Complaining about a generation of spoiled kids -- again | Hacker News Reader

Complaining about a generation of spoiled kids -- again

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20 pointsDavidSJ15 comments

Can anyone name this fallacy, where your evidence is that people have been complaining about the same thing for a long time, so complaining is merely the status quo and there isn't a real issue?

I know we all enjoy quotes from ancient Greece about how children "these days" are disrespectful, and yet regardless of what you think about the topic, this is a stinker of an argument. You can employ it in the same way to say, for example, that political discourse only seems to be less civil than it was any number of years ago.

How is it a fallacy to say that moderate levels of people complaining about something is weak evidence for there being a real problem?

Throughout history people have condemned war. I would argue that war is still a real problem.

The fallacy is that "we've heard this complaint before therefore your complaint is invalid" which is obviously an invalid argument. In this case "moderate levels of people complaining" is treated as negative evidence, that is to say, counter to their complaints.

My vote for the name of this fallacy is "the boy who cried wolf" fallacy.

You can employ it in the same way to say, for example, that political discourse only seems to be less civil than it was any number of years ago.

When, of course, it's not; it is in fact much more civil than it used to be :)

Late 19th century legislator to and about another:

"With a few more brains you could be a halfwit."

"He never opens his mouth without subtracting from the sum of human intelligence."

I wrote them down a couple of years ago, but forgot to note the source.

The second at least I have seen attributed to Thomas Reed, Speaker of the House in the late 1890s.

I know it's pretty cool on HN to shout "fallacy!!!!111" whenever somebody claims something you don't like, but...

Since ancient Greece (and certainly before), some people have complained that the children of today are spoiled, useless, and will destroy the civilization. Sometimes it's true, but I'd say far more often it isn't. Is it really a fallacy to point out that the same claims have been made for over 2,000 years, and yet the world continues to advance and survive somehow? Could it be that (gasp!) people get crotchety and tend to forget what they were like as kids when they get old?

I'll bring up a counter-fallacy, the "rose-tinted glasses" fallacy, in which everything was so much better when you were a kid, and kids these days don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'.

Or the "I call fallacy" fallacy, in which you claim an opponent is committing a fallacy of some sort and hope it sticks.

This analysis ignores the possibility of a cyclic-nature to such claims. I'm sure you could find a citation for a 'kids these days' rant in every decade of the last 200 years but such simple analysis ignores the evidence presented for the claim and the overall popularity of the sentiment.

in other words: curmudgeons are universal and constant, societal apathy is cyclical.

I have some problems with the logic here.

First, the author draws on past examples of folks complaining about the new generation as a way to discount any current complaining. Let's get this straight: no matter how many x examples you can show me of other people complaining about something, it doesn't discount my complaining or the thing I am complaining about at all. People complain about sickness -- been doing it for generations. Does that mean that my complaining about the effects of getting sick has no validity. Indeed, it may just show the reverse: that things are reliably getting worse. Or it may show nothing. You don't know. Oddly enough, he makes the point that anecdotes aren't data -- then uses anecdotes of past complainers to make a point. ouch.

This discussion has all the earmarks of being about definitions and semantics. For instance, perhaps I would argue that a) the current parenting generation grew up in an environment so technologically different as to be inept at raising their own kids, b) basic survival skills, such as regular exercise and being able to live outdoors without technology, are a critical and overlooked skill, and c) we are not providing our children with the solid liberal arts education they need to be able to manage the new world that is evolving. All of this leads to a sort of passive, drifting view of life as being one form of entertainment after another, all while waiting to strike it rich and famous. These are specific criticisms that we can talk about, and they have nothing to do with kids being lazy and narcissistic. Yet hell if I'm going to write an essay every time I want to talk about the current generation. I'll just say "Kids today! I have no idea how we're going to make it" and shake my head. Yes -- that general kind of complaining thing has been happening for thousands of years, and no, that doesn't mean that current criticisms are natural and worthless. It just means that if you broaden out your terms, you can lose critical details that are required for analysis. You end up with a kind of "well, everything is sort of like everything else" measly-mouthed conclusion, which, honestly, wastes my time as a reader.

Well, as for those 'indictments' published in 1944 and 1962, the children of that era have caused the recession of today.

I many ways, nagging guilt can be a strong motivator for spoiling children. Guilt for leaving behind a world that seems worse off than when you entered it. Stop doing that! The younger generation has to understand that never before humankind has had so many possibilities.

At 40, I'm surrounded by Generation "Me" kids from friends and siblings and in my view the main motivator is laziness. The problem is the spoiled kids of today are being raised by spoiled kids. Our generation started the sense of entitlement and it shows in the parenting style. Generation X is used to having it all and having it easy. Actual quote from a thirty-something mother the other day: "I always let them have their way because their whining gives me a headache".

and their parents caused the great depression of the 30s ...

That's a good point. Perhaps the decline of work ethics reset every time hard times roll around. If there is less to go around, people have to work harder just to maintain. Therefore any generations growing up during wartime or depression/recession may return to a previous level of motivation, and as a result of themselves going without, spoil their children in return, starting another cycle of complaints about spoiled children.

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