{"id":12028,"date":"2016-07-28T13:55:48","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T17:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=12028"},"modified":"2016-07-28T13:55:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T17:55:48","slug":"the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing my posts about\u00a0Lionel Shriver’s\u00a0The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047<\/a><\/em>…<\/p>\n

The novel directly concerns four generations within one family and the relationships among these generations as well as the way in which a society’s GDP is parceled out to various age groups.<\/p>\n

For those periods in the novel when\u00a0the U.S. GDP is flat or shrinking, the younger generations resent\u00a0the money being spent on the old. Being old is psychologically tough, even at the beginning of the novel before the meltdown:<\/p>\n

I see the same thing in my elderly clients all the time. They have different obsessions, of course: we\u2019re about to run out of water, or run out of food, or run out of energy. The economy\u2019s on the brink of disaster and their 401(k)s will turn into pumpkins. But in truth they\u2019re afraid of dying. And because when you die, the world dies, too, at least for you, they assume the world will die for everybody. It\u2019s a failure of imagination, in a way\u2014an inability to conceive of the universe without you in it. That\u2019s why old people get apocalyptic: they\u2019re facing apocalypse, and that part, the private apocalypse, is real. So the closer their personal oblivion gets, the more certain geriatrics project impending doom on their surroundings<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inter-generational conflict is worse when the younger generation is a different ethnic group than the older generation:<\/p>\n

[a young man who works for a senior citizens’ outdoor excursion company called “Over the Hill”] … Because they don\u2019t like following a guide. Especially a Lat guide. They\u2019re enraged that Lats are running the show now, since somebody has to\u2014\u201d \u201cEnough.\u201d Florence threw the cabbage into what was starting to look like pork soup. \u201cYou forget. I\u2019m on your side.\u201d \u201cI know you get sick of it, but you\u2019ve no idea the waves of resentment I get from these crusties every day. They want their domination back, even if they think of themselves as progressives. They still want credit for being tolerant, without taking the rap for the fact that you only \u2018tolerate\u2019 what you can\u2019t stand. Besides, we gotta tolerate honks same as they gotta put up with us. It\u2019s our country every bit as much as these has-been gringos\u2019. It\u2019d be even more our country if these tottering white cretins would hurry up and die already.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an economy where it is tough to earn money via work, young people may pay attention to and spend time with old people to ensure an inheritance:<\/p>\n

It was also standard on the two-hour trip from Brooklyn\u2014this leafy section through Connecticut was pleasant\u2014for Carter to question his motivations for these visits. With an eye to the long view, you naturally dote on an elderly parent as a subtly selfish prophylactic: to be able to assure yourself, on receipt of that fatal phone call, that you\u2019d been devoted. Sometimes being a shade more attentive than you\u2019re quite in the mood for can prevent self-excoriation down the line. After all, old people have a horrible habit of kicking it right after you ducked seeing them at the last minute with an excuse that sounded fishy, or on the heels of a regrettable encounter in which you let slip an acrid aside. To be dutiful without fail is like taking out emotional insurance. Yet in Carter\u2019s case, the self-interest was crassly pecuniary. Did he keep in his father\u2019s good graces with monthly runs to the Wellcome Arms only to safeguard his inheritance from, say, a rash or spiteful late-life impulse to endow a chair at Yale? He\u2019d never know. Worse, his father would never know, and might not ever feel confidently cherished for himself. A family fortune introduced an element of corruption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Old people drive the economy and people are anxious to get into the driver’s seat:<\/p>\n

But as things stood at present: after a dip in the thirties, life expectancy had better than recovered. On average, Americans were living to ninety-two. The US sported an unprecedentedly large cohort of senior citizens. In contrast to Willing\u2019s passive generation, typified by low rates of electoral participation, nearly all the shrivs voted, making it political anathema to restrict entitlements. Together, Medicare and Social Security consumed 80 percent of the federal budget.<\/p>\n

From the start, he knew the variety of employment widely available: home health aide placements, health insurance and billing, design and maintenance of healthcare websites, answering healthcare help lines, medical device manufacture, service of medical devices, medical transport, medical research, pharmaceutical manufacture, pharmaceutical research, pharmaceutical advertising, hospital laundry, hospital catering, hospital administration, hospital construction, and work in assisted-living establishments that served every level of decrepitude from mildly impaired to moribund.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what\u2019s up with your parents?\u201d Willing interceded. \u201cDad\u2019s two years from sixty-eight,\u201d Goog said. \u201cThen he\u2019ll be sitting pretty.\u201d People used to dread being put out to pasture. Desperate to qualify for entitlements, these days everyone couldn\u2019t wait to be old.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The simplest way to get old is to sleep:<\/p>\n

Willing was also perplexed by why slumbering hadn\u2019t taken off decades earlier. When recreational drugs were legalized, regulated, and taxed, they became drear overnight. Only then did people get wise to the fact that the ultimate narcotic had been eternally available to everyone, for free: sleep. A pharmaceutical nudge into an indefinite coma was cheap, and a light steady dose allowed for repeated dream cycles. Inert bodies expend negligible energy, so the drips for nutrition and hydration had seldom to be replenished (slumbers were hooked to enormous drums of the stuff). The regular turning to prevent pressure sores provided welcome employment for the low skilled. Slumbers didn\u2019t require apartments\u2014much less maXfleXes or new clothes. They needed only a change of pajamas and a mattress. An outmoded designation revived, \u201crest homes\u201d denoted warehouses of the somnambulant, who were only roused and kicked out once their prepayments were extinguished. Previous generations had scrounged to buy property. Many of Willing\u2019s peers were similarly obsessed with scraping together a nest egg, but with an eye to dozing away as many years of their lives as the savings could buy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The eeriest part of the book is that it anticipates the\u00a0Sagamihara stabbings<\/a>. In a society with a lot of dependents, Shriver predicts that workers whose mental health declines may target those dependents.<\/p>\n

More: Read The Mandibles<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing my posts about\u00a0Lionel Shriver’s\u00a0The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047… The novel directly concerns four generations within one family and the relationships among these generations as well as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Continuing my posts about\u00a0Lionel Shriver’s\u00a0The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047… The novel directly concerns four generations within one family and the relationships among these generations as well as the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-28T17:55:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-28T17:55:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\"},\"wordCount\":1082,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\",\"name\":\"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-28T17:55:48+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"description\":\"A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\",\"name\":\"philg\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2047,\"height\":2560,\"caption\":\"philg\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/author\/philg\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","og_description":"Continuing my posts about\u00a0Lionel Shriver’s\u00a0The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047… The novel directly concerns four generations within one family and the relationships among these generations as well as the […]","og_url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/","og_site_name":"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","article_published_time":"2016-07-28T17:55:48+00:00","author":"philg","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"philg","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/"},"author":{"name":"philg","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"headline":"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict","datePublished":"2016-07-28T17:55:48+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/"},"wordCount":1082,"commentCount":3,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/","name":"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-07-28T17:55:48+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/28\/the-mandibles-inter-generational-conflict\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Mandibles: Inter-generational Conflict"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/","name":"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","description":"A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e","name":"philg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","width":2047,"height":2560,"caption":"philg"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg"},"url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/author\/philg\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paokyZ-380","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}