Last week, I wrote about my generation (Gen X) and our political midlife crisis.
It’s dispiriting how many Gen Xers have reached middle age and basically turned into Baby Boomers.
Consider the following Gen X traits:
Constant whining about how tough we had it
Self-aggrandizement of our resiliency
Sneering contempt for anyone younger than us
A midlife embrace of hatred and bigotry
If any of this is different from the ignorant pronouncements of suburban Boomers in 1979, I don’t see it.
Another trait, the glamorization of our free-range childhoods, is often an excuse for the neglectful parenting many of us received. It’s weird how many Gen Xers boast that our parents didn’t know where we were at night or forgot our birthdays or ignored us 24/7. I’m just going to assume that many of my peers are more honest in their therapy sessions than they are on Facebook comments.
But perhaps our most mythologized characteristic is our supposed ability to take a joke. Really, we cannot shut up about how we never get offended. We apparently possess a steely hide that causes insults and derision to bounce harmlessly off of us.
Oddly, we have not passed this tendency on to our kids. We say that’s because Millennials and Gen Z are wimps. But some of us have the creeping sensation that maybe, just maybe, they are simply nicer people than we are.
However, it’s much easier to rain disdain upon them for their pathetic displays of empathy. Hell, we go out of our way to offend them. And we do this not to illustrate unpleasant truths, offer keen insights, or toughen them up. We do it because we get the smug satisfaction of offending them. Then we get angry and self-righteous when they get offended.
In truth, middle-aged men mocking people is closer to the behavior of 10-year-olds on the playground than it is to brave truth-tellers seeking honesty.
Punching down is fear that our world is changing. Demanding that everyone laugh at our witticisms is the ultimate old-man behavior.
Many Gen Xers insist that no matter what horrible things we say, no one can call us out on it, especially if they are younger and all touchy-feely. If they dare to criticize us, we get angry—even offended (which is the real irony).
By the way, not caring about other’s feelings isn’t an admirable trait. It’s a symptom of sociopathy. But let’s say it makes us cool. If we were truly indifferent to others’ outrage, however, we would just say, “You do you.” Instead, it’s “I’m going to make you uncomfortable because I am so pissed off about how my life turned out.”
When did Gen X get so confrontational? When did we get so needy for attention?
When I was younger, I never considered that many of the fun, open-minded guys I hung out with would, decades hence, post unhinged rants about guns, government conspiracies, and immigrant “invaders.”
The question at this point is whether Gen X will help “revive American democracy by coalescing around a bold new political program and bringing the rest of the nation along with them, or [be] another silent generation that stood by as our democracy and society suffered a slow decline.”
Will our eye-rolling cynicism (a very real trait that has its benefits) overwhelm the younger generation? After all, “nearly everything we hoped to change instead grew stronger, meaner, and more entrenched,” which has caused many of us to lean “a little harder into Xer stereotypes of disconnection and cynicism as a result.”
Gen X is smaller than other generations, votes less, and has fewer members in political office. We have long had the reputation of being a bridge generation, more liberal than Boomers and more conservative than Millennials.
But we were the first generation that said homophobia wasn’t cool, that rejected overt racism, and that said maybe climate change was real.
As such, will the final image of Gen X be Trent Reznor, or will it be the Karen?
One thing is certain. Decades from now, when the last living Gen Xer is babbling away in a nursing home, he will rise from his wheelchair—Nevermind CD clutched in one hand, Karate Kid DVD in the other—and scream our manifesto one final time before dropping dead and sending our generation into oblivion.
“Whatever,” he will scream. “Whatever!”
