Calling the hippie generation on the carpet

[unixronin]

Chez Pazienza writes trenchantly in the Huffington Post about the baby-boomer Me Generation and their 40 years of complete self-absorbtion:

Such is the real legacy of the 60s, as filtered through the haze of bong smoke still looked back on with fondness by many of those who were there:  It introduced the most narcissistic, self-congratulatory, self-indulgent generation this country has ever seen.  A group of people political satirist Christopher Buckley jokingly calls "The Un-greatest Generation."

As far as they're concerned, they own the world -- and to some extent they do, and have since they first went from being counter-culture warriors to being shallow, shameless Wall Street capitalists in the 1980s.  When Wavy Gravy gave way to Gordon Gekko.  When the Baby Boomers ascended to a position of real power in America, it was almost a certainty that they would do what they'd done since the 60s: shove their values (which always came down to one thing: them), their culture, and their nostalgia for their own childhood down our collective throats, allowing the rest of us the opportunity to fully grasp and revel right along with them in what they already knew so well -- their lives ruled.  It was this gargantuanly egocentric attitude that gave us the "Me Generation" during the 70s and went on to bankrupt parts of this country, both financially and morally, in the 80s and beyond.  No wonder "my generation" (no pun intended), the so-called Gen-X, eventually decided that the only way to fight back was to abandon all that phony, ultimately self-serving conscientiousness and just not give a shit about anything.

(via fruitylips, OOB)

Comments

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Lovely to have found someone to blame it all on, isn't it? So soothing... so liberating...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Blame is important.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you should read it as blame. I don't read that article as blaming anyone for anything. As I read it, Pazienza is not saying "All this is your fault"; he's not even listing anything to be anyone's fault. What he's saying is, "Look, we've put up with you (the "Woodstock generation", the hippies-gone-mainstream) congratulating yourselves for your non-accomplishments for forty years and you still don't have a clue; will you just shut up about it already?"

I'm rather curious to know where you find blame in that. You did, I presume, read the article, not just that excerpt?

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

"You did, I presume, read the article, not just that excerpt?"

I read the article.

Still, I wish I could say that I had not. In reply to its author: "No, I will not shut up. You are mistaken in your over-generalized smear of a generation, in your profound ignorance of your own limitations (the rhetorical device of admitting to some of them (on your own terms, to be sure) in order to deflect having them pointed out to you in detail fools only a certain proportion even of those who already agree with you). I've never cared for folks who presume to speak on behalf of others -- I recollect something judicious about this in the Callahans Flame FAQ, actually. So perhaps I should allow the Woodstock Generation to speak for itself.

I wasn't a hippy -- I was a Nixonite. I didn't care much for Joan Baez (although more now than then, I must admit). I just find the tone of that article unpleasant, and your own use of rhetorical device ("interesting that", "I'm rather curious", etc.) in your reply to my comment not worthy of you; your characterization of its author as writing "trenchantly" I find to be mistaken (particularly in that component of the adverb's definition implying keenness of insight and successful application of penetrative thought), and your last sentence simply offensive.

In fact, to my dismay, I'm afraid we have reached a parting of the ways -- or I have, anyhow.

Thank you for your tolerance over the years for my admiration of your taste in grey silk argyle stockings, your wit, your puns, your kindness, your love for your family, your adorable English accent, preserved despite all, your physical beauty (though I should be embarrassed, doubtless, to mention it), your bravery and determination in your recovery from your motorcycle accident and the repeated complications and operations thereafter, and for other things before my time at Callahans and in other venues that I no doubt have only the vaguest inkling of, -- not surprising, of course, since apparently after forty years I still don't have a clue about what Pazienza has had to put up with. I admire and love you for them. But the damage to my digestion from your taste in politics has simply become too much for my daily reading. I'm sorry it's so -- my fault, not yours. After all, I don't have to read it -- or respond, for that matter. But since I find myself unable to refrain from doing so, periodically, to my own certain discomfiture and perhaps to yours as well, I'll say goodbye, and wishing you well.

