life (I don’t mean your ‘life style’) that is not determined by your capacity for consumption.
I know you are lamenting the subjective nature of research into generationalism and consumption pracctices, but this is blogging…
Anyway, I have been seeing a woman for about 6 months now and it has been on again off again for most of that time. She is most definitely gen x and I am most definitely gen y. One of the things she can’t handle is that fact i hardly ever have any money cause i am doing my PhD. There is a political economy of taste operating here. Having money for her is a given and it allows her to go do things. Fo me it is literally a question of survival some weeks (mainly due to bad management). So the consumer autonomy she is allowed by having a certain throughput of capital I am, to a certain extent, refused. I don’t make the threshold. I still ‘have money’, and I like ‘having money’, but the terrain of my social landscape vs hers is very different. I am shopping according to the cheapest and buying ‘dollar dazzlers’ in bulk, seeing films when they are free screenings, going to pubs when there is free pool, so on and so forth. I like having money cause I can survive and live a life where I am enabled to write my dissertation. She is also doing her PhD, btw, but is out of scholarship, so she is working and nearing maximum candidature. She sees ‘doing things’ as determined by taste, for me it is a question of a threshold of autonomy produced by material and economic solvency. Yes? Bourdieu rendered life like. We are from different ‘parent’ classes, too…
I can’t see what Billy Idol has to do with any of this.
Glen, actually I dropped out of Law.
I’m at the end of Generation X that graduated in the aftermath of the early 90s recession – and did the whole BA/Dole thing. I’m buggered if I enjoyed being broke – and the job prospects were so appalling then – you really do like to think about security and stuff. Also when I look at the difficulties a relative has in making ends meet after being retrenched from a low paying public service job in her 50s and having inadequate super and not much in the way of assets.
So I’m at the point where – particularly since doing PhDs for years means that you’re behind the eight ball and you’re not getting younger – I’m vacillating about going off to do something else.
And I’ve had “real world” work experience, do consultancy stuff, and a Sociology PhD doesn’t make you unemployable. Having a postgrad Business degree won’t hurt me either.
Also I like stuff. And buying stuff. And having money.
Just sayin…
I also like having money and buying stuff. Right now I dont and Ive learned to live with that by buying nothing, but that doesnt actually mean I wouldnt spend money if I had it to spend. I dont see how these claims make any sense in reality whatsoever – someone has been spending too much of their time in statistics and theory books.
And I concur, generaltionalism is bollocks.
Alright Tony!!!
Billy Idol has nothing to do with any of this. His first band sucked anyway.
Like Kim, I have no idea what generation I’m in. I’m 27, what does that mean? I have an ipod and I like it and it does keep me warm at night (I’ve been on the phone to the apple techies about this, pretty sure there’s something wrong with the hard drive bearings…).
Anyway, I think that this whole “X vs Y vs P vs Q” whatever is a sham. I’m no sociologist, but I think that collective behaviour is, well, complex. Maybe there are some things that can be inferred about political positioning and economic attitudes due to the BIG historical events that happen at some time… maybe… is this restricted to particular generations though? I don’t know, I don’t buy it…
Mo-wa, Mo-wa, Mo-wa.
I missed the Billy Idol reference. White Wedding and Hot in the City were good songs. Just sayin…
mark, that is what I meant (was just a coincidence I chose law as an example?? as an ex of mine did the drop-out-law thing too!): why did you drop out of law and do the arts/dole thing? was it a mistake to do this?
I am not denying you are employable as you seem to be doing alright for yourself, etc. I wasn’t trying to debunk the workplace prospects and utility of a sociology PhD!
No, sorry, Glen, I didn’t think you were – my comment may have been ambiguous.
I certainly didn’t like my employment prospects with a BA in the aftermath of the recession, which is when I went off and did postgrad Business and an Honours degree.
I can’t recommend being on the dole.
Originally, I dropped out of Law because the way it was taught failed to excite, to say the least. And the UQ law school was very cliquey, with 85% of the intake being private schoolies.
Have thought of going back to it several times, though.
