The following are approximately the first 1000 words from Chapter 12 of Jonar Nader’s book,
How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Lovers.

All the letters of the alphabet:

Shut your generation trap

Are young people different these days? Do they prefer disposable relationships? Are they averse to marriage? Do they care about their education? Are they self-absorbed fun-seekers who can’t hold down a job? Are they rude and disrespectful? Are they hyperactive and unreliable? Are they impatient, albeit savvy? Are they independent and more mature than we were at their age? Is their promiscuity causing relationship difficulties? Do they make lousy lovers?

Do you understand the characteristics that differentiate baby-boomers from Generations X and Y? Will Zeds surprise us with new attitudes that were hitherto unforeseen? And, now that we have reached the end of the alphabet, how will we describe the generation that will come after Z?

Does the generation gap really exist? Sometimes, our language is woefully inadequate. I often struggle to find the right word to express a thought about a complex topic. On this occasion, I can safely present you with the single word that perfectly expresses my feelings about this ubiquitous debate. It comprises two syllables: hogwash.

I could elucidate by prefacing it with another crunchy word: claptrap. Yes, I am almost, but not quite, enraged by the bemusing generational analysis. If it goes on much longer, I shall have to put my foot down and start using language of which I would normally disapprove. In fact, the title to this chapter was going to be ‘The Generation Crap’ but I shall hold my tongue.

We would do well to understand the origins of the word ‘claptrap’. As a public performer, I have mastered this tool. It is used to trap claps. It works like a mouse-trap. It lures an audience into spontaneous applause. Isn’t that something?

Before I explain the significance of a clap-trapper, consider your favourite piece of music and try to deconstruct it. Its foundation comprises seven notes, embellished by several tones and shifts in octave. Change the tempo, and you’ll have a symphony.

If music isn’t your bag, think about literature. A book is merely a compilation of a combination of a construction of twenty or so letters of the alphabet. A clever author can make you laugh or make you cry or make you mad, just by taking the letters of the alphabet and aligning them in a certain sequence. Remove one letter, and good becomes god. Add one letter and evil becomes devil. The gravest or most triumphant of chapters are nothingmorethanasequenceof-lettersinaspecificorderthatappearoneafteranother.

Simply by rearranging the same choice of letters, the word teacher becomes cheater. Similarly, the nine letters that make ‘debit card’ can also form ‘bad credit’. ‘Schoolmaster’ becomes ‘the classroom’, while a ‘dormitory’ becomes a ‘dirty room’. ‘Nice love’ can turn into ‘violence’ and anyone who is ‘angered’ can be ‘enraged’. ‘Listen’ can be turned into ‘silent’ while ‘notes’ are also ‘tones’. The thirty-four characters that form the title of this book ‘How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Lovers’ could have been the ‘Rise of Adult Interwoven Foolhardiness’.

What’s amazing about music or literature is that with just a few notes or letters, we can evoke emotion. Delivered with gusto, they can move audiences. My favourite after-dinner trick is to work out who is an ardent fan of astrology. I grab a magazine and read their horoscope. After they applaud the accuracy of the reading, I admit that I had recited the wrong entry, and thereby proving that any horoscope can fit any star-sign because the allegedly insightful yet vague language was nothing more than claptrap hogwash. To a believer, anything sounds plausible, especially when an entry is expertly written — that is to say, written by an expert who knows how to trap claps.

I do not dispute the raw statistics in relation to the demographics and psychographics of the kids of today, but I do object to the supposedly plausible analysis of their behaviour, as if to suggest that Generation Y is a new species roaming the planet. The word I use to describe seemingly plausible material that solicits unthinking applause is ‘applausible’.

By way of example, go to your favourite book that attempts to describe the characteristics of Generation Y, and study the clever broad language that purports to examine the peculiarities and behavioural traits. I have seen conference delegates nod and applaud, as a highly-paid consultant paints a picture of recalcitrant youths who ‘more than any previous generation, demand greater flexibility from their employer’.

Young people today, compared with youngsters of yesteryears, are said to have brash attitudes towards authority, money, education, parents, technology, sex, and relationships. I am not suggesting that modern children are without challenges. However, I am saying that every time that sociologists and researchers try to describe the characteristics of a generation, they open the doors for clap-trappers to swell the hogwash.

If we were to swap the infants of families in India, China, and the UK, do you suppose that the Indian-born child who grows up in London will automatically and intrinsically oppose the British culture? Of course not. The environment teaches the child how to behave. So those who grew up with Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly were comfortable with the music of the day. Modern children cannot associate with that music — but not because they do not like that music, and not because their genetics would resist that genre, but because they did not grow up surrounded by it. The point I am trying to make is that contemporary children are sim-ilar to antiquated ones. Their choices are predicated on what they know. Modern children have no reason to dislike music from the sixties or seventies. Millions of people bought into that style, so what could have changed in human nature to make modern children averse to that music? They are the same humans in every respect. Children and teenagers today do not dislike Elvis. They merely have not had the opportunity to appreciate Elvis. They could easily buy into that type of rock and roll, because their senses and faculties are exactly the same as those of any other child of old. It’s just that they were exposed to something else, so they will follow whatever is familiar. Besides, much of a person’s preferences stem from making choices that signal one’s political, social, or communal allegiances. When children select music, they are often siding with a team. They are lured by something other than the music itself, and this might include celebrity worship or peer pressure. It would be rare for a child to muster the courage or patience to take the lead.