The Lost Generation: foolish marriages, hasty divorces, drugs and STD’s

Although contradiction, complexity, and paradox await anyone bold enough to make sweeping generalizations about the generations, a sober assessment of our present circumstances requires that we make them. Richard Weaver traces the slow decline of the West to the nominalism of William of Occam in the 13th century, and perhaps he is right. But in our time the pace of generational decline has been staggering and begs for more of an explanation than Weaver proposes.

The main event of the 20th century is this: the Greatest Generation failed to pass the baton.

One theory is that World War II so devastated the home front that the children of wartime families were socially and psychologically short-changed. Mothers entered the workforce and never left. Fathers came home to children they never knew and with whom they never bonded. The euphoria of victory — and the intense patriotism required to sustain the war effort — blinded wartime Americans to their own shortcomings. The State got us out the Depression, the State defeated the Nazis and the Japanese, and now the State will raise our children. This we might call the Rosie-the-Riveter hypothesis here:

“The largely unseen, or ignored, legacy of World War II is its profound post-war cultural impact - being played out for the past thirty years or more by the largely unknowing students/ victims of its misguided lessons. Perhaps our society’s subset of ‘victims’ have their roots there as well. But it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the children of the WWII veteran generation who found themselves at the more intensely conflicted end of the spectrum, are now the single and divorced parents, the disenfranchised dads, and the militant gender warriors.”

The Greatest Generation survived the misery of the Great Depression and the Second World War to see the amazing prosperity and technological progress of the post-war era. Both sides of this experience had the effect of weakening rather than strengthening religious faith. Furthermore, the “GI Bill” provided advanced educations to legions of veterans at a time when socialism and religious skepticism held sway in American universities. As a consequence, the famed religiosity of the 1950s was more an act of civic virtue than deep Christian belief, and the children of the Greatest Generation were confidently entrusted to the tender mercies of popular culture and the the secular state. These children, as we all know, initiated the most violent generational rebellion in American history, sending our culture into a frightful tailspin.

Which brings us to the children of the Baby Boomers — my generation — whom Carol Kennedy perceptively labels “Generation L”, or “the Lost Generation”. The Catholic Church, thought to be a fortress and a safe harbor, was not left unscathed. The following passage is a stinging indictment of one generation’s failure to pass the baton:

“Generation L was the generation that came of age after the major part of the rebellion had already permanently changed the Church (the liturgy, the lack of religious habits, the open dissent) and before anyone realized how bad things had gotten. Today some young Catholics are beginning to benefit from hindsight and can see that dropping the disciplines and challenging the moral teachings has not led to more happy Catholics. Rather, it has led to fewer Catholics and more slavery to sin. Hopefully they will be able to avoid the pitfalls of youth.

For Generation L, this realization often came after our lives had already been messed up by foolish marriages, hasty divorces, drugs, and STD’s or all of the above. Or even worse, the lives of our loved ones, especially our children, had been ruined by our mistakes.

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been learning what being made in the image and likeness of God means for human sexuality instead of making a collage of couples acting out love for each other –like the ones in pictures of Woodstock?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been given deep and mysterious liturgy from childhood through young adulthood instead of four verses of Kumbaya?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been given churches filled with smells and bells and the art of Michaelangelo, Bernini, and others instead of ten foot high banners with bumper sticker messages like ‘Bloom where you’re planted’?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been given answers to our questions instead of more questions to ask ourselves?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been exposed to Aquinas, Augustine, and Edith Stein–Great Thinkers of the Church instead of Lennon, McCartney, and Cat Stevens–mere pop stars?

Could Generation L have avoided these things if we had been taught that being a lay Catholic did not mean being a lector, but transforming the culture from within–in the school, the workplace and the home?

We will never really know the answer to these questions. I suspect that the answer to each question is ‘probably’. However, the only value of these reflections is the wisdom we get from looking back at mistakes that were made. We must apply that wisdom to the raising of future generations …”