So, I read this interesting article in Vanity Fair about how Gen X'ers came into being and what that means. I have thought about that article so much, I felt compelled to write about it, and add some things that I think the author may have overlooked. For clarity, GenerationX (GenX) represents those born between 1965 and 1980, roughly. The start date seems to shift around, but most appear to agree that GenX ended in 1980. It is interesting to me that this appears as we close the book on 2019 and enter 2020. 2020 always felt so far away, like the end of some journey. Here it is and here we are; no closer to whatever end we expected... or maybe are we?
His Article
First, let me stress that I really enjoyed
his article and the perspective woke me up to things that are part of the common history for our generation. In the article, he describes the interesting link between Boomers and Millennials and how as much as they culture war against one another, both generations come from a place of entitlement: "what they want they will have, and that what they have is right and good". GenX is contrasted as a generational middle child who doesn't get any visibility from advertisers or other power-persons playing the negligent parent role. And, we're kind of ignored or subsumed by our older and younger generational siblings. We GenXers were raised and had elders (teachers, first employers) who were pre-Boomers, mostly, so we were the last group raised prior to the Boomer effect on society. He goes on to describe the 1960's revolutionary aspects of Boomers as really revolting against a placid home-life that their parents were trying to create. In many cases, these homes were created as the parents' reaction to the horrors and sacrifices of WWII. The author then talked about art, music and movies that threaded the needle into the GenX outlook of "I don't care; whatever". He then describes an interaction with a Millennial and then some biographical stuff. Again, I want to stress how much I liked the article, even though I distilled it down to one paragraph. I think there were a few things that fit into the tapestry that were missed.
Television Teachers
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| Laverne and Shirley |
The Boomers had "Leave It to Beaver" and "Andy Griffith" on television, painting versions of an ideal life. GenX had "Good Times", "Taxi", "Archie Bunker", "Alice", "One Day at a Time", "Laverne and Shirley", etc, illustrating life as a hard scrabble consisting of crappy jobs, low wages and lower expectations. Television on a whole turned dirty, in a gritty way, with filthy streets and tattered people, further evidencing to the young that life out here flat-out sucks.
Of course, we also had Sesame Street and other PBS offerings to provide some early education... or child-care, depending on your perspective. By the late-80's television had mostly changed to the more typical white-washed programming still popular today showing people without jobs but inexplicably moneyed so they can have adventures or whatever. Queue the GenX eye-roll. By then, even the youngest GenXer was nearly 10, so world perceptions had already been formed. The easy money-for-nothing model came too late, but just in time for the Millennials.
1970's US Domestic Scene
If the 1960's were when the Boomers revolted against their parents and partying way too hard, then the 1970's had to be the hangover that followed. Some of the oldest GenXer's will remember Watergate and the gasoline embargo/shortage. There were high and rising prices for everything, leading child GenXers to hear "we can't afford that right now" far more than the generation before or the ones to follow. Interest rates were super high; we had "stagflation". By the time we reached 1980, it was already clear that GenX would be the first generation to not have it as good as their parents had it. This was underscored by the unemployment rate and the overall economy as we delved into a 2 year recession after nearly a decade of economic instability.
Paul Volcker had the right fix, but it further cemented our early learning that life was not going to be easy for most of us.
Geo-Political stuff
We GenXers witnessed 1980 Olympic boycott, the hostage crisis ('79-'81), Iran-Contra in '85, numerous US-led bush wars in Central America (Argentina/Falklands, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama) and Russian interference pretty much everywhere. In essence, the
Cold War defined these years. There was always this overhanging dread that missiles could be fired off tomorrow, ending the world in a nuclear holocaust followed by a nuclear winter for those who managed to survive. Made-for-TV and B movies about an apocalypse were a steady fare through the 1980's. By the end of the 80's, we saw the wall Berlin Wall come down and then learned how bad things were within the Soviet controlled countries. "Of course it was bad over there," we thought, "welcome to the f-ing 'free' world". While the Cold War appeared over, it left an enduring mark on our outlook. The persistence of our collective taste for movies about dystopian futures, is a great example. Our hearts wanted the ideal of
Star Trek, but frankly expected something like
Blade Runner,
Mad Max,
Terminator,
The Matrix or the new
BattleStar Galactica. If the Boomers used to say "don't trust anyone over 30", GenXers would have replied "we're not going to live that long, thanks".
