As a bona fide Boomer - what a hideous term for those of us who called ourselves flower children - I make the case that our collective profile has been drawn without nuance.
Let me explain a bit. We were fortunate enough here in Canada to grow up in that last bucolic time where our childhoods were spent freely, and without supervision, playing outside in fields and forests.
Then, we came of age at in the late 60's, early 70's, when there was an explosion of fashion, music, art and political activism, where each new creative act fed into the others.
I thought about this when trying to explain to my 10-year-old granddaughter the significance of "Another Country," written by James Baldwin, and set in 1960's NYC. I told her there were only a few times in history when cultural flowerings such as these occurred. I cited the Jazz Age which began in New Orleans and, at the same time, the rich cultural life in Paris in the 1920's. Of course the 60's were another of those. I ended by saying, "Maybe we are about to enter such a period of multi-lateral invention again, this time centred around solving climate change."
Afterwards I had some private musings. The massive changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution and then followed by the First World War preceded the Jazz Age. Later, we needed a higher level of mass education to tip our young generation's critical thinking into a refusal to accept the status quo. Pointless,vicious wars and social inequality spawned the revolt of the 60's.
Now the technological revolution, which has so far seemed to generate little meaningful change is about to, I think. The following are the traits of "Gen Z," according to MacLean's magazine. Of course, technology is the world they live in with ease.
They are predicted to be: collaborative, non-linear but multi-directional, conservative (in the sense of conservation of our beautiful planet), altruistic. I ask you. Does this list of traits not sound familiar? Familiar to all previous cultural flowerings?
All ages are invited to this party, by the way. So shed your fear of competition, of trying to own all your best ideas. That's just so old skool.
