Recently a post by Chris Arnade (ar-NAHD-i) at X caught my eye.
I’ve written for the last decade about the educational divide in the US, but culturally there is now a large divide between generations — specifically those over sixty versus basically everyone else.
The sixty-plus cohort (Boomers which I’m at the very tail end of) have a lot more certainty that they’ve discovered the Truth — or the high point, and often end point, of many things. From music (rock will always be here), to fashion (why would anyone wear anything but blue jeans), to politics (liberal democracy with emancipation from all forms of obligation as a human Telos).
Younger people are much more uncertain and relativistic. They don’t accept the claim that it’s been solved, and the Boomers’ rigidity and religious-like certainty seems to them either laughably naive or arrogantly condescending.
The Boomers see everyone else as having fallen away from the path to historical perfection they paved, and are uniformly angry about that. What most of the Boomers miss is that the younger generation is living in the world they built — of hyper-individuality, of smashing of prior norms, and of moral relativism. This post-truth, post-gatekeeping, hyper-partisan world is an endpoint of their worldview, and yet they are angry about it.
As a white male born in 1960, I’m smart enough to recognize those Boomer characteristics I possess. However, having recognized long ago that I’m a slow learner and a late bloomer, my consciousness falls a bit closer to Arnade’s (1965), and butts up against Gen X. I’m 15 years removed from the first wave of Boomers, and submit that America in 1960 was a different place (of course, rural Indiana remained as somnolent as ever).
Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia protagonist Jimmy famously suffered from a four-way personality. As a side note, it’s the best rock opera ever, and I see no need to discuss it.
LOL.
For a good while, I’ve felt at war with myself, divided into thirds generationally: 40% Boomer, 35% Gen X (late bloomer), and 25% pre-glibly tagged 1930s/early 1940s.
The latter is because my father struggled mightily (and not unsuccessfully) to imbue me with his foundational milieu, and I absorbed much of it owing to the music he played (Big Bands or Swing Era, from which I branched backwards and forwards into the 20s and 50s) and the tumultuous history of the period: stock market crash, Great Depression, WWII and the Cold War, to skim the surface).
Triplophenia? Actually at this moment, I’m listening to Beethoven’s 9th, which reminds me of German unification.
I think often about matters like this, and ultimately, there are no firm conclusions. During my adult life, I’ve endeavored mightily to differentiate my consciousness from the norms of this place that I live, while continuing to live in the same place. I’ve tried my best to cosplay as an intellectual, even knowing I’m not bright enough to succeed.
Which generation has a claim on innate contrarianism?
To me, it’s a fine line. Admittedly, since departing Pints&union in 2023, I’ve not found myself in proximity to young people nearly as much. Those of you with children and grandchildren understand so much more than I do.
But I have no intrinsic difficulties with generational uncertainty and relativism; they’ve been constant companions in my life. The problem is that whatever one’s cohort, 2 plus 2 still equals 4.
The Boomer side of me (who is one of the most non-mathematically inclined individual you’ll ever meet) applies this numerical certainty to the pursuit of beer, which made me (in)famous. That’s why I hate green-colored beer, nitwits.
But I’m less interested in proclaiming The Who to be the best rock band ever, as learning as much as I can about the history of music and the ways music brings human beings together if they’ll only allow it. I question how much any of this matters, while acknowledging that “of course it does.”
Yesterday Melania Trump (born in 1970) attacked Jimmy Kimmel for the outrage of committing free speech; the first thing that came to my mind was her generation’s upbringing in communist (and non-aligned) Yugoslavia during the period when Titoism was declining, and the fissures leading to violent and destructive Civil War were rapidly escalating.
How can she truly grasp “free” speech when the strong man Tito’s strategy for keeping Yugoslavia unified was to suppress nationalistic and religious assertions from the various ethnic and religious groups? Beside, she’s a Slovene, and her people never wanted to be a part of Yugoslavia in the first place.
Still, don’t take the preceding as gospel from a (somewhat) Boomer. Go read a goddamn book, and stop forwarding slop on social media. I don’t care when you were born; stupidity and gullibility seem never to go out of fashion.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have a holiday to take. I view it as an end point and a conclusion to a chapter. In May, there’ll likely be a reorientation. As much as I want to keep Food & Dining Magazine alive, I’m realistic. Things run their course, and at times one is best advised to let go.
We’ll see. Wish me luck finding Vienna-style lager in Vienna; after all, it’s the way life OUGHT to be.
