Hope You Die Before You Get Old

To me, it’s shocking that one generation could be so blatantly irresponsible as to leave such a broken system to its children. It’s one thing to exploit other people, and – as much as I loathe racism or sexism or colonialism – it’s a little easier for me as a social scientist to wrap my head around the idea of abusing others whom we first take care to differentiate, objectify and demonize on the basis of some arbitrary primordialist factor. But our own kids? Wow. And, actually, it’s far worse than that. Using the term ‘irresponsible’ here to describe what has happened is far, far too generous. This is not a case of negligence. This was a knowing theft, and our own children were the victims. While they slept, late at night, we crept into their rooms, stole the piggy bank, smashed it to pieces, then used the proceeds to buy some leisure time for sipping beer and watching "American Idol", or some bullets to destroy the lives of an innocent Iraqi family somewhere. Yep. No doubt about it. It’s the feel-good story of the century, my friends.

What is most astonishing about the whole thing is that I detect almost nothing in the way of anger from the victims. When I try to talk to my students about how my generation is ripping off their generation, somehow I’m always the angriest guy in the classroom, by far. Probably I should just keep my mouth shut, eh? I mean, I’ve paid into Social Security since I was sixteen years old, and I’d like it to be there when I’m an old geezer, unable any longer to fool some hapless university into paying me to scandalize yet another generation with my Maoist, anticlerical, sexually deviant, radical environmentalist revolutionary dogma. I’m okay with their generosity, but, to be totally truthful, I wouldn’t exactly blame the next generations for saying "Screw you, pal. You guys had your party already, and we’re not paying for it twice. Fund your own freakin’ retirement." God knows we have that coming.

Whether we get it or not is another question. Societies – especially those as diverse as the United States – can develop political cleavages along all sorts of different lines. In Canada, it’s linguistic. In Northern Ireland, it’s religious. In Mexico, it’s ethnic. In Italy, it’s geographic. There is no reason that, in America, it couldn’t be generational, just as it once was not so long ago.

No reason, that is, except that nobody seems to be mobilizing along those lines. I do see something of a youth consciousness reawakening, especially with the figure of Barack Obama on the horizon, seemingly having the same effect on young people that John Kennedy once did. But, to the extent that it exists – which isn’t much – it seems very benign in its content. Perhaps the young folk of today are all post-ideological, like Obama, sick of the divisiveness and the consternation and the battles that animated their parents and grandparents for so long (if only they knew what was purchased for them with the blood, sweat and tears of those battles). Whatever the reason, though, it’s as hard for me to envision them shouting out "Never trust anyone over thirty" as it is for me to envision them just shouting out at all. That doesn’t seem to be a part of their makeup.

But the ingredients are there, I’d say, for a generational schism in American politics, if somebody wants to come along to pick up that particular ball and run with it. Not only is there plenty of legitimate cause for anger, there is also a yawning ideological divide opening up. Much as young folks may not necessarily want to construe themselves in ideological terms, they seem nevertheless to be considerably to the left of their elders. A look at the demographic data following the election shows rather emphatically that age was one of the best predictors of the vote. The younger you were, the more likely you were to vote Obama. Moreover, Democratic Party registrations among the youngest voters in America absolutely overwhelm those for Republicans. They may not be thinking in left-right terms, per se, but it is clear that they are rejecting the Republican Party. And not just because they don’t like the sound of the name, either, or because McCain came off like the dinosaur he is. Especially on social issues – the red meat and absolute sine qua non of the GOP base – this generation is saying no thanks to prejudice, hatred, religious control and sexual regulation across the board. But if one were to eliminate those items from today’s Republican Party, there’d be almost nothing left remaining in the convention hall, apart from a few gun lobbyists and the occasional, stray, left-over neocon cheerleading for another war somewhere ("Freakin’ Burkina Faso, I tell you, they’re a huge threat to our national security!").

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not predicting generational warfare in America. And, trust me when I say that I hope it doesn’t happen. Apart from the fact that this country needs another schism like it needs another Bush for president, I personally have everything to lose and nothing to gain if younger Americans start telling older Americans that it’s long past time the Me Generation started thinking in terms of being the We Generation, and learned to share a bit.

If that happens, I hope they are at least more gracious and sympathetic to us than we ever were to them. But I’ll certainly understand it if they’re not.

Because, I’ll tell you what. If I was a twenty-something right now, I’d be pissed.

 1  |  2