Strange Days

My mom and dad were born in 1928 and 1926 respectively, which by standard reckoning makes them both Silent Generation (b. 1926-1945) though my dad probably had more in common with the GI Generation, not least because he served in WW2. The time into which we are born does not compel us to have a particular mindset, but it does impel us. The milieu in which we grow up just seems normal to us. Indeed, we can reject the prevailing mores and world views of our generation and tribe, but to do so requires giving them more thought and reevaluation than most of us devote to the matter amid the distractions of day-to-day life. So it should be no surprise that both of my parents had views and values that today are called traditional – or by some folks reactionary. This mindset served them well in business and home life. It served my sister and me (both Boomers) even better by providing us a solid upbringing and enough prosperity to give us options in our own lives. We responded by criticizing their mindset none too politely. Youth rebellion is a constant in all eras of course.
 
I remember my mom saying to me around 1969 or 1970 that people and the prevailing social mores seemed normal and understandable to her (even if they needed improvement) until the early 1960s. “After that, everything and everyone just went completely crazy,” she said. It was a remarkable statement for someone who remembered the Great Depression and the Second World War, but I knew what she meant. There was something different about Charles Manson compared to criminals of the past. The Broadway musical Hair was very far from Oklahoma! Hippies were fundamentally different from 1950s greasers. It was hard to keep up with all the self-styled revolutions – social, personal, and political – in the 1960s. The sexual revolution, for one, was different than the plain old-fashioned cheating of earlier times. Over a very few years counterculture values had gone mainstream: they became less “counter” than just “culture.” To her and many like her it all seemed weird.
 
In 2023 I can relate better than I could then. In his book The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way...And It Wasn't My Fault...And I'll Never Do It Again, P.J. O’Rourke apologized to future generations of youth for Boomers “having used up all the weird.” He needn’t have worried. As it turns out we hadn’t come close to doing that. The 2020s are weirder than the 1960s. It is obvious in ways small and large. Unruly passenger incidents, once blamed on the pandemic, grow more frequent year by year. Americans of differing philosophies are as hostile to each other as they ever have been. The murder rate after two decades of decline (peak year was 1991) have rebounded to numbers not seen in 30 years. So too carjackings and daylight robberies. Tent cities on sidewalks – not seen even in the Great Depression – are regarded as normal. Reported mental health issues are higher in Millennials and Zoomers than any previous generation. The gender debates that occupy far too much attention would have puzzled the most tuned in, turned on, and dropped out hippie. Per capita alcohol use is up as is drug consumption – not trippy psychedelics but narcotics. Yet, despite all this, young people are delaying joining in on vices compared to Boomers and Xers. It all seems weird.

 
Perhaps none of this seems strange to those who have grown up in the last 20 or 30 years – a matter of the fish not noticing the water in which it swims. But they are strange days indeed for many of us with more miles on the odometer. If P.J. were still with us he could stop feeling guilty.
 

The Doors - Strange Days