Column: "The Greater Generation?"
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St. Martin’s Press has gone to great expense promoting Leonard Steinhorn’s new book, The Greater Generation, including placing two page ads in magazines like Atlantic Monthly, where I just learned the upshot: The baby boom generation is greater than what is commonly called the Greatest Generation.
The ad begins with a quote from Richard Shenkman (whoever he is): “What Tom Brokaw did for the Greatest Generation, Leonard Steinhorn does for Baby Boomers. It’s about time someone did.” Yes, because if the baby boom generation has only one great flaw, it’s that it doesn’t spend nearly enough time congratulating itself on its own wonderfulness.
Also from the ad: “The Greatest Generation gets credit for winning World War II and braving the Depression.” This is supposed to be a compliment, but it’s delivered in a backhanded way. You’re meant to bypass the fact winning World War II and braving the Depression were pretty big deals. Because, you know, worrying about your next meal every day for a decade and saving the world aren’t throw away discussions. For that matter, neither were braving the Dust Bowl, surviving influenza pandemics (real ones, not the media created ones we have now), fighting the Korean War, landing on the moon, et cetera. But to linger over those points would take attention away from those who thought Woodstock was the greatest thing ever.
“But the Baby Boomers? All they get credit for is knowing how to order a tall skim double latte.” (Attention coffee elitists: I have no idea what any of that means, and I’m better than you for not knowing.) “Summoning the amazing sea changes they’ve made in American culture, this controversial book recasts the much-maligned Boomers as a Greater Generation with a lasting under-appreciated legacy.” Such as? Thought you’d never ask.
“Farewell, Donna Reed: ‘For women, the Baby Boom era has been one of breathtaking change – in a single generation, American woman have effected one of the greatest social metamorphoses in recorded history.’” (Don’t they mean herstory?) That it has. Also, that generation of women helped construct the greatest unbroken string of uncontained selfishness the world has known since Romans finally found it necessary to build vomitoriums to contain their excesses. Boomers were the first generation to make social arrangements (i.e., marriages) they had no intention of honoring and produce children they had no intention of raising properly. The social implications of these have been devastating and have become permanent, but no matter – the important thing is that they shrugged off Donna Reed, the nuclear family and Mom’s apron.
“So long, Archie Bunker. The egalitarian norms of the Baby Boom generation have deeply changed men and will continue to do so for generations to come.” Good point. It also bred a tens-of-millions strong pack of prancing ninnies, emotionally crippled metrosexuals and fatally emasculated mama’s boys, rendered so useless from combinations of their own passive aggression and guilt for things their ancestors may have done, they can barely manage the strength to read another self-help book telling them how awful they are.
There were two good things about Archie Bunker’s bigotry: First, it forced other males around him to become better men and behave like them. Second, he was forthrightly honest about his beliefs, no matter how wrong they were. Neither of these things can be said about Boomer males, eternally self-centered, inner-child seekers.
“Diversity as a Moral Value: Boomers have led a culture war to ‘upend the rigid social structure of the Fifties and challenge centuries of entrenched norms and attitudes about race, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality.’” They sure have. Unless, of course, we’re talking about white Catholics. Boomers seem to have gone out of their way to vilify and devalue white Catholicism, even at the expense of elevating things like bomb-strapping Arabs, for no good reason beyond the fact their folks were white Catholics, and they still feel the childish need to rebel against anything remotely connected to their parents.
Oh, and if you’re looking for an update on how that sexual social engineering is working out, flip to page 167 of the same Atlantic Monthly and read Caitlin Flanagan’s utterly horrifying essay about younger and younger girls and their thinking absolutely nothing of orally pleasing younger and younger boys.
You get the point. Leonard Steinhorn is a nitwit, and I hope his book fails spectacularly, though I know it will be a wild success. It has to be, because it’s all about them – it’s always been about them, and don’t you forget it.
The ad begins with a quote from Richard Shenkman (whoever he is): “What Tom Brokaw did for the Greatest Generation, Leonard Steinhorn does for Baby Boomers. It’s about time someone did.” Yes, because if the baby boom generation has only one great flaw, it’s that it doesn’t spend nearly enough time congratulating itself on its own wonderfulness.
Also from the ad: “The Greatest Generation gets credit for winning World War II and braving the Depression.” This is supposed to be a compliment, but it’s delivered in a backhanded way. You’re meant to bypass the fact winning World War II and braving the Depression were pretty big deals. Because, you know, worrying about your next meal every day for a decade and saving the world aren’t throw away discussions. For that matter, neither were braving the Dust Bowl, surviving influenza pandemics (real ones, not the media created ones we have now), fighting the Korean War, landing on the moon, et cetera. But to linger over those points would take attention away from those who thought Woodstock was the greatest thing ever.
“But the Baby Boomers? All they get credit for is knowing how to order a tall skim double latte.” (Attention coffee elitists: I have no idea what any of that means, and I’m better than you for not knowing.) “Summoning the amazing sea changes they’ve made in American culture, this controversial book recasts the much-maligned Boomers as a Greater Generation with a lasting under-appreciated legacy.” Such as? Thought you’d never ask.
“Farewell, Donna Reed: ‘For women, the Baby Boom era has been one of breathtaking change – in a single generation, American woman have effected one of the greatest social metamorphoses in recorded history.’” (Don’t they mean herstory?) That it has. Also, that generation of women helped construct the greatest unbroken string of uncontained selfishness the world has known since Romans finally found it necessary to build vomitoriums to contain their excesses. Boomers were the first generation to make social arrangements (i.e., marriages) they had no intention of honoring and produce children they had no intention of raising properly. The social implications of these have been devastating and have become permanent, but no matter – the important thing is that they shrugged off Donna Reed, the nuclear family and Mom’s apron.
“So long, Archie Bunker. The egalitarian norms of the Baby Boom generation have deeply changed men and will continue to do so for generations to come.” Good point. It also bred a tens-of-millions strong pack of prancing ninnies, emotionally crippled metrosexuals and fatally emasculated mama’s boys, rendered so useless from combinations of their own passive aggression and guilt for things their ancestors may have done, they can barely manage the strength to read another self-help book telling them how awful they are.
There were two good things about Archie Bunker’s bigotry: First, it forced other males around him to become better men and behave like them. Second, he was forthrightly honest about his beliefs, no matter how wrong they were. Neither of these things can be said about Boomer males, eternally self-centered, inner-child seekers.
“Diversity as a Moral Value: Boomers have led a culture war to ‘upend the rigid social structure of the Fifties and challenge centuries of entrenched norms and attitudes about race, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality.’” They sure have. Unless, of course, we’re talking about white Catholics. Boomers seem to have gone out of their way to vilify and devalue white Catholicism, even at the expense of elevating things like bomb-strapping Arabs, for no good reason beyond the fact their folks were white Catholics, and they still feel the childish need to rebel against anything remotely connected to their parents.
Oh, and if you’re looking for an update on how that sexual social engineering is working out, flip to page 167 of the same Atlantic Monthly and read Caitlin Flanagan’s utterly horrifying essay about younger and younger girls and their thinking absolutely nothing of orally pleasing younger and younger boys.
You get the point. Leonard Steinhorn is a nitwit, and I hope his book fails spectacularly, though I know it will be a wild success. It has to be, because it’s all about them – it’s always been about them, and don’t you forget it.
31 January 2006
posted by Brian S. Wise | 7:58 AM
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