My generation

A couple of days ago I found myself reading online yet another article intent on delivering a good kicking to the generation of which I am still proud to be a member – the baby boomers! It would seem that there is something of an open season on the boomers, but whereas cross-generational assaults are nothing new – and are indeed normally to be considered healthy – there was something about this particular bushwhacking that finally got my goat… In fact – there were several things – and a whole herd of goats!

It has become highly fashionable to paint a picture in which the boomers – inheriting a veritable garden of Eden from what was arguably the ‘greatest generation’ – proceeded through their self-indulgence and negligence to run amok, scorching their way through the post war decades and leaving in their wake an arid wasteland of debt and desolation for the generations to come.

Well – let’s try to get some perspective here. Whereas I am unstinting in my admiration for those who lived through the depression and fought the last great war for us, we should perhaps ask ourselves why it was that they were obliged so to do at all. The boomers are far from unique in having made mistakes that have impacted on succeeding generations. Let us recall a century of political and religious extremism, of bigotry and repression and of the resultant global conflagrations. Let us remember the experiments with communism and fascism – the equal failures of socialism and of unfettered capitalism. Let us not forget the eagerness with which we rushed to create weapons that could destroy all sentient life on this fragile planet, and let us not doubt for a second that greed and self-interest are as old as civilisation itself and have caused havoc across the millennia.

Certainly we boomers were and are lucky. We are blessed in so many ways. We were not called upon to make the sacrifices that were demanded of the preceding generation. We have doubtless had it better than will those that immediately succeed us, but such generational variation has ever been the case. More to the point is the question of the purpose to which this generation has put its good fortune – of what legacy it will leave. I firmly believe that history will show that – alongside the negativity endemic in its self-absorption – this generation will be remembered for its creativity and for its espousal of good causes – even if sadly also less positively for its failure to contribute to their resolution as properly as it might.

One of the things that annoyed me most about this recent attack was that its author himself qualifies as a boomer! It seems that it has now become ‘de rigueur’ to assail one’s own generation. Now – as it happens, I don’t think that this is particularly healthy. I have no issue with the younger generations so doing… indeed – that is as it should be. When we were young we certainly rebelled against the mores and strictures of our parents’ existence and I don’t think that we expected for a minute that they would meekly cave in and bow to our youthful (lack of) wisdom. It is bad enough that some of my generation seem all too keen to be perceived as ‘cool’ by today’s ‘yoof’ – to be thought to be ‘good guys’… it is quite another thing to be giving our own generation a good kicking to save the young the trouble of having so to do.

Worse yet – the attack was not on the pitiful state in which we may indeed yet leave the world’s economies – but on our cultural hegemony. The suggestion appeared to be that all those writers, poets, musicians, film-makers, designers, thinkers and other creatives whom many of us believe to be the cream of our generation, should do the decent thing and step aside – to retire and leave the stage to the young. That’s not how it works! How are the new generations going to be able to attain the heights of achievement that did the best of us if they don’t have to fight for the right so to do?

Gentlemen – and ladies – this is not helping! The young need us to rebel against. This self-flagellation and expiation helps no-one – least of all the coming generations. If we can’t give the young something to kick against we are no use to them at all…

…and if we can’t be proud of ourselves how can we possibly expect anyone else so to be?