James Brown, Henry James and Generation X

The reference in my last post to Jeff Gordinier's X Saves the World reminded me that I never actually got around to finishing Gordinier's book (even though I started reading it last August!). Sorry about that, Jeff. But don't worry, that oversight is something I decided to correct this weekend.

If you haven't read the book, I would suggest you do so, especially if you're at all interested in Generation X and believe, like I do, that it is somewhat uniquely positioned to drive meaningful change in our society. Gordinier believes so, too, but like many in our generation, he's a bit snarky and self-effacing about it. But both his prose and his wit are equally sharp, making the time spent with his thoughts and words always entertaining and, despite my X sensibilities, occaisonally inspiring.

He ends the book with a discussion of James Brown and a John Marcher, a character from one of Henry James' novellas, The Beast in the Jungle. Marcher, he says, is an individual that epitomizes inaction and indecision, someone who spends his entire life waiting for something monumental and life-changing to happen (described metaphorically as "the Beast"), and Brown is exactly the opposite--representing life lived at its sensual fullest, sacrificing health of body and human relationships in an endless quest to embrace creative change. His point in bringing these two to our attention follows.

Now ask yourself: What's the way to go out? Like John Marcher, dandified in spats and an ascot, staring at a hole full of dirt, bent over with regret over things undone? Or like James Brown--bruised, crunched, Quasimodally damaged, and yet proud of having kept nothing in storage, having emptied out the arsenal, having swallowed life like a mescal worm, having left a deep and long-lasting imprint on the world?

Gordinier clearly advocates for a more Brown-like approach to life for Generation X, even after spending 170 pages self-assuredly describing Generation X as "above" and disdainful of all the excess and world-changing cockiness that Brown seems to embody. He doesn't make the comparison directly, but I as read his descriptions of Marcher and Brown, schooled as I now was Gordinier generational theory, I came to see Marcher as undeniably representative of Generation X and Brown just as undeniably representative of the Baby Boomers.

Which leaves me with an interesting question. If X is truly going to "save the world," is it going to need just a smidge of that self-possessed Boomer idealism it finds so tiresome? In singing James Brown's praises, Gordinier seems to say so.

Where Have All the Slackers Gone?

Ran across this short item in a recent issue of The Week magazine.

Only a decade ago we were deeply concerned about the meandering fate of Generation X, a cohort of natural-born clerks so unambitious it couldn't even muster a proper name for itself. Swaddled in grunge and flannel, benumbed by rap music ("a great big cultural cancer," as one critic called it), Gen X was marked not only by its unwholesome aversion to work but by its members' vague yet ostensibly crippling anxieties--a result of the latchkey lassitude of their broken families.

It was authored by one of The Week's executive editors, Francis Wilkinson, who goes on to speculate about the reasons why the slackers may not be slacking any more.

For starters, the towers of 9/11 erupted, burying youthful idylls beneath their toxic lava. That eruption was followed by two wars, for which Gen X has provided much of the blood and courage, and finally by a financial collapse brought on by the overreach of just about everyone but slackers.

And he ends up almost grudgingly admitting that perhaps "The Kids Are Alright."

In hindsight, those genial, laid-back slackers don't look like the end of civilization at all, but like its gentlest, most innocent eyes.

I'm not sure where to begin with this. Perhaps Mr. Wilkinson should read Jeff Gordinier's X Saves the World, to get a better idea about what Gen X has been doing for the past ten years and what all that "slacking" was about in the first place.

But what really struck me about the article was the way its tone sounded similar to the way I've heard Xers talk about Millennials. Meadering fate. Unambitious. Unwholesome aversion to work. Crippling anxieties. Sound familiar?

I wonder if ten years from now us Xers will also lift our noses off the grindstones they've been pressed to and realize that those "molly-coddled Millennials" actually figured out how to grow up and take responsibility for the society we've given them--the same way some Boomers seem to now realize that the world may actually be safe in our hands.

Killing the Cliche

More from X Saves the World by Jeff Gordinier. This time a quote from the musician Beck:

I think my whole generation's mission is to kill the cliche. I don't know whether it's conscious all the time, but I think it's one of the reasons a lot of my generation are always on the fence about things. They're afraid to commit to anything for fear of seeming like a cliche. They're afraid to commit to their lives because they see so much of the word as a cliche.

Beck said this in 1997, when Xers like him were on average 26 years old (using Strauss and Howe's dates to define the generation). Now it's 2009, and Xers are on average 38, and have had a lot more life experience and more time to decide what to commit their lives to.