Hot in the City? Come on, big guy, what other dark secrets are you keeping in there?
He was very popular at the Stafford Skatin’ Rink, Tony!
Love to meet the genius that worked out people like spending on material things. And that teenagers like bright shiny sexy stuff.
If generation X, Y and Boomer didn’t exist, then op-ed and liftestyle writers would have invented them. I blame Peter York m’self.
Throughout human history, people have been trying to buy in or up and indulging in stylised nostalgie de la boue bling bling. The Roman Empire had celebrity chefs and equestrians’ offspring speaking in the then version of mockney and gansta rap. We’ve always been buying, it’s just the selling that has really evolved.
Anyway, time to sponge the crotch of the bespoke bag of fruit, charge up the nickel-plated hip flask with VSOP, spit polish the RM Williams, check for dark sunnies and rubber johnnies and then wipe down the credit cards before heading off into the night. And with a little T.Rex to speed me on my way.
“Yeah! Well you can bump and grind if it’s good for your mind
Well you can twist and shout, let it all hang out
But you won’t fool the children of the revolution x 2
No no no
Well you can tear a plane in the falling rain
I drive a Rolls Royce ‘cos its good for my voice
Yeah!
But you won’t fool the children of the revolution x 4
No way! hey wow”
Generation “Who gives a shit what you think” rulez my world.
Umm, that should have been “…terraplane in the falling rain”.
Oh yes, and I’ll try out some of Latho’s icebreaking lines tonight. You can read about the results on page six of tomorrow’s Hun.
Mark, you failed to get the big clue his first band sucked anyway – his first being one of the original ‘spirit of 76′ London punk bands that followed in the wake of the ‘Pistols — Generation X. Our boy Billie was one of the Bromley Contingent – a mate of Siouxie Sioux.
Also I like stuff. And buying stuff. And having money.
This is like eavesdropping on a middle-class confessional.
Sheesh.
Naah, Rob, Glen’s holding up the self-described bogan end of the booth.
Tyro Rex, I didn’t know that – punk’s the wrong generation for me. Wasn’t big in primary school circles.
Primary schoolers listen to music?
Nic:
You know, them journalism schools is pretty keen on book larnin’. A bit of theory’s good for everyone.
Well, I did at any rate. First single purchased – Suzi Quatro’s Devil Gate Drive.
Mark,
As is undoubtedly no surprise, I find much to disagree with in your post. But first, I agree that generationalism, when applied to the serious study of yoof (= people up to their late 20s) is mostly bollocks. There are simply not enough firm metrics, on things such as employment and home ownership, to draw meaningful conclusions/comparisons. Thus, as far as Gen Y is concerned, there is not much academically valid that can be observed about them, at least for another decade or so.
Conversely, it is odd that you donÄôt admit that there is plenty of recent data showing that people of your and my generation (30s-42 y.o.) are economically worse off, on average, than Australians at that age from any time since at least 1945, including our parents (who may or may not be boomers).
“Do we ever hear about the attitudes of working class baby boomers?” you ask. Oh, thatÄôd be the ones with hundreds-of-thou in capital gains windfalls. Not every last one of ‘em, of course, but on average, a working-est of working class baby boomer will have done much better as a capitalist (quite literally) than a highly-educated person of my age.
I also take umbrage with your observation that: “Many people of my generation who entered the labour market in the early 90s – from different class backgrounds to DonahooÄôs and mine – still have an insecure attachment to the labour market”. Describes me to a tee, as a long-term casual academic cum welfare recipient, but for the “class background” bit. IÄôm pretty sure I have/had middle-class parents (as far as my current class status goes, I nominate “underclass” — but thatÄôs not your point), and my current situation, as a highly-educated person, is far from unique. By compressing Gen XÄôs disadvantage into (i) the narrow time-window of the early 90s recession (blue-collar jobs picked-up massively by the late 90s), and (ii) as a particularly blue-collar phenomenon, you are doing plain violence to GenX home ownership stats, which imply that blue-collarness positively correlates with economic security, while being highly-educated negatively does so.
