With the current political turmoil and the budget being released this week there’s been a lot of political talk on the news and on the radio (talk back radio is always a hoot). One of the things that surprised me was the large number of Gen Y voicing their opinions on social media sites. I’m sure a lot of them thought they were being current and insightful, showing their knowledge of a sometimes complex subject and just how gosh darn smart they were.

But what popped into my head was “wow, aren’t Gen Y a bunch of boring conservatives”. I mean let’s face it; there wasn’t any talk of rallies or protests. There was just an awful lot of thinking out loud type commentary. Granted some of it was very insightful and clever but an awful lot of it was “Yay Bob Brown, boo Tony Abbott” type postings.

But let’s get down to the real jist of this post, and that is just how boring and conservative Gen Y are. I’m seeing less and less commentary on social media about getting drunk and waking up with a tattoo and more and more about gardening, exercise, Masterchef and of course, politics. I will whole heartedly admit to be boring and conservative myself. It’s not something I’m proud of but as a working mother I just can’t be bothered getting all dressed for the five minutes between finishing work (at a conservative company) and beginning my endless list of household tasks, much less find time to do anything more daring than use the dryer instead of drying on the line. But I wasn’t conservative in my late teens and early to mid twenties. None of us were, we were rebels, creative’s with purpose and no money…well nobody had money; it was in the middle of a recession.

But we were definitely less conservative than Gen Y and I think it’s because we were transition babies, making the leap from one type of conservative to another.

I don’t believe conservative rules are set in stone, written as the Ten Commandments and we either follow them or don’t follow them thus deciding our level of commitment. Rather they shift like tectonic plates, moving over different rules, leaving others behind and taking up new ones as we go. We leave behind old rules, believing them to be old fashioned and out dated but at the same time picking new ones up, passing them off as social norms without even realising it. Things our grannies would get their knickers in a twist no longer upset us, we’re not bothered by such meaningless twaddle; we’re more evolved, more grown up now. And at the same time we’re horrified at things people do now that our grannies thought nothing of, and we put these new social norms out into society because we’re more evolved, more gown up now.

Let’s do one of my favourite things; a thought experiment. Scientists do these all the time, they do them because they’re impossible to physically do but provide interesting insight on things.

Grab yourself a time machine and sprint back into the 1950’s, plucking your average upstanding citizen off the street. Don’t pick anyone too moral and religious or anyone too casual and verging on hippy. We want to get someone who represents the average moral standard of the day. Now bring them back to the present day and head out and find a similar upstanding person of the present day. Once again, don’t pick anyone too religious or someone who doesn’t have their finger on the current moral pulse. Now let’s take them somewhere nice; it’ll make the modern person proud of their city’s achievements and impress the 50’s chap. Here’s a hint; nothing too trendy mind you, they won’t get it and will want to know why the cafe is filled with second hand couches and think something is terribly wrong with society.

Now you’re going to ask them two questions, the same questions.

1. What is society’s view of young women having sex with multiple partners before they are married?
2. What is society’s view of someone who has the sprinkler on for an hour a day everyday and hoses down their concrete driveway?

Then you’ll give them two possible answers, they can choose one for each question; using both of the possible answers, or only one answer for both questions.

A.   “Well society doesn’t really have any view on such a person. They’re just seen as normal and doing what most people like them do”

B.   “Society looks down on people like that, as selfish, unethical/immoral and if I was friends with them I’d definitely rethink whether I wanted to remain friends with them.”

What you’ll most likely find is the 50’s chap is far more likely to choose answer B for question 1 and answer A for question 2 and the modern chap will probably choose answer A for question 1 and answer B for question 2.

The 50’s chap will probably look at the modern guys answer with surprise. Why on earth would you look down on someone who takes pride in their lawns and yet celebrate some bed hopping unmarried woman? Because in a mere 60 years the tectonic plates of conservative Australia have moved. We’re no longer standing over the hot bed of premarital sex but rather have rested on a new moral standard; conserving water.

Our conservative area has not diminished but rather moved to new territory, we are still as conservative as ever, we just changed the goal posts.

What is interesting about Gen X however is we were in our formative years while the plates were sliding around. We didn’t have the pressure of living like our parents did but had not yet moved far enough to take up the environmental hot spot so loved by Gen Y. We’d also briefly shifted off the materialism hot spot due to the recession and were in essence floating around, a little lost, but a lot freer. I think most of Gen X still feels that way, disconnected from the Baby Boomers and Gen Y, wondering why they take things so seriously and are so high and mighty about what they think is right.

But the story of Gen X being like the middle child is a whole other post.

Side note: Before any of my three readers mistakes me for an honours student who majored in Australian politics and has written several critically acclaimed books on the subject I must admit my knowledge comes directly from the news on the telly and radio and newspapers and my very smart husband who has read a mountain of books on world politics and has a very scathing view of any news that isn’t on the ABC. He generally fills me in on the background details and sets me right when I say things like “Why is Joolia copping so much flack for this whole Slipper controversy? Are they just picking on her?”

So I would say my knowledge is better than someone who gets their information from social media and the channel seven news but not as good as anyone who actually finds it interesting and seeks out more in depth knowledge.