Gen X is, after all, the generation that created much of our modern tech world — YouTube, Wikipedia, and Yahoo. It's not necessarily technology that "saves the world," à la visionary Boomer Steve Jobs, but practical stuff one can really use.
So far, so good. But what people have tended to forget are some of the critiques of the cultural leanings of Obama's generation.
Long ago, former New York Times columnist Russell Baker was one of the first to notice that a generation that grows up hooked on the latest technology tends to suffer from "herky-jerky brain" — or what others might characterize as a generation-wide case of attention deficit disorder. In their book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe also describe how other generations often find the members of this generation "frenetic," "slippery," or rather empty — driven more by ambition than anything else. Strauss and Howe relate how the drug of choice for some of the males of this generation has been steroids — literally a physical manifestation of all the pumped-up hype with which they surround themselves.
During the campaign, we heard all about the positive aspects of generational change. Are the negative ones now coming into focus? After all, the most well-known Gen-Xers who have preceded Obama onto the world stage were notorious for their uncanny powers of self-promotion that, in the end, represented style more than substance. There was Princess Di (born the same year as Obama) or even Michael Jordan (born two years later and, now that he no longer plays basketball, known mostly for his shoes).
Like his cohort, the president also can't live without his "toys" — his Blackberry and his teleprompter. But is his generation's tech addiction part of the reason why he has such difficulty focusing on the one great economic problem facing the nation, choosing instead to push a 27-part agenda?
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The fear is that this brand new generation in charge will Twitter and text while America faces potential catastrophe. It would truly be ironic if we all ended up longing for the old, fractious days of messianic idealism, when the Boomers were still in charge and everyone had to hear about Woodstock again and again.
To read the "Stark Ravings" blog, go to thePhoenix.com/blogs/starkravings. Steven Stark can be reached atsds@starkwriting.com.
