Anti-Climacus

QUOTE: Joel Engel (Berkeley grad), in the Daily Standard, on Baby Boomers:

You should take pride in knowing that we did better than any other generation could have done with such thin material, first by protesting against and then by abandoning both the suburbs and Vietnam as not being in our best interests. Yes, making the personal political required a kind of genius that, historians agree, no other generation had ever exhibited. It took unprecedented audacity and courage to trash the dean's office, shut down the university, set fire to the ROTC building--and then hand the dean a list of demands that began with "no reprisals."

But we didn't stop there.

Indeed, it took Boomers to point out the truth which not even veterans of Guadalcanal and the Bulge had the insight to coin--that war is not healthy for children and other living beings.

It took us to question authority (though given who our authority figures were, this should be considered a no-brainer rather than a profound accomplishment).

It took us to grant power to the people--the addition of "the" thus elevating a 100-year-old concept to sublimity by referring only and specifically to the crowds present at antiwar rallies.

It took us to realize that nothing on television is unimportant and that anything not on television can't possibly be important--both of which we realized by watching ourselves grow up on television.

It took us to abolish honorifics like "Mister," which made it okay for our kids' friends to say "Wassup, Bob?" and for all of us to feel good about it.

It took us to institute pass-fail in college (in order to do away with competition) and then transform kindergarten coloring books into elite preschool admission tests.

It took us to free our black brothers and sisters from four centuries of injustice and terror, which we did not by marching in Selma or becoming Freedom Riders (not our fault! we were too young!), but through far more subversive and effective means--by buying a hundred million Motown records.

And yes, it took us to bring the word "f***" into common, unashamed, mixed-company usage (as in "We don't want your f***ing war!", "What the f***'re you doing in my seat?", and "I'm warning you, don't f*** with me, Mom!").