What we are all looking for…is the readymade, competent man [sic]; the man whom some one else has trained. It is only when we fully realize that our duty, as well as our opportunity, lies in systematically cooperating to train and to make this competent man, instead of in hunting
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elementalpresent: One benefit of getting older…
…is that you age your way out of the generational gaze. You know the one. The one that fixes on everything younger than 30 or 40, and can’t see anything but narcissism, entitlement, deviance and degrading values. I wrote this blog many months back, and a much shorter and slightly
Continue readingelementalpresent: How to Critique Wealth Inequality without Caring about Poor People
This video on wealth inequality in the United States is currently making the rounds on social media – in my universe anyway – and it got me thinking. It has clearly stirred some people who, in all likelihood, are already stirred about inequality. It probably resonated with people who
Continue readingelementalpresent: ‘Hipster’ is not a real job. Neither is not having a job.
Last week, the CCPA released a report (authored by yours truly) about youth un- and underemployment in Canada. It showed that, while youth unemployment in Canada is not insubstantial – 14.1% in 2011, up from 12.9% in 2006 – it’s still “low” compared to other OECD countries. In Greece, for
Continue readingelementalpresent: The Pot and the Kettle
In several previous posts, I’ve made passing reference to the idea that every generation doubts or outright disparages the “work ethic” of the one following it into the workforce. Conducting some preliminary research for my next project on the concept of “productivity”, I came across some hard evidence for my claim. It’s
Continue readingelementalpresent: Let’s not get carried away with Helicopter Parents
University and college classes start today for one of the most cash-strapped, debt-burdened, under-employed cohorts of post-secondary students this country has ever seen.[1] But that’s not the story. Instead, on the radio, in the newspaper, online and among many university instructors, the focus is on “entitled” students, “coddled” first-years, and
Continue readingelementalpresent: “Gotta Spend Money to Make Money”… or is it “Make Money to Save Money?”
“Young people want to retire early and spend, too”. That’s the main finding of a survey commissioned by the Bank of Montreal, released today in newspapers across the country. The coverage of the survey report is problematic on its own. For instance, although 1000 Canadians aged 18 and over were
Continue readingelementalpresent: How to Eliminate Tuition Fees (and do it right)
Quebec student group CLASSE has come forward with an offer of what it would take to end their almost four-month strike: the elimination of tuition fees by 2016. The plan is based on taxing banks, starting at 0.14 per cent per cent this year, and rising to 0.7 per cent
Continue readingelementalpresent: The Real Culture of Dependency: In Defense of Atlantic Canada
This post is co-authored with Brian Foster “Is the EI system making it more attractive to not work?” That’s the (attempt at) thought-provoking (or fire-stoking) title of a recent National Post piece, written in the aftermath of Jim Flaherty’s intellectually lazy and socially irresponsible public musings on the psychological, voluntaristic reasons
Continue readingelementalpresent: On Strike from Life as we Know it
The Quebec Government just announced a “special law” intended to bring an end to the 14-week student strike in that province. The law would postpone the rest of this semester and allow current students to finish it in August before starting school again in October. The announcement came on the
Continue readingelementalpresent: Why work?
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see And now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me But I don’t, I don’t know what
Continue readingelementalpresent: Making Sense of Youth Voter Apathy OR Why Youth Voter Apathy Makes Sense
I’m 28, and I’ve voted in every federal election since I was old enough to do so. Yet I understand why the majority of people my age didn’t, and won’t, and why those who turned voting age after me were less and less likely to cast a ballot. In fact,
Continue readingelementalpresent: “Twelve Going on Thirty” OR “Is the Globe and Mail the Worst Newspaper Yet?”
What do I have in common with a 12-year-old? Other than being alive, right now, in the same world, I’d like to wager ‘not a whole lot.’ Yet psychologist Jean Twenge is working on the assumption that we share a generation, and for the Globe and Mail, it just might
Continue readingelementalpresent: Now, to let the money start rolling in…
You’ve likely seen at least one list, published in a newspaper’s ‘business’ section, of tips for how to manage that unruly influx of “young punks” wreaking havoc on workplaces around the world: the millennials (or Generation Y). Over at the CCPA’s Behind the Numbers blog, I’ve combined some old material with some newer numbers
Continue readingelementalpresent: What do Bruce Springsteen, KONY2012 and Occupy have to do with one another?
This is a guest blog, courtesy of Brian Foster. Now, no shells ripped the evening sky No cities burning down No army stormed the shores for which we’d die No dictators were crowned I awoke on a quiet night; I never heard a sound The marauders raided in the dark
Continue readingelementalpresent: The Feminization of Pinterest
Pinterest, I’ve discovered, is something you learn by doing. And by “doing”, I mean getting sucked in to the site, like Alice going down the rabbit hole, picture-by-picture, pin-by-pin, only to emerge, feeling hungry and lazy (yet inspired), wondering where the last two hours of your life went. But when
Continue readingelementalpresent: Questioning “The Prophet Drummond”
In the Commission report that bears his name, and in all of his media appearances since its release, Banker Don Drummond has ably played the disinterested expert, taking no pleasure in sharing the “gloomy message” he has for Ontario. From the way most TV hosts and journalists have rushed forward
Continue readingelementalpresent: Waging or Resisting Unwinnable Wars: A Response to Donald Gutstein
Across Canada and every other place where austerity has become a household term, the idea of generational conflict has come out of retirement (pun intended). In Canada, intergenerational issues and tensions garnered a bit of attention during the Occupy encampments, and resurfaced again in the wake of the Prime Minister’s
Continue readingelementalpresent: And now, for something completely different: A Lesson in Spanish, Civility, Hypocrisy and General Douchebaggery with Ezra Levant and Sun News
A few weeks back, Ezra Levant dropped the F-bomb on television. Well, more or less. He did it in Spanish, in the phrase “Chinga tu Madre.” It means what you think it means. The real media (i.e., not Sun), including social media, fired up in response, but the whole tizzy was
Continue readingelementalpresent: State of the Union: Part 1 of 2
Unions, in Canada and the world over, are facing perhaps their biggest battle of the last eighty-odd years. Not only are they fighting to protect workers against governments and employers (and government employers) armed with the powerful language of crisis and austerity, they are also doing it with very little
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