How To Bash a Boomer
If Boomer-bashing gives you comfort, bash away. We bought the propaganda and deserve it. But a better way to bash us is not to buy the propaganda.
The eternal error of young people is to imagine they are the first moderns ever. The eternal error of old people is to forget they were exactly the same way.
From their point of view, the young embody the most developed state of humanity ever to exist because, in fact, they do. They are blank slates unencumbered by the follies and delusions of the past. No humans were ever born in a more advanced state than they because, literally, that’s true. They have a clear vision—the most highly evolved vision in history—of how they would have made the world. They can’t imagine a higher vision exists because, if it did, they would have it. Experience hasn’t yet replaced their hubris with perspective, and the conviction with which they castigate those who’ve gone before is as sincere at it is unshakeable.
When Homer sang of “hateful old age,” I think he sang of more than physical decrepitude. Experience is a slow teacher, unforgiving, and its lessons are painful dream-killers. An informed cynicism—wisdom—comes bitterly. But the process is so gradual it goes unnoticed. Consequently, the old foolishly believe the gimlet eye through which they now view the world is presenting the view of the world they’ve always had. They were never like these kids today.
Ancestor-worship is an aspect of Chinese Confucianism that may seem strange to Westerners, but it provides a unity through relatedness that gives the Chinese a strong sense of cultural identity and shared purpose. Like everywhere, the communist period in China was nothing but murderous evil triumphant. It was the intentional destruction of that cultural identity But even today, many Chinese will defend Chairman Mao out of a reluctance to criticize a previous generation.
To me, the Chinese emphasis on honoring those who came before seems healthy and wise. The knock against it is that it stifles innovation. When I lived in China, I was always struck by how similar all the Chinese paintings looked in the museums and galleries. Then someone told me that the most talented and respected artists were those who most faithfully imitated the acknowledged masters. It’s easy to see how that approach might inhibit innovation. Western culture does seem more innovative than Chinese culture, but, then, a Chinese might ask what good is it to be a member of a dynamic culture when it is shared with those who mean no more to each other than your fellow passengers do on an international flight. Perhaps we Westerners could strike a happy medium?
Blame-casting between the young and the old is easy and risk-free. But it is divisive and just wrong; no one is more or less guilty depending on his birth year.
The better way to bash a boomer, if you must, is not to fall for the same propaganda he did. Triumph where he failed. Here is an example of the kind of propaganda he fell for: “We are a nation of immigrants.” Insidious nonsense, but a boomer nation bought it. Develop the skills to see through that kind of propaganda and you will have what it takes to bash boomers at will. The best way—perhaps the only way—to develop your boomer-bashing skills is to have a clear understanding of the identity and goal of the propagandist.
The intent of this new Substack is to work toward that understanding.
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Ave Caesar
No bitterness: our ancestors did it.
They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too.
Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar.
Or rather—for we are not aquiline Romans but soft mixed colonists—
Some kindly Sicilian tyrant who'll keep
Poverty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive,
We are easy to manage, a gregarious people,
Full of sentiment, clever at mechanics, and we love our luxuries.
-Robinson Jeffers, American poet, 1887-1962