If you’ve never seen HBO’s The Newsroom, it’s pretty standard as far as Aaron Sorkin creations go. It features a severely under-diversified cast; generic current-event references that high-five those who get them while not alienating those who don’t; dialogue that must be read at hail-storm tempos just to stay within running time; and, of course, a white, cis-male protagonist who would be completely unlikeable if he weren’t just so dashingly smart. Still, the early part of the first episode is pretty wonderful (transcript below).

The clip introduces Will McAvoy (portrayed by the fantastic Jeff Daniels), a troubled newscaster clearly playing the moderate during a Q&A appearance at a college, alongside respective talking heads for conservative and liberal viewpoints. When a student asks, “Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?” he snaps, delivering a profanity-laden tirade on the nature of both sides of the political debate, the falseness of the assumption that America is the greatest, and some wistfulness about what the nation has been and could be again. It’s great fun and, despite never getting past the third or fourth episode of the show, I watch that clip every few months.

A few parts never sit well with me, however. One is when McAvoy laments how we as a country once “acted like men.” Another is when he says to the questioner, “None of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are, without a doubt, a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period.”

To listen to people talking this way about my generation feels almost like a right of passage. When I speak to my older friends, even the ones who are themselves referring to my generation in this manner to my face, they always admit that, at one point or another, someone more advanced in years has decried how badly their generation has left behind the old days and the old ways.

In an interview for Esquire back in 2008 (that, I beg your forgiveness, I absolutely refuse to link to), actor Clint Eastwood discussed what he referred to as the “Pussy Generation” in which “everybody’s become used to saying, ‘Well, how do we handle it psychologically?’” and “asking about the meaning of life.” Comedian Christopher Titus, of whom I’ve been a fan and supporter for years, built an enormous segment of his Neverlution comedy special on diatribes against the current crop of youth — a generation spoiled by “everybody gets a trophy” activities, prescription medications, and parents who refuse to let them suffer.

My own father, who treats his early experiences in this country with a sardonic love that only the Reagan years can forge, has even succumbed to the instinct, telling my sister and me that we spend too much time thinking about our phones and our social media accounts instead of living life.

I actually think Titus and my dad have a decent point or two, but both of these men — like the fictional character McAvoy — are contributing to the latest round of inter-generational bickering. The irony is that it’s the same kind of criticism that their parents lobbed on them. I’m not entirely immune myself, of course. One of my more entertaining stories to tell at social gatherings comes from my days as a substitute teacher — when I needed to ask high school students what the terms “ratched” and “basic” meant. It would be a lie for me to state that my reaction was anything short of an angry fear for the future.

There’s a lot of science behind these feelings. Biologically speaking, some teenagers are simply not at a stage of neurological development in which they can express empathy as an adult might. This fact can help explain behaviors that cause some older people to refer to teens as unfeeling or cruel—especially if they’ve forgotten what it feels like to be that age. Similarly, there are studies that suggest nostalgia can help combat loneliness and depression, so it makes plenty of sense that those with a wellspring of fond memories might think their good old days a superior time.

Intellectually speaking, all of this is fine. I’ve forgiven the worst of my students as I’ve forgiven my childhood bullies, and my Pandora stations have enough Fall Out Boy, DMX, and N*SYNC that I practically swim in nostalgic revelry. The issue is when we get mean-spirited. The issue is shame.

When Eastwood calls my peers the “Pussy Generation,” he makes a value statement that the period of time in which he came of age was superior. In 1971, the same year he cemented his place in pop culture by starring in Dirty Harry, James Earl Jones was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for The Great White Hope. I wonder whether Jones would’ve agreed with Eastwood’s sense of the past being superior. After all, he was only the second black man (following Sydney Poitier) in history to be nominated — both, of course, following Hattie McDaniel’s nomination and victory in 1939 for Gone with the Wind.

My generation of trophy-grabbers and internet-obsessed zombies, meanwhile, has brought forward the election of the first black president, the most gender-diversified Congress in American history, and the most interconnected activism base since the Civil Rights Movement. We’re smart, empathetic, and delightfully smarmy about it (transcript below). The only issue is that we’re just as wrong to be so.

My father finally hitting that threshold of generational judgment did a lot to show me the problem with shaming. I owe my progressivism to him. He was the one who explained to me at age 11 exactly why nationalism and corporate greed were leading us into Round 2 of a Middle-Eastern war that I was still too young to remember. It’s his example I follow when I scream at union-busting conservatives and pollution-mongering businesses on the news.

