When I was kid I went through a pretty intense Beastie Boys phase. I remember it fondly, but I am sure it made me quite obnoxious to anyone who knew me back then. One of the things I did to broadcast my love and devotion for the first rap group to ever hit #1 on the Billboard charts was to pin the cover of said album on my bedroom wall. It was called Licensed to Ill and looks like this:
Yes, that is an airliner slamming into the side of a cliff made to resemble a squashed blunt. And yes, the “3MTA3” on the side of the plane reads “EATME” when you look at it in a mirror. Back then, I thought it was the coolest album cover of all time. It was bratty and rebellious, sure. But its primary appeal for me was how its subversive subtext overshadowed its literal content simply because that literal content was so absurdly catastrophic. While airplanes have been known to collide into cliffs, such tragedies were rare enough at least in the minds of late 1980s and early ‘90s American teenagers not to put them off from buying Beastie Boy records. Of course, no one actually wants an airplane to crash, much less celebrate such a disaster. Kids of my pre-9/11 generation understood this right away, and so latched on to the meta-meaning of this image: it’s okay to be a rebel, just never lose your sense of humor about it.
My father was quite the rebel himself — as a kid I remember seeing The Dispossessed Majority in his small library, and he once tried to sell me on Instauration back in the 1990s. He also had a sense of humor. But this album cover he did not get. I remember him standing before it for about a minute, trying to figure out why his son had such a grotesque and destructive image on his bedroom wall. He then looked at me like I was crazy and left.
Have you ever seen the 1962 Norman Rockwell painting The Connoisseur? It was kind of like that, but a good deal less respectful. Familiarity breeds contempt, and all that.
I bring up this anecdote to illustrate a point about generational differences and generational identity. Jim Goad has written and spoken about this topic extensively, and has repeatedly made the point that — well, let’s just let the man speak for himself, shall we?
If you haven’t been paying attention, there’s been escalating intergenerational hostility across our fair land, and people are increasingly identifying with dumb, media-manufactured generational names — AKA Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z — as if they were scientific categories that are predictive of human behavior rather than arbitrary designations along the lines of Virgo, Capricorn, Scorpio, and Leo.
It’s some weird new metastasized form of identity politics. And, since it comes with the turf, these groups are blaming each other for all that ails the world.
It’s dumber than astrology, and I’ve already covered that, but this intensely stupid way of framing the world refuses to die.
I agree with Goad on this. Categorizing people based on when they were born and then judging them for things they cannot control, or for simply having an opinion that might seem old-fashioned or newfangled, is a worthless way to interact with people. I’d elaborate further, but since Mr. Goad has beat me to the punch by several years, I would recommend checking out his two articles I linked above. I will say, however, that I have no problem with generational identity as long as it’s not taken seriously — as with this classic Babylon Bee article — or used to focus on the positive things different generations bring to the table. A pair of trivial points, yes, but that’s not the point of this essay.
As with my father not comprehending or appreciating the layered — albeit juvenile — irony of that Beastie Boys cover, I have discovered that generational differences between Americans born before the end of the Second World War and Americans born after it are very real indeed. It’s as if Western history took a sharp left turn after 1945, and anyone who hadn’t experienced firsthand what the world was like before that date was somehow different than those who had — different in outlook and temperament, it seems. It’s not a perfect distinction, of course (what is?), but it fits my experiences quite well. Regardless of whether you were my family, neighbor, or colleague, if you were born before 1945, you were likely not going to “get” that particular Beastie Boys image (to say nothing of their music). And if you were born after 1945, the odds increase with your birth year. My father was born in 1932, during the Great Depression, so this made sense. Going from “King of the Road” to King Ad Rock would seem like a bridge too far for most. Why would anyone need to fight for their right to attend a party? And what the hell is a four-bit room, anyway?
So why is it like this? Since this entire topic is fairly subjective to begin with, I can only offer food for thought, not a buffet line of research. My guess is that 1945 marks the end of the old world — the modern period, if you will — which is sandwiched between, say, the Enlightenment period and today’s postmodern one. In 500 years, when historians start considering the world wars and the Russian Civil War as different stages of the same conflict, they will characterize the period immediately after it by the rise of mass immigration, the decline of Christianity and nationalism, the general loosening of sexual mores, and an egalitarian humanism which denies the biological realities of race and gender – basically, the unraveling of centuries of white civilization.
I could have included things such as liberal democracy and globalism, too, but these existed prior to the Second World War, albeit in different forms than we have today. Note also that the phenomena I mentioned are very difficult to reverse, and represent a 180-degree turn away from what came before. It’s the forbidden fruit of Genesis, in a way — knowledge that doesn’t exactly make one a better person and is something one can’t readily unlearn. A child who is taught the basics of feminism by recidivist-hippies in grade schools and bombarded with anti-white accounts of history in movies and television will probably have a vastly different worldview than someone raised in the public schools of the 1920s, when Christianity and patriotism were all but mandatory in many parts of the country. And this lasts for life. People born in the old swamp are going to have a different wiggle to their jiggle than those born in the new. That’s just the way it is.
