Comments on: White Collarist Volunteerism

By: DCH

DCH — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:25:37 +0000

Thanks for this perspective, Chutney. I feel you! Important and timely. It’s important to address classism, ageism, and other bias in any field, but it can be particularly condescending when it happens in “helping” fields.

By: Paul Oakley

Paul Oakley — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:28:07 +0000

This boomer doesn’t want to be judged as a boomer but as an individual. I accept my share of the collective guilt for evils we have not individually committed but from which we have received benefits. But those benefits are, so far as I can see, not generally limited to those of some particular generation. If I have been weighed in the balance and found wanting, I assure you it is not because of the year when I was born.

By: chutney

chutney — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:59:15 +0000

I have all sorts of love for the WW2 generation and respect the Silent generation. But I’ve had my fill of Baby Boomer self-congratulation for years and years.

Considering people solely as individuals isn’t the only option open to us. It is possible to make correct judgments of groups of people, just as it’s possible to make incorrect judgments of groups of people. That may be a UU heresy, but it’s true all the same.

And Baby Boomers love being judged as a generation. I just judge them differently than they judge themselves.

By: Paul Oakley

Paul Oakley — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:47:56 +0000

What on earth, jacqueline?! You don’t have a lot of love for the bb generation as a whole? Does one ever have a lot of love for any generation? Or does it perhaps make more sense to decide whether we love or hate, like or dislike individuals rather than generations?

Or are you being facetious? (It is far from clear.)

By: jacqueline

jacqueline — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:38:34 +0000

I have sat in seminars where a baby boomer said the same thing as #7. I walked out. I am so sick of being passed over because of my generations name – or some other reason. Granted, I don’t have a lot of love for the baby boomer generation as a whole.

By: Paul Oakley

Paul Oakley — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:13:13 +0000

Re your footnote:

Yeah, that problem is all over. Simple degree inflation is one side of the problem – which means that what people used to be qualified for with a HS diploma now requires a Bachelor’s degree, what used to require a Bachelor’s now requires a Master’s, and so on, at least some of the time also meaning that what you used to learn in a 4-year eduction you now need 6 years to achieve.

And then the degrees that used to be Bachelor’s-es were artificially upgraded to something more. The M.Div. is one example, to be sure, but the even more egregious one is the Juris Doctor (JD), which used to be a Bachelor of Laws. To this day, the Master of Laws degree is a higher degree than the Juris Doctor degree.

Which is another way of saying that credentials are meaningless without a helluva lot of additional context.