So, one day, he starts telling me everything wrong with kids my age,  and that we’re incapable of understanding the hard work of his day. He gets that we’re saddled with debt, but we should also be smarter about how we’re spending our time and our resources. He says that we don’t know the true struggles of being poor and rising to the middle class. I surprise both of us when I say that true economic reform probably won’t happen until he and enough of his Baby Boomer buddies are dead so that no one in power will kowtow to them anymore.

I’m not proud of myself for that. They are words that leave me not in the spirit of the good sense and justice that he taught me to value, but in the rage of seeing that even the best teachers can still get it wrong.

Aging is scary, no matter what age you are. Change is scary. Self-analysis might be the scariest of all. Every generation of American culture has moved its sense of taste and social acceptance in different directions, a little bit at a time. Old slang becomes either a joke or a slur, and for those who wake up in the morning and realize that the world as they understood it has shifted, I have some compassion.

Praise for the old school is too often based not in the value of a concept, but in the familiarity of the speaker to what once was and fear of what is now. When Titus says that every kid shouldn’t get a trophy just for participating, I laugh because I sort of agree. That perspective comes from introspection and honesty. I personally think it’s a waste of a trophy to award it to people just for participating. (Full disclosure: I was never much of the participating type as a kid, anyway.)

When I’m told I’m getting it wrong for being sensitive by Titus’ or Eastwood’s standards, however, the criticism doesn’t come from the same place. That is a moment in which an old guard is faced with a changing world — and the fact that this world might just be an improvement. This new and strange place that they do not fully understand may be better, they may not fit into it, and “obsolescence” is a term that may no longer only apply to the cars they purport to love in their movies, but to their ideas.

The challenge for the young and the old, then, is not to simply cease criticism. It is to cease shaming and to interrogate one another with honesty and respect. Calling anything better just because it is old is how old evil thrives under the term “tradition.” (Ask any southerner. We’ll be happy to tell you.) Calling anything better just because it is new invites poor and reckless decision-making. But to recognize changing culture through a lens of common sense, taking the good and the bad regardless of who offers it, is to act with intelligence and decency and respect.

It’s good behavior. You know, just like our parents taught us.

—

The Newsroom Transcript

Jenny: A blonde-haired, white woman, roughly twenty years of age, dressed in a dark red sweater. She stands at a microphone with her hands crossed somewhat nervously.

Sharon: A white, dark haired woman, about forty years of age. She wears a professional-looking ensemble consisting of a dark blouse, skirt, jacket, and stockings. She sits on the far left of the stage.

Debate Moderator: A white, dark-haired man, around his late thirties/early forties. He wears a grey-suit, black tie, and light blue dress-shirt. He continually references a clipboard, and points a pen when speaking to anyone onstage. He sits to the far right of the stage.

Louis: A white, dark-haired man around his thirties or forties dressed in dark pants, a brown blazer, a white dress shirt, and red tie. He sits center right onstage.

Will: A white, blond-haired man, late-forties or early fifties, in a dark suit and slightly unbuttoned blue dress shirt. He sits center left onstage.

[Jenny]
“Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?”

[Sharon]
Diversity and opportunity.

[Debate Moderator]
Louis

[Louis]
Ah freedom and freedom, let’s keep it that way.

[Debate Moderator]
Will?

[Will]
It’s NOT the greatest country in the world, Professor. That’s my answer.

[Debate Moderator]
You’re saying—

[Will]
Yes.

[Debate Moderator]
Let’s talk about—

[Will (Speaking to Sharon)]
Fine. Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn’t cost money. It costs votes. It costs airtime. And column inches. You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin’ smart then how come they lose so goddamn always?

[Sharon]
Hey!

[Will (to Lewis)]
And with a straight face, you’re gonna sit there and tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The U.K. France. Italy. Germany. Spain. Australia. BELGIUM has freedom. (laughs) Two hundred and seven sovereign states in the world, like, a hundred and eighty of them have freedom.

[Debate Moderator]
All right…

[Will]
And you, Sorority Girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. One of them is there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.

Now none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I dunno what the fuck you’re talkin’ about. Yosemite?

(Audience surprised.)

