Dearest Rachel –
There are days when I’m driving around, and a song from our day comes back to me on my feed that I just have to talk about; this is one of those days. I hope you don’t mind, but it’s not as if every day has something happening to me personally (or between the three of us boys) that feels worth commenting about. Meanwhile, something like this sticks in my craw, and I have to say something; it’s the sort of thing we would do, back in the day, if a thing like this were to occur to us.
Although, I guess, I write more of these discussions to you than we ever used to have. It probably has to do with having more time on my hands, and less to personally worry about, being out of the work farce and all that. These would be discussions we would have while we were in quarantine, seeking to occupy ourselves when we weren’t pawing each others like randy teenagers.
Anyway, let me set the scene – although you’ll actually get more ‘scene’ than I did, since I was just driving in my car, and therefore could pay a little more attention to the words (not that I don’t already know them more or less backwards and forwards). Honestly, I like the song – I always have – but time has not been kind to the lyrics; in fact, they’re so much more grating with hindsight than they have a right to be.
Now, you might remember (and recognize) the Spitting Images of everybody in here. Erin dismisses the video as being “creepy” and off-putting, and she’s not wrong to do so, but I’m pretty sure the ugliness is the whole point; the boys from Genesis (and Spitting Image) were trying to show how ugly life was that they were living in, and how ugly the people that ran the world were. Considering this was during the height (and the tail end, but we didn’t know it then) of the Cold War, that wasn’t an unreasonable perspective. But there’s the opening of the third verse that absolutely wrecks it for me:
I won’t be coming home tonight
My generation will put it right
We’re not just making promises
That we know we’ll never keep
That second line, in particular, looks like it was built on a foundation of hubris that could have supported the Parthenon. “Everything is wrong,” it screams, “everybody in the past has screwed up the world, but MY generation is gonna fix everything! WE know what’s best, and once WE run the world – and we will – WE will put everything ‘right.’”
Now, I’ve been told that this line – and the song in its entirety – was meant to be ‘aspirational.’ And if so, that would be fine; one can acknowledge that things are not perfect, and consider the possibility that one might be able to work (and work overtime on it; hence the line about not coming home tonight) with the system to improve it. But the next two lines make it clear that aspiration wasn’t the intent: they claimed they weren’t making promises that they knew they weren’t going to be able to keep. They were going to do this thing.
And at the risk of splitting hairs, let’s acknowledge that they didn’t know they wouldn’t be able to keep those promises. But still, they should have; what made them think they were so much wiser and more skilled than those who came before them? Moreover, the policies put in place by the very leaders they were mocking actually resulted in the collapse of the antagonist of the Cold War; the Russians literally showed up at a supermarket in Houston, and realized that the abundance we claimed to have was so real as to be expected as a matter of course, whereas the stores they put together to look like that were basically of the Potemkin model (it figures that a Russian would give his name to the practice of creating such façades) and barely matched what we considered ordinary. They realized they couldn’t compete with us, and folded.
But yes, the Genesis boys didn’t know that at the time. They – like many at the time, to be fair – thought that we were on the verge of going up in a mushroom cloud, initiated by a supposedly senile president who was as likely to think that big red button was to summon his nurse. That apocalyptic scenario never happened – even when we finally did get a visibly senile president – any more than at least a dozen such catastrophic events that were supposedly inevitable. Not that their generation would ever credit the leaders that got us to that point, but rather demanded they take over the reigns of power (which they had been doing since the days after my own birth, when they nominated a pig for president).
Still, the day when they were to assume power was inevitable; they were and are an immense cohort, born of the post-WWII baby boom (hence their name). And as the first of them assumed power, it actually looked like things were going to go well; even if much of that peace dividend came from something they “didn’t build,” to borrow a phrase from one of their most sainted brethren. They had the ‘peace dividend’ from the collapse of the Soviets and their empire, the booming economy that were the dot-coms (although that was initially built on little more than hopes and dreams. Still, the companies that survived it make up a huge chunk of our portfolio).
They’ve basically been running the world since shortly after you and I got married.
And ironically, they would probably acknowledge that the world is considerably worse than when they took over – not that they would see a connection between the two, or accept any blame for it. There’s still, as they put it, “there’s too many men / too many people / making too many problems,” although when I hear that, I can’t help but hear Ebenezer Scrooge (idea-checking Thomas Malthus) referring to “the surplus population” that needed to be decreased. Of course, that leaves the speaker (or in this case, the singer) wide open to the question as to where and who the “surplus population” is. Regardless, it’s clear that the world has not been “put right”; they were, in fact, making promises they’d never keep.
Boomers are roundly mocked for being old and out of touch, and that seems unfair. Having grown up with them taking up space in front of me, it doesn’t make sense that “Boomer” should be a synonym for “old person.” After all, this was the cohort that, once upon a time, made its credo “don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Granted, it’s delicious irony to see them nonplussed as to why subsequent generations follow that credo in turn, and treat them with all the respect – which is to say, none – they’ve earned and deserve. Their age isn’t – and has never been – the problem with them; it’s their insufferable, idealistic imbecility that they always knew what was best for the world, and would impose it on the rest of us as soon as they got the chance, only to make things demonstrably worse, as a general rule.
The only ones I might have praise for are those who skipped debating whether to make love or war and went on to make money. At least by giving the public something worth purchasing, they might have made the world a little better here and there. But while the technology is so much better than then, what can I say for the lawmakers? the stylemakers? the tastemakers? Yeah, they’re all still rubbish as ever.
Moreover, back then we may have had the specter of nuclear annihilation, sure, but it’s not as if there aren’t still nations that want us dead. In fact, it often seems like half our own nation wants the other half dead, as opposed to the threat coming necessarily from across the globe. They’d as soon put a bullet through one’s throat or strangle one (or three!) with exercise bands, and still claim you had it coming, or at least that they had an excuse to do so.
“Not much love to go ’round,” indeed.
Now I get it, honey; this little screed of mine is probably the most GenX thing you’ve ever heard from me. And once upon a time, I would have made a point to tell myself and anyone who listened that no one has the right to complain about “kids these days,” because we were all kids once; we were all young and dumb at some point. But I don’t know if that lesson would take, or if I’d be allowed to say it anymore – assuming I still believed it. For all that we’re suddenly fearing artificial intelligence, we really ought to be so much more afraid of natural stupidity, especially if it thinks of itself as received wisdom.
I really wish I had something to turn my mood around about this, and say something positive to end this letter with; the more I write about my feelings regarding these words, the less hopeful I am for the future… and here, I’m going to be spending the rest of my life there, whether I want to or not. You had a gift for talking me off of these rhetorical ledges, but without you around, I find myself looking down from my perch, and shaking my head. If this is what the generation before me considered “putting it right,” I take issue with their definition of “right.”
