Talkin’ ‘bout my generation

Dear Old Conservative Columnists of the New York Times (cc: David Brooks, Thomas Friedman), \nPlease stop all attempts to characterize my generation. I know you New York Times columnists and other influential people love to make grandiose summaries about our “era,” can’t resist coining various “–isms,” and generally devote much energy to defining the times – all while enjoying the fact that everyone will believe you, just because you’re you. \nBut sometimes, old dudes, life and everything in it can’t be huddled under one of your witty little neologisms. \nFirst, Mr. Brooks, last week you defined a new stage in the life process – the “Odyssey Years” – to encompass that confused post-college time in the lives of 20-somethings. Then, Thomas Friedman, you wrote an article accusing my generation, whom you have dubbed “the quiet Americans,” of lackluster social activism.\nMr. Brooks – your facile depiction of my age group only proved you to be the old-fogey you are. But I forgive you, because you wrote “The Odyssey Years” with our parents as your intended audience; you were trying to prevent our elders from being bewildered by our ways. \nBut Friedman, what were you thinking? You say members of so-called Generation Q “are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be.” You are blind to the dynamism of college activism. You discount the significant impact of netroots activism on campaigns like Ron Paul’s. But worst of all, you don’t acknowledge that attitudes and institutions have changed since you were young. Marches and protests – traditional activism as you understand it – do happen in this country. But they are not reported in the press. Either that, or the protesters are constantly derided as anti-American extremists. Your generation is keeping mine silent. \nBut the major problem with both of your analyses of my age group is that you totalize our experience; you eclipse our differences with a single term, forgetting our different class and ethnic origins, our educations and life experiences. \nPerhaps one of our own can solve this conundrum? \nRecently the New York Times Magazine ran a college edition, and published an essay by a Yale student, Nicholas Handler. His essay was titled “The Posteverything Generation.”\nIn “The Posteverything Generation,” Handler argues that we resist easy categorization; we are the nonsense- and irony-clad heirs of postmodern fallout who lack an “overarching narrative” to our story. \nBut calling us a product of postmodernism really gets us nowhere. What the hell does that word even mean when applied to culture? It is an overused umbrella term for all things hard to explain. \nSo I suggest a truly postmodern gesture, and that is to resist the urge to categorize generations at all. Of all the ways to conveniently lump people together, “generations” is the broadest, the most vague and the most useless. \nWe falsely believe that if we tie up our reality into neat packages, everything will make sense.