Can GenX Save the World?

Oh, Generation X. The forgotten middle child of the 20th century. Sandwiched between the Boomers and their offspring the Millennials, alongside the rise of Gen Z (a Generation X derivative, by the way), it has almost become a sport to note how many times GenX is overlooked in generational sociological writing, news, advertising, and more. 

And, yet, despite potentially being the first generation to not over attain the White House (oh, Paul Ryan, what happened to you?), Generation X is now in prime middle age, accounting for majorities in Congress and in state-level politics, yet yielding far fewer CEO's and name brand business leaders. That's the theme of a recent piece in the Washington Post from opinion writer Theo Johnson who suggests, that, for the first time since they were the first latch-key kids, "Gen Xers Have the Keys to the Kingdom Again":

For Gen X, few things signaled coming of age like a house key. It was a symbol of after-school autonomy beyond the watchful eyes of authority figures. This newfound independence was as much a gift as it was a necessity; the simultaneous rise of two-income households and divorce rates in the 1970s and ’80s meant empty homes on weekday afternoons, turning a generation of children into latchkey kids.

In our formative years, Gen Xers such as myself learned to handle matters on our own and became experts in tending to our parents’ things. Freedom came with responsibilities — the chores and homework, the watching over siblings and the not breaking stuff. But for a little part of each weekday, we had the keys to the kingdom.

Now middle-aged, this generation is increasingly in charge of a country in which just 17 percent of Americans have faith in government. More than 80 percent of Americans believe democracy is in crisis or facing serious challenges. The sensible step for a nation feeling this way is to undertake fundamental reforms and improve the government’s design and structure, which generations before us have done and the majority of Americans support. Instead, there’s a crippling deference to authority, the status quo and the long-standing structures of democracy, which are behaving like partisan outposts. The country is in dire need of reform and principled leadership. Is Gen X up to the job?

As you may know, I've written about Generation X numerous times in terms of its place in the world. And, Amanda Fortini recently published an impressive, well-received, and widely circulated New York Times feature on the sandwich generation, suggesting Gen X might just be "the next greatest generation": 

WHEN YOU CONSIDER all the impressive work Generation X has made, it’s funny that one of the most persistent stereotypes about them is that they’re slackers — an idea perpetuated by the films “Slacker” (1990) and “Dazed and Confused” (1993), both written and directed by Richard Linklater (who has directed more than two dozen feature films, including this year’s “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague”), as well as other movies in the couch potato genre, like “Clerks,” “Singles,” “Swingers,” “Wayne’s World” and “The Big Lebowski.” Somewhere along the way, cynicism and ironic detachment became conflated with laziness. I’d also argue that Gen X was secretly ambitious for fear of the worst accusation of all: selling out. Rosie Perez, 61, whose debut role was in “Do the Right Thing,” sums up Gen X for me like this: “We didn’t really have the economics to get into certain nightclubs or restaurants or whatever. So we created our own vibe. There’s nothing slackerish about that. You know what I’m saying? And it’s, like, still relevant to this day.”

In our current moment, when artistic compromise no longer carries the slightest stigma, Gen X has some wisdom to impart about how to preserve one’s principles, even when times are hard. Because for a while now, the present has looked a lot like the recent past: Everything is commercialized, it’s impossible to find a job, rents are astronomical and reality kind of bites. But you can always make art. In romanticizing the past — a time not so connected, distracted, corporate and slick, not so bought in to easy answers — perhaps we’re longing for a world more hospitable to its creation.

And, as a Gen X writer and reader, I might also point interested parties to a relevant book from Jeff Gordinier, published quite a few years back: 

X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking 

In this simultaneously hilarious and incisive "manifesto for a generation that's never had much use for manifestos," Gordinier suggests that for the first time since the "Smells Like Teen Spirit"breakthrough of the early 1990s, Gen X has what it takes to rescue American culture from a state of collapse. Over the past twenty years, the so-called "slackers"have irrevocably changed countless elements of our culture-from the way we watch movies to the way we make sense of a cracked political process to the way the whole world does business.