Indeed, your consultancy with “an organisation [that] employs a large blue-collar workforce” (Telstra, at a wild guess) also suggests as much. “Most of the org psych literature on generation Y and work proved totally inapplicable”. What is *really* inapplicable, Mark, is that this organisation apparently employs a large *young* blue-collar workforce, combined with the above shared opinion/caveat on the pointlessness of studying the under-30s anyway — in other words, your consultancy was a lucrative exercise in telling them nothing, bar a bit of flattery about their own uniqueness, as far as the “literature” goes.
What a great future for AustraliaÄôs highly-educated and under-employed, then — we can all simply milk Telstra as “consultants”! And hell, why not . . . itÄôs not as if boomers havenÄôt been doing it for years.
Oh, and in the stereotypes department, you said “[Consumption-induced happiness is] not just for the yoof. Think of 40 somethings and SUVs”. Grrr. “40-something” is a teensy-bit vague. If you mean “boomers” (= the 44+), say it. And if you mean “consultants-with-cushy-retainers, or the otherwise relaxed and comfortable (but not particularly age-specific)” — again, just say it. And if you mean “like parent, like child”, then youÄôre quite possibly going to be proved right — but only time will tell. Meanwhile, the plain facts behind GenX — as the first generation whose middle-class are financially worse-off than their parents — *are* known. Unfortunately, there doesnÄôt seem to be a booming consultancy industry for the spreading of this happy news around, though . . .
Mark and Lefty, Singapore is so close to the equator it doesn’t matter. Average temp day/night all year is 27C with a 95 inch rainfall (more than twice Brisbane’s). Its dry season rainfall is about equal to Brissie in January. Water all around, so humid.
I’m before baby boomers and hence antedeluvian. So I won’t bore you with details of our consumption patterns with kerosene lanterns, riding to church on Sundays on a horse-drawn wagon, a Coolgardie safe instead of a refrigerator and trips to town (pop about 1,000 with one general store) about once a year. Like my elders used to bore us with what it was like during the depression.
In the happiness literature, a psychiatrist called Raj Persaud in discussion with Richard Layard says there are two types of happiness. Level 1 is short term from wine, sex etc and lasts about 15 minutes. Level 2 is longer term and seems to relate to life satisfaction or similar. Conceptualising and measuring these things seems a bit fraught to me.
Then there are supposed to be two separate systems in wanting and desiring on the one hand, and having and using/experiencing on the other. Apparently we are really crap at predicting will make us happy, really crap.
Given my spartan upbringing I still don’t put much value on buying stuff, consuming etc. I just like to know that I can if I want to without worrying to much about how much it costs. Unfashionably also I don’t think happiness is what the main game is about. But it depends on how you define these things.
Paul, I think on most counts you’ve misunderstood what I’m arguing.
A few clarifications, then.
We’re in agreement that there is little valid data to talk about Generation Y. The sociological theory of generations suggest that there are defining experiences – both in terms of the relationship to previous generations and external social, political and cultural factors – but these morph over time and you really do need to look at these things longitudinally.
Fortunately, there are a number of research studies underway which will enable us to track these shifts over time.
As to where you think we disagree -
It is true that the Baby Boom generation enjoy a large amount of personal wealth. However, as with our society generally, this is unequally distributed. There is a large cohort of older men and women not in the labour market in any real sense (including the majority of people on the disability pension who were formerly full time employees) who have very little. While there may be tradespeople and middle to high income workers who’ve accumulated wealth, there are also people in this cohort whose wealth is fairly insecure and over-leveraged, and very much at risk should there be a recession (as there will be sooner or later).
So I think you’re generalising too much – which as I’ve argued is the pitfall most generationalist arguments are prone to.
Perhaps you’re right that I appear to suggest that blue collar folk suffered most from the 90s recession. In a sense that’s still true, as many people in situations like yours or mine do have significant family resources to draw upon to some degree. Not all – but many. The general phenomenon of the greater propensity of middle class kids to go on to higher education still holds.
