Once in a while I pop into Deconsumption, a peak-oil, coming-crisis blog, and how cool is this: yesterday Steven Lagavulin, the blogger there, got into a big thing about Generation X and how our particular attitudes have been shaped by the world we grew up in, and how those attitudes will shape the next great form that American society will take:
Generation X is fundamentally unable to accept the self-centeredness and self-serving-ness mentality that signifies this era, the love for black-or-white ideological causes, and the blanket judgmentalism that Boomer leaders so comfortably buy into. Not to mention that they largely hate corporatism and authoritarian control in any form.... in their hearts Gen-X'ers have always hated the status quo they've grown-up within. They will hold little sentimentality for it when it collapses, and many in fact long for a chance to burn the whole system down and try to remake it in more equitable terms. Not because they're smarter, or right-er, or even capable of doing that well...but simply because they've never really felt they were at home in any of it. And that's also largely their problem--having never felt at home in it, they've also never felt they had a foothold from which to oppose it. So they tend to drag their feet a bit on the road to cultural maturity, or drop out altogether. In fact, many corporations are starting to quietly lament the management vacuum they're coming up against in recent years as the best and brightest of the new generation seem to be largely turning their backs on the corporate ladder.... Still, Time marches relentlessly on, and this generation is going to be stepping up to the plate whether they like the game that's being played or not. So regardless of whether Strauss & Howe are right in their theory of generational cycles, it's not hard to sense that a cultural revolution is coming, and it's going to be dramatic--and probably not altogether peaceful--as the next generation begins to inherit an America they never made.
But he also makes the point that generational pigeonholing is not meant to imply that these generalizations apply to everyone:
[P.S. -- I should acknowledge that Strauss & Howe's study by no means implies that the Boomers are blameworthy or that Gen-X is the only voice of authority for informing the new culture. Simply that as a general rule these two generations embody the "forces in conflict" during the years of crisis. Obviously the seminal movement toward a potential "culture of responsibility" was actually forged by Boomer Hippies who persisted in staying the course that most of their peers so wantonly abondoned....and certainly many Gen-X'ers will only let loose the keys to their Escalades when they get torn from their broken fingers....]
Amen to that.