[writerspleasure.livejournal.com]

i must say that that was elegant.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you feel that way. For the record, I used "interesting" and "curious" because, quite simply, I was curious where you saw assignation of blame in that article that I did not.

(Aside, that is, from the immediate environs of the Gordon Gekko reference, and I think few people will deny that the generation of Wall Street speculators who arrived there in the 80s have since strip-mined the economy to the best of their ability. Since that was contained in the part I quoted, and I didn't see anything else in the rest of the article that I could imagine that you could have been referring to, it was natural to wonder whether you'd skipped the actual article and instead judged it solely by the excerpt I quoted. I thought it unlikely that you had done so; I merely considered the possibility, and was asking for confirmation that you had read the full article, not trying to imply that you hadn't.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

"You did, I presume, read the article, not just the excerpt?"

Dude.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

echoes the analysis made in this (http://www.amazon.com/Generations-History-Americas-Future-1584/dp/0688119123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251998453&sr=8-1) book, according to how it was explained to me... follows a general long term pattern of generational focus... the generation of an "awakening*" (ie, the 60's) make for (overall) bad parents and bad stewards and the following generation tends to be alienated and untrusting... and more focused on getting things done.
they tend to be the overprotected children of people who've experience a "crisis" (ie WWII) (in fact, they tend to be the reason there's a crisis for the next cycle to face.)

this is very very general overview and i haven't read the book fully yet so take it with a grain of salt, but someone did an excellent presentation on this and it made a lot of sense to me...

*they're focused on self discovery... not, for example, keeping track of who's watching their kids. thus... tendency towards narcissism...

[rob-thompson.livejournal.com]

Nice excerpt. Good article. As a Boomer myself, I can't say I disagree with any of it. If you can stand it, I would suggest a read through of Todd Gitlin's The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. It outlines, in the most self-serving way possible, why Pazienza hit the nail on the head. For a couple of better demographic outlines - I suggest "Boom, Bust and Echo" by David Foote as well as "Great Expectations" by Landon Jones. Pazienza didn't go far enough, actually in his article. He didn't note, as an example, of how the Boomers, having benefited from many institutions and traditions; turned around and systematically destroyed those same institutions and traditions. We're supposed to be thankful to them for having "lead the way" when in fact what they did was to destroy, or a least maim, the future. Yep - I'm grateful and I'm sure my grandkids will be too...when they graduate from school unable to read and write because the Boomers wanted them to explore their emotions and their potential and ignore achievement. Emotion replaced rationality and today, we reap that whirlwind. Bitter? Me...oh just a tad...see, I was the tail end of that eighteen year boom....and like a couple of generations prior, we ended up lost in the shuffle. So - like I said, the article was a breath of fresh air and kudos to you for making it known.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't really know whether I'd be considered a boomer myself. What I can tell you is that I don't really identify with any particular "generation"; I've always considered myself an outcast, outside of human society.

[bfly.livejournal.com]

Oh wah wah, it's all my parents' fault I'm fucked up. How very original!

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Wait, CP forgot to blame us for AIDS, global warming, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and WalMart.

But sure, I guess it's a far superior moral position to "just not give a shit about anything."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Despite that line, I think his observation that Live Aid meant rather more than Woodstock did — and that he was annoyed that Joan Baez didn't get it — repudiates the "don't give a shit". I don't see this as particularly blaming the Woodstock Generation for anything beyond the narcissism he calls them on the carpet for.

(Personally, I feel there are places where blame is due — for example, the way the generation of educators who grew up as hippies have let the US educational system fall to pieces through valuing basket-weaving and multicultural sensitivity above the ability to, say, do math beyond basic arithmetic and form a properly constructed English sentence, not to mention the political correctness movement and the promotion of the bizarre idea that there exists a right not to be offended — but that's almost orthogonal to his argument.)