People with higher degrees always have more options – public service jobs, teaching, call centres, whatever. That might not be the preferred vocational path of someone doing or with a PhD but it’s still true that most of these people have more labour market chances than someone who might have left school at year 10, worked intermittently in labouring or factory jobs, and been unemployed for most of the last decade. That’s a reasonable characterisation of many of the current long-term unemployed.
The sorts of highly paid manufacturing jobs I’m talking about were largely lost forever in the 90s. There was growth in blue collar work in the late 90s, but with some exceptions (ie mining), it’s more insecure and less skilled and less well paid than was the case in the post-war boom and for about 10-15 years afterwards – when we started deindustrialisation in a big way under the Hawke-Keating governments.
I leave aside skilled tradespeople as they are analytically separate both on class and often labour market status grounds (ie the large number of business owners or self-employed tradespeople).
I certainly agree about the fact that white collar and middle class people from Generation X also have a relatively worse situation than their parents did – it’s quite correct that stats on things like wealth and home ownership demonstrate that. But I think you tend to give too much causal weight to the sort of blockage that exists through Baby Boomers occupying the middle ranks of large organisations. I think you’re generalising too much from academia, and for that matter about academia (the age profile is different in different universities and disciplines – your generalisations are based on core humanities and social science and scientific disciplines at older universities).
There are also numerous other factors at work – both social (ie different patterns of partnering, perceived age at which “youth” ends, attitudes towards financial security) and structural within the labour market (the general decline in secure full time jobs and the tendency not to remain with one organisation).
No, I’ve not done any work for Telstra. I’m extremely constrained by what I can say due to confidentiality requirements. However, the blue collar workforce in this organisation is largely aging and their problems are quite complex.
I know you get excited about these things so I won’t take offence at what could be read as a reflection on my professional competence and the quality of my work and suitability to undertake it, which you are not in a position to judge.
My passions in no particular order are books, music, exercise and food (and of course the company wherein music and food are shared)
Thus, I like having enough money to
1) live near the city or at least somewhere reasonably vibrant where one can have a social life with friends
2) dine out and attend live music a few times a week
3) afford to join a gym
4) buy books and CDs I would really like to buy whenever I want to.
If that’s ‘materialistic’ sue me. I would have thought some of Maslow’s higher satisfactions are in that list as much as the lower-order ones.
I dont doubt Liam, but when thats all thats done, people can get a bit out of touch with the real world. As far as I know, you dont just get taught theory and read books on said theory for any given university course, you have to actually go out and do stuff.
Er, no, Nic, there are lots of university courses where you get taught theory and read books on said theory and don’t actually have to “go out and do stuff”. Philosophy for example, or Political Theory.
But none of those courses are relevant to the point Liam was making. My point is that some of these kinds of claims by sociologists are probably largely from various books and theories, and bear litle resemblence to what the case actually is because they have done little or no primary research. It often seems to me that ideas about generations are made up from theory and become self-fulfilling prophecies once circulated.
Philosophy, Political Theory, etc arent really the same deal. What primary research can you do for them?
Nic, that’s not right. The research I’m talking about is largely empirical and the theories have been derived from empirical evidence. I don’t think you quite understand what is meant by theory in the social sciences – it’s not an abstract process but rather something that’s developed iteratively between hypotheses and data.
Ill take your word for it.
Well, Nic, I used to teach research methods and philosophy of social science, so I could recommend you some books to read
Please do it, Mark. Start him on theories of ideology and hegemony, because Nic, you’re all over the place when you talk about political ideas.
It would be a pleasure, Liam, provided Nic remunerates me for my efforts at the $85.29 an hour I’m entitled to under my EBA. It’s a union thing.
Nonsense. It’s your humanitarian duty to the rest of us.
Or are you going to start charging blog readers who gain a vicarious education stoushing about here?
Point taken.
That’s the only reason I hang out here, for the vicarious eduction, catching up on all I missed while hanging out in the uni bar!
Vicarious education is truly a wonderful thing. LP is like being able to go back to all of those courses I didn’t do at uni.
Just with a bit more cussing, sperm theft and hotnesses. You know, maybe the University of the Internet has legs after all…