[Will]
Sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed. We cared about our neighbors. We put our money where our mouths were. And we never beat our chest.

We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. [pause] We reached for the stars. Acted like men.

We aspired to intelligence. We didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior.

We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t, oh, we didn’t scare so easy. Ha. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men. Men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. [pause] Enough?

Transcript taken from http://lybio.net/tag/the-newsroom-opening-scene/ (some modifications made)

—

Millenial Generation Transcript

Sara: A white, brown-haired woman in her early twenties. She is wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, sitting on a grey couch and holding an iPad.

Nick: A white, bearded, dark-haired man in his twenties. He is wearing a blue FREE TIBET t-shirt and khaki shorts, and holding an X-box controller while sitting on a green couch.

Ronnie: A white man with a shaved head in his twenties. He is standing in front of an urban apartment building wearing a grey sweatshirt. He is at times seen tinkering with a bicycle.

Bridget: A white woman in her twenties with long, light-colored hair and deep red lipstick. She wears a white Star Wars t-shirt and is occasionally seen working an iPod with headphones plugged in.

[Sara]

I’m a Millennial.

[Nick]

I’m a Millennial.

[Ronnie]

I’m a Millennial.

[Bridget]

I’m a Millennial, and I’m sorry.

[Sara]

And I’m sorry.

[Nick]

We suck and we know it.

[Sara]

We’re self-centered. We’re entitled. We’re narcissistic, lazy, and immature.

[Ronnie]

And we’re super-sorry about that.

[Bridget]

We’re the worst! If only we could be more like our parents.

[Nick]

Yeah, the Baby-Boomers. You guys were great.

[Ronnie]

You gave us great music…

[Bridget]

Sixties counterculture…

[Sara]

Psychadelic drugs…

[Bridget]

A lot of great movies, too…

[Nick]

Jurassic Park was awesome. Good job with that one.

[Sara]

We don’t know what happened. You raised us to believe that we were special.

[Nick]

So special that we didn’t even have to do anything to earn it.

[Bridget]

I got this trophy for existing in soccer.

[Sara]

That’s pretty special.

[Ronnie]

No idea what went wrong.

[Sara]

You tried your best. You insisted we all go to college. And now, we’re the most educated generation in American history.

[Bridget]

Sure, college costs 600% more than when you went. And yes, we average $30,000 in student loan debt.

[Ronnie]

But here we go again, making the excuses. We’re so lazy!

[Bridget]

Instead of living in our parents’ basements and waiting tables, we should just go and get real jobs. Like you did.

[Nick]

I mean, not a job in manufacturing since those all got outsources in the nineties.

[Sara]

Man, the nineties were great! Do you guys remember Full House?

[Bridget lip-syncs along with chorus to Full House theme song:

Everywhere you look there’s a face

of somebody who—]

[Sara]

That was a good show…

[Bridget]

We graduated into a recession, and 90% of the jobs created since 2009 are part time. But let’s be honest, we just don’t like hard work.

[Nick]

Hey, what was the deal with that recession anyway?

[Ronnie]

I think it had something to do with the housing bubble that started in the nineties? I don’t know, I was still pretty young back then.

[Bridget]

Oh, and we’re really sorry about messing up those two wars you guys started. Sorry so many of our friends died.

[Nick]

We just can’t do anything right.

[Ronnie]

We’re really sorry we suck so much.

[Nick]

I mean, it’s not like we jacked up college tuition prices, or…

[Bridget]

Destroyed the manufacturing industry…

[Ronnie]

Started two quagmire wars…

[Nick]

Gutted the unions…

[Sara]

Destroyed the global economy…

[Bridget]

And left our offspring with an environmentally devastated planet stripped of its natural resources.

[Sara]

Man…it’d be crazy if there was a generation that recklessly awful, huh?

[Ronnie]

But we do text too much. Ugh!

[Nick]

I know, right?

[Sara]

So on behalf of all the Millennials, we’d like to apologize for being so terrible! From now on, we’re gonna be just like the Baby-Boomers.

[Bridget]

’Cause you guys…you nailed it.

—

[Headline image: The photograph shows an Hispanic mother and son. The mother is on the right. She has brown hair tied back in a pony tail and is wearing a beige sweater. The son is on the left. She has short brown hair and is wearing a gray t-shirt. Both are looking at the camera and smiling. Behind them, green foliage is visible.]