Generations
I turn sixty-seven years old in September. The truth: I am a baby-boomer. My parents helped define the name. They both fought World War II, then came back to the United States and started a family. They had three kids, between 1949 and 1956 (I’m number three). We are “Boomers”.
American History looks back at time periods and generations. My parents, literally, saved the world from Fascism. As Tom Brokaw defines them, they were the “Greatest Generation”. But historians might dispute that. The generation that produced Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, the “Founding Fathers”, certainly could lay claim to being the “Greatest”. And so could their grandchildren, Lincoln, Grant, Sumner and the rest, who saved the Nation from divide.
So what will be the “Baby-Boomer” generation’s lasting claim to “fame”?
Tech
There is little question that we have “presided” over an era of tremendous change. When I was born, the phone was wired to the wall, the TV’s were huge (at least the box), took fifteen minutes to warmup, with tiny screens in black and white. Commercial passenger aircraft had propellers, and south of the Mason-Dixon line, signs denoted strict racial segregation. (In the North, there was segregation too, but it was a bit more “subtle”). Computers existed, but were huge in university basements with tubes and paper tape readers.
Today I carry one in my pocket. It can reach out to the entire world, and find any bit of factual information. As my Dad aged, he found holes in his memory. Mom was his answer. Today if there is a void, “Siri” can fill it. And if I get really bored, I can watch TV on it, black and white or color.
But technological advances aren’t enough to secure generational “success”. Here in the United States, I think the “Boomers” (now a Millennial insult) will be known as much for their failures.
There was the generation before Mom and Dad’s “Greatest”, the “Lost” Generation. They fought World War I, and thought they won “the War to End All Wars”. Instead, they set the stage for infinitely greater loss in World War II, and watched their Roaring Twenties economic boom fall to nothing in the Great Depression. They “Lost” so much; first sacrificed in mass in the trenches of War, and then in meager economic returns.
Guns
I am afraid the us “Boomers” might compare more to our Grandparents’ “Lost” generation then our parents “Greatest”. It seems we have failed in three promises we made to the Nation, and the world. And those failures will loom large in how future generations evaluate our stewardship of American life.
The first is the issue of guns. No matter what “side” of the gun argument, it is undeniable that the current American trend of mass shootings is unacceptable. But we are somehow paralyzed by it. So many people die of gun deaths that we really stop listening to the reports. Twenty-five shot here, five shot dead there; in the city, in the country, North and South. It all just becomes background noise. We routinely now talk about what to do if we are caught in a gun barrage; on the Interstate highway downtown, or at the store, or school, or church. We are frozen in our political positions, unable to agree on any step to begin to end our carnage.
What generation would allow such an ongoing personal threat to itself and its children and grandchildren? Boomers, our generation did.
Climate
The second is the issue of climate change. This past week, the world – all of it – suffered the hottest days on record. We see pictures of kids swimming in 112 degree heat in the South, and hear warnings of vast clouds of Canadian smoke covering our cities. We knew that it was and still is our own actions accelerating the warming of our world. And while many cried out the dangers, our responses haven’t been nearly good enough. Now we face a world of extremes: stronger hurricanes, hotter heat waves, deeper snow drifts. We had a fifty-year clock counting down the “deadline”, 2040, where there is no turning back. But now that deadline is moving up, closer to 2030. That seemed so far in the future, back in the 1990’s. Now it’s less than seven years.
What generation would allow such an ongoing personal threat to itself and its children and grandchildren? Boomers, our generation did.
Society
And the third is perhaps the most serious ( though it’s hard to beat random death by gunshot or heat prostration). The Boomer Generation promised a “new” society, one of acceptance, where personal differences were celebrated. Sure, sometimes that seemed a bit “over-the-top”, but the folks dancing in the rain at Woodstock couldn’t tell the difference between black and white, gay or straight, Atheist, Jew, or Christian. Everyone was just covered in mud (and most high as Hell).
As we aged, the promise grew more serious. There was huge progress in civil rights, and personal acceptance. Women fought their way towards an equal place in society, politics, and business. The “gay kid” who was beat up in the locker room in the 1980’s is now just another kid. And while we still have racial discrimination, some have broken through to lead our Nation. And it’s not just Barack Obama, it’s Kamala Harris, and a whole raft of women and men of all races and backgrounds and orientations. It was “our” greatest promise, and our greatest gift.
Dare
But now we see those achievements starting to back-slide. From the Supreme Court decisions to the local School Boards, somehow “DEI”; diversity, equity and inclusion, has become an insult to be challenged, rather than a goal to be achieved. Who would have thought that the 2020’s would be an era of regression, of going back to the “bad old days” of the 1950’s. Sure we have all the tech, but without the social freedoms and justice, what’s the value of being able to reach out to the world from your pocket? This regression threatens the very core of what our Nation stands for; our democratic ideals and becoming a “More Perfect Union”.
What generation would allow such freedoms to slip away from its children and grandchildren? Boomers, our generation is doing it.
Here’s the Truth or Dare. We are getting old. We’ve seen the truth, now we face the dare. Can we, old “Boomers”, make one more stand, for our Nation? Can we hold the line for the freedoms we have achieved? No matter how worn, how aged, how retired, history will judge us on what we do now.
It’s the best, last Dare to accept.
