The De-Generation of Politics

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s... well, forget about "coming of age", let's just call it "acquired the purely biological ability to reproduce without any concomitant cortical function"... tend to subscribe to the stereotype that political differences are always generationally-based, i.e. represent a conflict between the "old" -- the old-fashioned, rigid, uptight, conservative -- and the "young" -- the with-it, loose, liberal, casual, and amoral. Because this is, in fact, the way it was in the 1960s -- or at least the way it appeared. With the exception of a few acidhead tenured professors in Ivy League and Land Grant universities, the 60s movements -- political, social, sexual, artistic, and so on -- nearly always brought generational differences into sharp relief. It was the "young and free" vs. the uptight establishment -- although, for some reason, that uptight establishment still managed to find enough young people to fill the ranks of the armed forces and police academies. But I remember how we felt about those holdouts -- they were finks, snitches, stoolies, narks, and "traitors to the cause". They were to the youth movements of those days what the so-called Uncle Toms and Tio Tacos were to the "Black Power" and "La Raza" movements. And of course, they were shown no mercy when they came back from Vietnam, even if they were missing a few body parts. Their treachery was not so much based on what they had done over there but that they had betrayed their -- our -- _"my"_ -- generation. They had, in short, sold out to "the man", and "the man" was ably represented by people like Westmoreland, Hoover, General Hershey, and Nixon. (They were all -- with the exception of Westmoreland, I guess -- what the cast of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" calls "doughy guys" -- you know, those overweight and out-of-shape 50s types with the pale, shapeless faces and baggy suits who always played police chiefs and detectives on TV and in the movies.)

So the culture wars of the 60s were also -- and inseparably -- inter-generational wars. So the impression arose that _all_ culture wars had to be inter-generational, and that the culture wars of the past must have been as well. But I remember thinking, at the time, that even though each generation shows some signs of rebellion against the customs and attitudes of the one before, it seldom turns out to be a profound break. Sooner or later, most people will wind up securely advocating pretty much the same ideas and standards of behavior that their parents did -- i.e. the differences are those of age, and therefore temporary, rather than generation. To this we must, of course, add the notion that there are _cultures_ (social, economic, ethnic, religious, racial) that differ from each other far more than do the generations, or even age groups, within each culture.

In this sense, it appears that the 1960s were more of an aberration than the rule when it comes to cultural -- one might say meta-cultural -- trends. For when the dust settled, and the people of my generation reached a kind of truce with the older generation, we did not then see the same battles being fought in the same way from the mid-1970s on, and we do not see them being fought the same way today. The cultural battle lines have reverted to more traditional forms, and we are more likely to see two or three generations of the same family manning the same side of the barricades. What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that the younger generation of today hasn't been inoculated against the wisdom of its elders in quite the same drastic fashion as the younger generation of a generation ago. It may also mean that those elders are more receptive to new ideas, lifestyles, and -- yes, as much as I despise the term -- "diversity". And it may simply mean that people have found -- re-discovered, in effect -- common ground based on the things that count, rather than arbitrary alienation based on ideology. I see much less tension among generations now, whereas in the 60s it almost amounted to open warfare. (Remember that exploitation movie, "Joe"? I rest my case. A piece of solid waste like that would never be produced today.) What this means is that ideology -- being a materialistic, abstract, academic, delusional phenomenon -- has finally been found wanting by _everybody_ -- or at least enough people so that it does not continue to cause social strife. But we still have a ways to go in eliminating ideology from our overseas ventures; that may, in fact, be one of the main challenges for the... um... next generation.