One of the most prominent characteristics attributed to Generation X is that we are apathetic. If this description is accurate, there may be circumstances to explain it.
Generation X has spent our entire lives in the long and heavy shadow of 75 million baby boomers. Those damn boomers have, and continue to, color our lives in the most obscene ways.
On the other side of the sandwich we have all of their fucking (to be taken literally) offspring: Generation Y. Yes, despite the pill and legalized abortion, the bastards bred.
We must admit that the boomers did leave a few things that us Xers have enjoyed. In addition to the aforementioned birth control, we like rock ‘n’ roll (not necessarily boomer rock ‘n’ roll, though), the sexual revolution worked in our favor, and the drugs are nice.
But we’ve often felt that the boomers patted themselves on the back much too hard.
Boomers didn’t end the Vietnam War. They may have played a small part, but the country has never sustained a war of that length. For Christ sake, look at the Iraq thing. We’re less than five years into it and people are already tired of it. No massive protests required. The first Americans arrived in Vietnam in 1954 and the last left in 1973. After almost 20 years of expense, death, and drafts, the boomers claimed credit for ending it all.
Umm, bullshit.
If the boomers had really wanted us to like them, they could have at least legalized marijuana. That seemed pretty important to their generation 30 years ago. They definitely dropped the ball on that one.
Now that the boomers are in power, they have done very little for us (thank you, Clinton) or just totally fuck things up (thank you, W).
Generation X may not have been witness to the drama of the civil rights movement and the cold war, but we have witnessed a changing world all the same.
One of my earliest memories was watching Reagan get shot. There was no real point to it. Kennedy, Kennedy, and King all had some reasoning (and ongoing conspiracy theories) behind their violent ends. The guy that shot Reagan was just batshit crazy. There was nothing more to it.
Welcome to the 1980s. What a wonderful time to grow up.
Fast forward to 1989, when a wall in Berlin collapsed. The cold war ends. It was a spectacular moment, but it offered much more closure to the boomers and their parents than it did to Generation X.
That same year, we watched Tiananmen Square roar with hope, then burn under the crush of the government.
At this time many of us we were preparing to leave high school and considering our own places in this crazy changing world. Those two contradicting events in 1989 set us on our path. The message from the scene in Berlin was that positive change can happen, but Tiananmen Square told us that if it happens 40 years premature it will be burned alive.
Generation X can’t muster that kind of patience.
But Guns ‘n’ Roses, then Nirvana and Pearl Jam, urged us to identify with our angst. So we did, but without a real direction to channel it.
Some pussies at the time were also listening to Richard Marx, Boyz II Men, and shit like that. They most likely remain emotionally confused today, lying on a therapist’s couch, popping Lexapro.
Finally, in 1999, those of us in the Northwest were offered an opportunity to express our disgust. The World Trade Organization came to Seattle, and we were ready. Traffic stopped, shit got broken, confusion ensued. By the time I arrived on the scene the air was thick with tear gas. Generation Xers were beaten, cuffed, and jailed; regardless of whether or not they had stopped traffic, broken shit, or ensued confusion.
After waiting almost a full decade in apathy, we had grasped an opportunity to express ourselves within a democratic society, and we were stomped on for it. Worse yet, no one listened to the message that we were trying to express.
Perhaps apathy is a better policy. Those damn baby boomers seemed to do a lot better once they stopped caring.
So we tried another route, one less anarchistic. We voted. But we voted for Al Gore. And we were told that, even though he got more votes, he didn’t win.
Democracy has not served us well.
A few years later 9/11 hit. Many Generation Xers, those not already wearing a uniform and a beret, signed up for the military. Their age may have been less than ideal, but they now had a cause with government support. They went after the assholes in Afghanistan. Finally, something made sense.
But then the Generation Xers, and everyone else in desert camouflage, were pulled away to fight in a country that had nothing remotely to do with 9/11. It didn’t make sense anymore.
In 2004, the largest protest in United States history hit Washington, D.C. (I was at that one, too).
And no one seemed to care. It was a story that was gone by the next day.
We have had a long career of screaming when no one listens.
All of these are great excuses for apathy. None of these are good reasons for apathy.
Generation Xers will not be heard until we are in power. We will not be in power until we put ourselves in power. But we still will not be heard if we forget our history when we are in power.
Get off your ass and do something to make the world a better place, Generation X.
And baby boomers, you’re not off the hook. You are in a great position to improve the world.
Generation Y, you’re next. Start improving your world now. You can’t blame us tomorrow for everything that you didn’t do today.
