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could this be the end of the culture wars?
Yes. We may be witnessing the end of the culture wars as the primary cultural drama of American life. I suspect that for a time, the pitched battle between cultural-political conservatives and their liberal counterparts may intensify after a post-election pause, but it is inexorably now drifting from center stage. It’s a simple and unrelenting matter of demographics.
The children of the Baby Boomers, a.k.a the Gen X-ers and Millenials, are battle weary. They grew up with the highest divorce rate in American history. War isn’t an appealing concept for them, having lived in and with and around the crackling tension of marital discord and it’s aftermath for much of their lives. Unlike their boomer parents, who grew up in the shadow of the Good War, followed by the Cold War with it’s well defined axis of good and evil and clear cut resolution, they are not so inclined toward engaging the culture wars as the way to improve the culture. Instead, they face a world of complex problems, requiring a different approach. They may be right or they may be wrong in their wearying of war but the generational die is cast: war for them will ever and always be a last resort.
So they are starving the culture wars. They are refusing to sign up, refusing to get riled up, refusing to engage. A war against terror, which is a war against the riling up of fear, against extremism and religious zeal run amok, is war enough for them, thank you. And they are girding their loins for a different battle–to pull together in an epic struggle to hold the fabric of a blessed society, fraying at the seams, together. A battle to care for the common good, to congeal, to coordinate, to cooperate, to connect.
Fellow Boomers: Let’s Help Them
We who have now been around the block a time or two, let us march our graying hairs toward these children of ours and listen to them. Let us learn to see the world through their eyes, so that our vision can be what the vision of the aging must inevitably be if they are to make their way gracefully forward: bi-focal.
Let us turn from our near-sighted only view of the world that we will inhabit for another 20 or 30 years max, to view the horizon that engages them, 30, 40, 50, 60 years hence. I imagine that in the end we will drill baby drill and find oil offshore that can tide us over a bit–take the edge off our oil craving, but they know that the time of short term fixes is over. We need to let them think long, plan long, learn how to sacrifice in the present for the sake of the future, and swear off sacrificing the future for the sake of the present.
Perhaps with our new bi-focal lenses and our memories and our sorting and sifting through our own generational mistakes and the long overdue departures from the sins of our parents, we will have something to offer them–by way of counsel, by way of perspective. But we will have to tone it down if we wish to be heard by this generation. So long as we are engaged as avid participants in these culture wars of ours (not theirs) we will be speaking to them at a distance, from the wings, and not from the center which is emerging.
Speaking of impending sensory loss, as our hearing fades from too much boomer booming, we will need to work harder at listening. But as we listen and learn, we will find them listening to us and then we will learn what it is we have to teach. Because they are going to need our help managing the mess we have left for them.
There were some things we tried to do and failed in our youth. We tried and failed to live in communes. We tried and failed to usher in the age of aquarius. We tried and failed to get by without deoderant or shaving our legs. Which means we learned a thing or two in that time that may be of use as they find their way forward into a future that more of them and fewer of us will inhabit.
I think life is going to get more perilous and more interesting.
I’m hopeful.
Tags: baby boomers, conservative, culture wars, future, Gen-X, liberal, millenials, post-partisan
November 7th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Just a question, are their the same class (baby boomers, conservative, culture wars, future, Gen-X, liberal, millenials, post-partisan) labels in different countries?
Are their Russian Boomers? Somali Gen-X ers? Millennial South American tribesmen?
Do we need a different “world view?”
November 8th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Like you I am also hopeful, but also fearful as to what is to come. For some people this election has intensified barriers of a common vision. Generation to Generation often have commonalities as well as difference, however I feel that those of us in Gen X seem more divided on our beliefs and visions for this world than those of previous generations. I say that because in looking at post-election statistics, those of us in Gen X (ages 24-35) were most concerned with the domestic wars such as the economy rather than those of their baby boomer parents like terrorism or even domestic wars such as abortion, gay marriage, and embryonic stem-cell research. Few Gen X-ers sided with those issues of morality as identified by the baby boomers. I think it is important to be both near and far sighted because with only one view point we are both likely to be blind-sided by something we were not able to see coming. I think this is a time for both generations to work together, help one another see what God’s plans and purposes are for our society. As we move forward towards a common good for all people we also need to remain connected to the generations before us for as they offer words of wisdom from their experiences and mistakes.