The Madoff Effect

A recent editorial by Tom Friedman caught my eye(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/opinion/07friedman.html). The content wasn't particularly new or edgy. It was more reflective than anything. He spoke about his own generation and the legacy that it was leaving behind. I'm sure the recent Brokaw books and Spielberg dramauckumentaries have all these 50 to 60 somethings thinking. Who will write their history into history and what will be told? After all this was the generation that was destined to bring us free love, world peace, and legal drugs - instead they took their youthful ambitions, got older, had kids, and their free heeling morphed into a world of wealth entitlement based on credit and debt, with magazines labeled "Luxe" and rooms dedicated for the home theater. What happened to those hippies born from great music and synthetic meditation?

What caught my eye was not Friedman's critique of his generation, nor his call for restraint in further reliance on indebtedness, but his comment about the next generations. He said "Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today. I understand why they aren’t." He goes on, "They’re so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester’s tuition."

The comment is poignant, yet then misses badly.

I stopped after the first sentence and swallowed hard. Friedman's question was fabulous. Why aren't we more radical? For god's sake we are the generation of the Wachowski Brothers-(insurgent liberation)! But that is where we stop. We are also the generation of Kurt Cobain(pain and surrender). Of Abercrombie and Fitch(vapid). Of I-lived-happily-and-contentedly-on-my-parents-credit-and-debt. The majority of our generation had what we wanted. We didn't know struggle. So how can we connect to radicalism, if we have no source of discontentment. The only source of spirit would be some general melancholy loneliness evident in the sounds of Death Cab or Weezer, but certainly not a font capable of hurling rocks or flipping police cars (unless of course it involves some sporting event victory, a university campus, and some booze). Some have called us apathetic or complacent. This criticism has some merit, but seems shallow and a partial truth.

And to a final critique of Friedman, we are not yet worried about jobs or college loans - at least not yet. That is not the reason we refrain from radicalism. There is something else that may underlie the personality of our generation: a pragmatism born from the failures of our parents. While there is no dearth of issues to get behind, there are also no all encompassing global philosophies gripping our generation and driving it toward some distant change. There is a smattering of special issues that pieced together could be confused for a base movement, but it hardly resembles a Marxian, a Lennonian (John - thank you), or a Reagonite theory which drove masses of humanity to call for change or shaped a world view of a generation (Sorry MLK for not throwing you in, but unlike the others' - your vision is thankfully still on the march). These movements were failures - they colored history but the ultimate vision was rendered altruistic and, dare I say, the followers were found hypocritical. From the Silent Generation, to the Radical Generation (turned Greedy Generation), and now back to another silent generation - maybe we should be called the Melancholy Generation.

We are the tech driven, web blogger, fully connected generation. Yearning for companionship in a world of 24 hour news networks, constant media feeds to personalized websites, and soundbites. This all feeds the insatiable beast, while also degrading our understanding and tainting our every leader and their every idea. The very mass of the information that lands in our lap renders all ideas less-than-perfect, yet a source for rumination nonetheless. Thank god for John Stewart who gave us the ability to shake our heads and laugh at it all and now to Colbert who grants us the permission to stand with our belief in the face of ignorant banter. We don't need late night meetings of the SDS, we throw our caution to the blogosphere. Our discontent does not well up inside because we progressively let go of our emotions via Facebook or personal blogs or even in comment sections attached to news articles. Whether another soul ever connects with the words thrown out, the cathartic process of public discharge is enough to keep psychological tension to a manageable level - or at least for those who would lead any radical charge.

There are great lessons being learned now, by this generation that Friedman cannot comprehend. It has a pragmatism that has given up on pensions and will have to turn to individual accountability for comfort in old age. We will see the future pain of bailouts, even as we realistically see the need for it. These go hand in hand - how can we save for our future, if their are no jobs for us to hold. Tearing at the old farts dealing the terrible hand will only cause us to loose the last few cards that, if we are lucky and place the right bets, may turn out to be runner - runner.