I consider myself a white patriot and race realist who lives a fairly moral life, but I am quite sure my life history would fall short of the rigid expectations of many cultural influencers back in the day, starting with that Beastie Boys cover. How could anyone snigger ironically while watching 219 people get incinerated against the side of a cliff?
Like I said in my review of Knut Hamsun’s great novel Growth of the Soil, corruption is sweet. And once you get a taste, you only want more.
So it’s not really about when a person was born, but whether he was indoctrinated at a young age in a Leftist milieu. I once worked with a very nice young woman who was raised in rural Virginia in what she called an isolated Christian cult. Sure, she would roll her eyes at some of the silly things her people said and believed, and she made pains to indicate that she was no longer part of that so-called cult. But dealing with her was eerily similar to dealing with my pre-baby boom mom and dad. My colleagues and I had to watch what we said when around her because she was easily discomfited by anything postmodern. She was what we would today call a millennial, but in many respects she may as well have been born in 1930.
Another anecdote to illustrate my point: My family and I were at an amusement park a few years ago, and I saw a white family of four approaching. They were healthy and good-looking, yet I instantly knew they were not American. How? They were not overweight, and they were not covered in tattoos. They were also not wearing sports jerseys or clothing emblazoned with words, children included. Sure enough, when they got close, I heard them speaking Russian. This reminded me of a friend I once had from the former Soviet Union. Like my ex-Christian colleague, he would be called a millennial today, but he came of age during the very difficult 1990s in Russia and was largely ignorant of the postmodern corruption of today’s West until he got here as an adult. As a result, he was not that much different in outlook and temperament than my dad.
As all this subjective data collects in my mind, I can’t help but conclude that although the precise date of one’s birth does not necessarily contribute to such cultural differences, in America at least it can serve as a fairly reliable bellwether regarding the pre/post-1945 divide, which characterizes much that is crucial about today’s postmodern world. Any differences between baby boomers and the people who came after them become trivial in comparison.
Enjoyed this article?
Be the first to leave a tip in the jar!
* * *
Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate at least $10/month or $120/year.
- Donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Everyone else will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days. Naturally, we do not grant permission to other websites to repost paywall content before 30 days have passed.
- Paywall member comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
- Paywall members have the option of editing their comments.
- Paywall members get an Badge badge on their comments.
- Paywall members can “like” comments.
- Paywall members can “commission” a yearly article from Counter-Currents. Just send a question that you’d like to have discussed to [email protected]. (Obviously, the topics must be suitable to Counter-Currents and its broader project, as well as the interests and expertise of our writers.)
To get full access to all content behind the paywall, please visit our redesigned Paywall page.
Related
-
Whither Thou Goest, Diaspora?
-
Thank You, O. J. Simpson
-
The Nigga They Are, The Hard “R” They Fall
-
Sperging the Second World War: A Response to Travis LeBlanc
-
Popcult Humor from Wilmot Robertson: Remembering Wilmot Robertson (April 16, 1915–July 8, 2005)
-
The Worst Week Yet: April 7-13, 2024
-
The Woman-Punching MAGAts of Manhattan
-
The Woman-Punching MAGAts of Manhattan
8 comments
Nice take Spencer. Looks like you and I both loved our Jews in the early going. You The Beastie Boys and me Kiss.
Boy did my dad hate Kiss. Justifiably so. He was probably fully aware of what the two frontmen were. From what I’ve gathered Peter and Ace don’t have many nice things to say about Paul and Gene.
My pops would have loved this site. I remember being forced to do a report in school on Martin Luther King and I asked dad what he thought of the guy. He just looked at me and said “ Martin Luther King was just a dumb c**n. Well said pops. Your crowning achievement in parenting. RIP
I am pretty sure I still have at least half of Licensed to Ill memorized.
I can still recite “Paul Revere” word for word without missing a lick.
My father was born in 45, so his birth year was the first year of what they call the “baby boom”.
My dad snickered at the music I listened to, but he never condemned or forbade it. I, otoh, have been much more disapproving and protective of my (now teenage) child when it comes to music. I’ve done everything in my power to discourage him from listening to rap in any form. I’ve also strongly encouraged an education in music. He’s been taking lessons on 2 instruments since 4th grade. Of all the things I wanted to shelter his mind from, it was the corruptive nature of rap music. If one Trojan horse can be identified for the antiwhite, Africanization of white youth, it is rap music. Since he was a toddler, he has fallen asleep listening to Christian contemporary music on the radio. (I’m inviting ridicule here from some, but he is strongly pro-Leviticus if you catch my drift)
Having said this, I’d be interested in Spencer Quinn doing deep dives into the modern idea of being liberal with children and not strict. I feel like my dad was too permissive, even with his criticisms, and early on in my life I made bad choices that I regret. I think the right answer is “it depends on the child”. (No one size fits all). But I also think some of us have genetic predispositions for making bad choices, and it behooves parents with kids like that to lay down firm foundations.