So What?
I agree with the author that this "irony and a keen sense of dread" may be what make GenX the "last great hope", but disagree on what that means. The author indicated that this disposition will allow GenX to "preserve American tradition". Nah, I think if that were to happen it would be purely by accident, an unexpected result of our eye-rolling over the behaviors of our generational neighbors. I think the irony/dread will drive GenX to make meaningful improvements on their respective personal worlds, ultimately leaving something better than what we were handed (which, quite honestly, was a crap-sandwich). Boomers thought they could change
the world. Well, they did, but not for the better. Things today are arguably no better than they were in the early 90's when the oldest GenXers were just starting to make real life decisions. In fact, the us-versus-them energy combined with today's level of intolerance and violence feels like we are back in the Boomer hay-day (the 1960's) but amplified by the wealth disparity of the 1920's and global threats from terrorism and climate change. Maybe we are
already living in a dystopia.
So, Everything Sucks Then?
I believe GenXers embrace the Michael Jackson line "if you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and then make a change". Powered by that sense of dread, and fear that we are hurtling towards an apocalyptic future, I believe that GenXers make individual changes to avert or survive that. Its not a slogan, a hashtag or even especially altruistic (although there are many who are); it's fairly simple: what's the worst thing, and address that. The media likes to assign many of these revelations with Millenials, but
all of them started before Millenials had meaningful decision-making power over their own lives: Tiny houses. Urban off-grid living. Grow your own food. No/Low consumption. Shop Local. Rainwater Barrels. Arguably, many of these started with the commune hippies who were similarly rejecting the status quo.
Today, these are real changes performed by individuals simply for themselves, and are completely bottom-up, not driven from some government policy, corporate sales tag or drive to change the world. I think, in most cases, the individuals who make these changes do so to become less dependent on society's systems. These efforts
do prepare the individual for the day society erodes into a Mad Max styled wasteland by increasing self-sufficiency, but more importantly reduce the monthly bills so they are not beholden to banks and employers as much. They also reduce carbon footprints, improving things for everyone, including the entitled myopics. Along the way, some of these interesting ideas catch the fancy of Millenials and suddenly sound like they were
their idea. Trigger a GenX eye-roll. We know this behavior like a middle child knows his/her younger sibling will dry one dish and then take the credit for doing all the dishes the middle child just did.
And, What Does this Have to do with Anything?
For me, I am kind of building an anti-apocalypse bus.. but I keep this blog to simply document it for my own benefit. It is not changing the world, but it is improving my personal one. If it helps someone else, then that's great, but my natural skeptic finds that unlikely. Ultimately, when the societal fabric finally does unravel, we have a vehicle in which we can comfortably sleep as we beat feet outta civilization, burning locally-sourced biofuel at 35mpg. If that n'th degree of dystopia never happens, then we have a very simple source of amusement: just drive it somewhere, pop the top and hang out. Maybe, one day, it will be our tiny house so we can give the mega-banks the finger. Who knows?
So, in Conclusion, I got nothin'
Maybe the destination we imagined when we said 2020
is the dystopia we're experiencing. It would be easy to blame others and other generations, but that's cowardly. We all participated in the creation of this current state just as we will all need to participate in it's reset. Not sure how to fix it, but, as with anything, the first step is recognizing that there is a problem. And, boy, do we have a problem.
Okay... another weird post. I'll get back to the normal next time, but I don't really expect anyone other than me and the foreign bots to be reading these offbeat posts. On that: hello to my robot friends from non-US countries and weird porn streaming sites. Your nearly-constant hammering of my blog has so distorted my statistics, they are now worthless. At least there is no threat that I am pandering to topics which receive the most interest because determining that is totally impossible.
Hapy New Year. Back to cars next time-
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