I will be discussing Donald Trump’s most recent tweet regarding Greta Thumberg, and Shirley Jackson’s short story ‘The Intoxicated’, in relation to the global issue: how does the disconnect between generations affect the degree at which information is spread and accepted. 

Greta thunberg strongly believes in climate change, and that it is a crisis that urgently needs to be handled. She has founded these beliefs on a lot of evidence, but Donald Trump simply won’t take her seriously, similarly to how drunken man in ‘the intoxicated’ treats Eileen. This is due to the barrier between generations causing a halt to the spread and development of ideas.

As evident in Donald Trump’s tweet, there is a great disconnect between the younger and older generations. In Trump’s tweet, the arrogance of the older generation is shown when Trump tells Greta Thunberg to “go to an old fashioned movie with a friend”. Trump is looking down at Thunberg, essentially telling her to stop meddling with problems that are too complicated for her and to simply just go and watch a movie. When Trump doesn’t even deign to reply to Thunberg regarding her beliefs about climate change, his disdain for the younger generation and their ideologies is apparent. This halts the acceptance of information, as due to the fact that Thunberg is of a different generation, Trump is dismissing her ideas and acting as a barricade to the spread of information. 

Eileen has ideas about the world’s future that she clearly believes in strongly, and that seemed to make the man uncomfortable. Perhaps so as to not cause himself anymore discomfort, the drunk man shrugs her off and dismisses her ideas as youthful idiocy. Here there is clearly a barrier between their two generations, as he does not respect her ideas or take the time to consider them. This barrier hinders the spread of information, as, for example, the drunk man (representing the older generation) refused to entertain Eileen’s (representing the younger generation) ideas. 

After Eileen expresses some of her ideas, the man tells her to “Buy yourself a movie magazine and settle down”. This is shockingly similar to when Trump tells Thunberg to “go to an old fashioned movie with a friend”. These are both, stereotypically, activities that young carefree people spend their free time doing. Both the drunken man and Trump dismiss the girls of the younger generation without a second thought, and act as if they should be carefree and with no problems. 

In conclusion, the barrier between generations greatly slows the spread and acceptance of information, as shown in a parallel of Trump dismissing Thunberg’s ideas and the drunk man dismissing Eileen’s. 

Bibliography:

“Jackson: “The Intoxicated” (1949).” 

www.pages.drexel.edu/~ina22/+301/hnrs301-text-Intoxicated.html?fbclid=IwAR1VWUCn-

08nKbTfsrjUi9n1y5QognUFEwmwW0HfEwsMAjnUMxcMPAHYHUw. Accessed 13 Dec. 

2019.

Jan-Lim, Clarissa. “Greta Thunberg Changed Her Twitter Bio After Trump Mocked Her For Being 

Time’s Person Of The Year.” BuzzFeed News, 12 Dec. 2019, 

www.buzzfeednews.com/article/clarissajanlim/trump-greta-thunberg-time-person-of-the-

year-2019. Accessed 13 Dec. 2019.