But is Beck's quote any less valid today? Don't we all know Xers who are still sitting on the sidelines, maybe commenting sarcastically on what's going on all around them, but not doing anything to try and make it better? Are you maybe one of them? I know I used to be.

I've speculated a number of times on this blog about the ideals of GenX, about its philosophy, and about its leadership potential---its impact on associations and society as its members move wholesale into leadership positions. I have to admit, when I wrote those posts, I was searching for something grand, something with lasting and positive impact on the world. But at the same time, there's something about this 12-year old Beck quote that resonates with my GenX sensibilities. If we're going to rally our generation around a cause, could there be a more universally acceptable one than killing our societies' cliches?

Changing the World, or Changing Your World?

Still working my way through X Saves the World by Jeff Gordinier, and I came across this snippet about Baby Boomers:

It was a generation that could, simply by virtue of its size and the gusher of affluence into which it was born, exert enormous influence over what the country was buying and wearing and listening to and talking about. Little more than a sneeze from a decent cross section of the boomers was enough to thrust just about anything—hula hoops, mood rings, Herman's Hermits—into the spotlight. This led boomers to the conclusion that they could change the world.

And it got me thinking. When someone or some group sets out to change the world, and meets with some level of success, how much of what they have accomplished is likely to be just changing their world, not the world? As I described partially in this post, after all, one generation's change can simply be the next generation's impediment.

And that got me thinking about one of Gordinier's central theses—that GenX wants to change the world, and thinks it may actually do so, but is skeptical of the very concept of "changing the world," and won't openly admit harboring that desire.

Over the years I've met plenty of my generational peers who have suffered no shortage of virtues like ambition, drive, boldness, self-sacrifice, and altruism, but I don't recall many of them talking explicitly about changing the world. They know that if they were to do that, they would set themselves up for a kind of karmic boomerang effect.

In other words, talking about changing the world tends to undermine your efforts, by alerting aspects of the world that may not want changing. In our context, that could mean other generations. If GenX is working to undo some of what the Boomers have done, does it make any sense to deny that the Millennials will some day be working to undo some of what GenX has done?

It order to change the world, and not just your world, it seems a broader generational perspective should be embraced. What necessary change is there that all generations can agree on?

X Is a Philosophy, Not a Generation

I've started reading X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking by Jeff Gordinier. I first heard about Gordinier and his book from an excellent interview Jeff DeCagna did with him way back in February 2009. As usual, I'm going to post my thoughts here as I read it, especially those that relate to the leadership opportunity presenting itself to Generation X.

The first takeaway comes in Gordinier's introduction, where he admits he is writing a manifesto for a generation that's never had much use for manifestos. At one point he quotes a 1995 Details article by Douglas Coupland, in which Coupland says that marketers and journalists have never understood that X is a term that defines not a chronological age but a way of looking at the world.

It's a profound bit a wisdom, and one, I think, that can help us get past all the discussion and dispute about which years define which generations. The generalities that define each generation are much more indicative of a cultural mindset. This mindset tends to track with a generational group of individuals because their perceptions and opinions have all been shaped by a similar set of experiences. But not everyone in the chronological generation has had those same experiences, and everyone who has had those experiences is not necessarily in the chronological generation.

To me, this puts a whole new spin on the leadership opportunity facing "Generation" X. Gordinier writes:

The boomers got their money and blew it. We have a chance now, as yuppies, or just as adults, to cull whatever capital, influence, and media savvy we've amassed and to use it for good. That doesn't mean there is any point in trying to start a "movement," at least not one so visible and self-congratulatory that it curls up as soon as someone trains a camera on it.

And:

Generation X can do better than that, and can do better precisely because we're cynical about a phrase like "change the world." One of the more memorable pieces of business jargon from the dot-com frenzy was the term stealth mode, which was used to describe a company that had masked itself in secrecy—sometimes even using tricks that seemed to come straight out of Espionage for Dummies—in order to fool and outmaneuver its competitors. While I concede that it's blatantly hypocritical for me to be saying this in a book, it needs nevertheless to be said: the way for Generation X to survive—as a philosophy, as an antidote to the Gumpian buffoonery of American culture—is to go into stealth mode. Maybe then we can get something done.

Based on what I've heard and read about X Saves the World, Gordinier is going to spend a lot of time in the pages ahead lambasting the "Gumpian buffoonery of American culture," and I'm sure I'll find that entertaining—but the larger point here is that the philosophy of X is all about getting good things done in our society without calling attention to it. I would argue that if that notion appeals to you, regardless of your age, you're an Xer.