Though I am very eclectic about music I also despise rap in all forms and have made it clear to my kids that even passively listening to rap in a friend’s house will be considered an act of war as I have zero tolerance for its messages, its aesthetics and vocabulary and want none of it in my home, even if it seeps through them slowly. I backed this up with punishing trespassers much longer and harder than usual while teaching about music. So far they stay away from it…
I’m no expert in, um, “generational identity studies” (is that a field? it could be, at least in a Kingsley Amis novel), but I would imagine generations, to the extent there is such a thing, must be defined in terms of timebound, widely shared experiences, especially traumatic ones, rather than mere time periods. Thus, it’s not altogether fanciful to speak of the “Lost Generation” that came out of the First World War; the Holocaust generation, among Jews; or the Baby Boomers here, or, in France, les soixant-huitards (the ’68ers). Large groups of people at particular times shared the same impactful experiences, which made them (psychologically) a “generation” which shared some modal similarity of outlook or frames of cultural reference.
But can this be said of all age cohorts? I don’t think so. Technically, both Trump (b. 1946) and I (b. 1961) are Boomers. But what are the common experiences between us? Or between so-called Millennials? At some point, “generations” talk is just cheap marketing.
Very good points!
Baby Boomers (1945-1966) and Millennials (1980-1997) are both long and varied generations — where the people are within the same time generational time bracket, but still have remarkably different experiences and memories.
I was born in 1987. I’m in the same generational time bracket as someone who was born in 1997, but we have very little in common. I remember VCR’s, chalkboards, house phones, pay phones, video games under 64-but graphics, cassette tapes, no internet, smoking sections at restaurants, etc. The “worst” gadget I remember was a beeper until I got to adolescence. Whereas, someone born in 1997 barely remembers renting a video tape. I’ve never been married, but I can’t even imagine going on a date with someone born at the later end of my generation at this point. We’d have next to nothing to glue us together.
The generation I DO envy, however, is Generation X (1967-1979). They are the most well-rounded people, the most open-minded on entertainment (they love Abbott and Costello just as much as they love Beavis and Butthead) and they’ve actually been the most reachable for white nationalism, in my experience. They read, write, and speak well. They can listen to Frank Sinatra and Nirvana back to back on a road trip. And they’re generally-respectful to authority and well-mannered. A GenXer born in 1967 CAN Go on a date with someone born in 1977 and it’s likely to go over very well.
GenXers are simply the most unique people in America and the world
Only Babyboomers overidentify with their label.
The other generations are fine.
“Only Babyboomers overidentify with their label.”
“The other generations are fine.”
What does that even mean?
The designation “Baby Boomers” seems to be confused with the 1 percent who actually changed things (very often for the worse). The rest of the demographic were along for the ride — and usually got sold a bill of goods after the goalposts were moved.
But as far as the other generations being “fine,” that is exactly what they are not.
Whatever mass-marketing and conditioning that came of age for people born (1946-1964) in the immediate postwar period, it is infinitely worse today.
Nobody who loves the edgy “pillow” meme has been able to describe adequately to me how exactly the BB consumed all of the wealth in the country. If the proverbial 1 percent, then that might be a valid point.
There is also a myth that the postwar fertility boom was somehow a population explosion. A supply-and-demand argument when it is convenient, right?
So couples had two or three kids again after the Depression and the War. Two generations before, and the typical family size would be double that or more — and many did not survive “pedestrian” things in those prewar and halcyon days like measels and childbirth. I’m not old enough to remember polio, but my octogenarian parents do.
Zoomers have different sets of problems than Boomers did, and beyond that the comparisons get value-laden and divergent, and often meaningless.
Yeah, I displayed the occasional Iron Maiden T-shirt on campus (not in class) or Black Sabbath album cover in the dorm room at a historically-Mormon college. And it was not always appreciated by elder folks whom I (often) respected. I don’t remember if it was my cranking The Necromancer or Snowblind too loudly that earned me a booking at the Dean’s office.
Today Zoomers of both sexes are more likely to sport degenerate tattoos or mixed-race dates; this is not something that I can understand. And you don’t grow out of it like an edgy T-shirt that no longer fits.
Our omnipresent mass-media culture worships capeshit and “never growing up,” but I don’t see how Boomers are causally to blame. That it can be laid at the feet of “Boomers” must be what “Zoomers” love to hear, however. Like how “sophisticated” women must love Virginia Slims cigarettes. Shedding corsets for cancer. Great.
When I was around six or seven I asked my Grandpa (born 1911) if there was such a thing as a Generation Gap. This was in the late 1960s and I had probably heard the term on TV or something. I remember that he gave me a very thoughtful answer and then I went out to play. Now I wish that I could remember what he actually said.
🙂
Comments are closed.
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.
Paywall Access
Lost your password?Edit your comment